2022 e-commerce festival sales almost 2x of 2019: Redseer report

This is about 25 per cent year-over-year growth as compared to festive sale month of CY2021

E-commerce retailers led by Amazon and Flipkart garnered sales worth Rs 76,000 crore during the one-month festival sale event — almost double the pre-pandemic figure of Rs 40,000 crore in 2019, according to a report by consulting firm Redseer. This is also about 25 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth compared to the festive sale month of CY2021.

Redseer had earlier projected e-commerce sales of Rs 83,000 crore for the festival sale period that began on September 22 and extended till October 23 this year. For platforms that did not run a sale during any of these dates, the report considered BAU (business-as-usual) order volumes.

Though a major portion of the sales during the festive season continues to come from electronic products and mobile phones, this category grew only 7 per cent YoY. “Electronics and mobile (sales) have now come down a little bit from a growth perspective to 7 per cent compared to last year,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants. 

“We continue to see a healthy growth of users replacing their phones, but the trajectory of new phone users has come down a bit. Also, we didn’t see new launches from the smartphone players compared to the last few festive seasons.”

Festive sales are being driven by Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, with 64 per cent of transacting shoppers coming from these places. About 125 million shoppers placed orders across platforms in the festive month, aided by Tier 2+ cities. Fashion led the growth, especially in Tier-2 markets. It was mainly driven by unbranded fashion. Here, one in every five orders was a Kurti or Saree.

Sanjay Kothari, Associate, Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants said mobiles and electronics continue to dominate category share. But he said home and kitchen, groceries and beauty personal Care were the fastest-growing categories. Grocery grew almost 2X compared to last year’s festive season. “Lower order value items are growing faster than mobiles and electronics,” said Kothari.

Gifting also emerged as a strong reason for purchase across categories. An increasing number of consumers are using these online platforms to send gifts.

Redseer also said that offline retail stores have seen robust footfalls during Diwali this year. The simultaneous growth of online and offline indicates ample growth opportunities for both formats.

“The growth this time is more broad-based and inclusive,” said Chaudhry of Redseer.

Overall the average order value (AOV) was Rs 6,300.

E-commerce firms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Reliance’s JioMart and Tata Group have been running various parallel sale events. They are competing with each other to capture a share of the $45-50 billion e-commerce market, which is expected to grow to $350 billion by 2030.

Amazon’s festive sale event Amazon Great Indian Festival (AGIF) which started on 23rd September was month-long event. While as Flipkart’s said it achieved a significant milestone of over 1 billion customer visits on its platform during the e-commerce firm’s 8-day long festive sale event ‘The Big Billion Days’ (TBBD) hosted between September 23-30.

With the conclusion of Festive Sale week 1, the online retail platforms had seen a robust 27 per cent year-over-year growth, clocking a sale of $ 5.7 billion, according to an earlier report by Redseer.

Redseer report

• Online retail achieved Rs 76,000 crore in sales during the one-month festive sale event
• Home and groceries saw the highest YoY growth at 1.86X
• Fashion was 1.32X, electronics at 1.13X, and mobile category at 1.07X
• Shopper base increased by 1.26x Y-o-Y 
• 64% of shoppers come from Tier 2+ cities
• 115 -125 mn shoppers placed orders across platforms in the festive month