Flipkart likely to be winner in festive sale with 80% looking to buy from e-commerce site

Key highlights:

• 2017 festive season is deemed as an important milestone for the e-commerce industry by all the players in the ecosystem
• 80% respondents plan to purchase products this festive season with Flipkart
• About 83% respondents said they would purchase fashion products from Flipkart

The festive season offers on e-commerce sites have all begun with much fanfare this season. This is as the 2017 festive season is deemed as an important milestone for the e-commerce industry by all the players in the ecosystem.

It seems that Flipkart's efforts have paid off as about 80% respondents plan to purchase products this festive season with it being the clear preferred platform across all categories, said a RedSeer Consulting report.

About 83% respondents said they would purchase fashion products from Flipkart, while 17% said they would do so from Amazon.

When it came to electronic 77% respondents said they would buy it from Flipkart and only 23% from Amazon.

Even for other products 77% said they would buy it from Flipkart and only 23% said they would do so from Amazon.

Even among sellers Flipkart has the highest awareness with 96% of the sellers being aware of the sale, compared to 90% on Amazon.

Both the e-tailers and investors and in the ecosystem agree that the 2017 festive season is an important milestone or tipping point for the overall e-tailing industry in India, said the RedSeer Consulting report.

With the festive quarter typically accounting for about 35-40% of all annual sales for industry, there is ample grounds for considering these events as very important milestones for industry, said the report.

About 89% of e-tailers believe that the festive sale events generate powerful value for customers. However, a majority of funds or investors remain relatively skeptical whether these festive sale events generate powerful value for customers as 22% disagreed and 33% was not sure.

However, e-tailers and investors or funds believe that the sale events create a strong long term value for the seller ecosystem.

About 67% of the investors believe that industry will diversify its category mix to sell more non-mobile goods this year which will drive sales. Though e-tailers seem to have reservations regarding the same.

On the supply chain side, majority of players and funds are expecting improved performance year-on-year, inspite of higher volumes.

When it comes to the consumer side, awareness of the festive sale this year has been extremely high. However, among the e-commerce players Flipkart has the highest awareness at 92%, followed by Amazon with 50% awareness and 1% each of Snapdeal and Paytm.

Social media or digital medium is the biggest source of awareness for festive sales as 70% of the respondents knew about the sale to this medium. It was followed by traditional advertising mediums such as newspaper, TV and magazines with 19% awareness and friends or relatives with 10%.

Low cost social media promotions has worked as a high return channel of promotion for the e-tailers as majority of the respondents are reached through this medium. This continues the trends started by Flipkart last year where it achieved high returns using primarily digital channels, said the report.

About 79% of the aware respondents plan to purchase products during the festive sale this year.

More than 90% of the sellers are willing to participate in the festive sales on e-commerce platforms.

Over 50% of the sellers are of the view that sales this year would be higher compared to last year. Most of them expect to see a 2-3 times increase in sales compared to last year is expected by the sellers.

But a vast majority of sellers are also concerned that they would have to sell out higher discounting spends this year. About 34% of the sellers are of the view that discounting spends this year would be much higher compared to last year.

Nearly 75% of sellers are also happy with the pre-sales support provided by e-tailers around the sales planning, says the report.

A large majority of sellers are also confident that supply chain management operations will be better this year as compared to last year due to historical improvements they have seen.

ALSO READ:

• What’s selling on Amazon's Great Indian Festival, Flipkart's Big Billion Days Sale, and others
• The Great Indian Festival Sale: Amazon announces "Buy now, pay next year" offer
• Paytm Mall eyes $500 mn sales in festive season