Online sales this festive season to be 15% higher than last year: Redseer

Sellers are also planning to spend more on marketing and advertising on e-commerce platforms this festive season to drive sales, as compared to last year

Bucking the trend in the last three quarters in 2023, online sales in India in the upcoming festive season are expected to be 15 per cent higher than in the same period last year, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants.

It said the sellers are bullish on the demand in the festive season despite a difficult year so far. Of all the sellers Redseer surveyed, only 40 per cent have reported a 10 per cent or more jump in sales in the April-June quarter compared to the January-March quarter.

Redseer also said that e-commerce platforms are tailoring solutions to meet sellers' optimism. Due to this, the perception of sellers around support provided by these platforms has seen an uptick, with 62 per cent of sellers saying they have been supportive. It was 53 per cent last year.

 

"Through our surveys, sellers have highlighted the strong support received from platforms in terms of data analytics, trends predictions, and consumer visibility, among others," it said.

It also said sellers plan to spend more on marketing and advertising on e-commerce platforms this festive season to drive sales.

Unlike last festive season, sellers are expected to spend 15 per cent more on marketing and ads. Compared to the business as usual (BAU) period, the spending is expected to be 50 per cent higher.

"Interestingly, smaller sellers are highly willing to spend on ads and bullish on overall sales growth. Smaller sellers anticipate a 22 per cent ad spend growth vs. last festive season and 75 per cent growth vs. BAU period of this year per our surveys," Redseer said.

"The festive period is expected to enable sellers especially the smaller ones to come out of the challenging sales environment seen through this and sellers are optimistic of strong sales growth," said Mrigank Gutgutia, partner at Redseer.

"In the longer term, more and more sellers will continue to benefit from eCommerce growth given its strong positive impact on seller topline and bottom line that emerges from our research," he added.

In another report earlier this month, Redseer had said that e-commerce retailers are expected to garner sales worth Rs 90,000 crore this festive season, 18-20 per cent higher than last year.