This festive season, e-commerce sales registered a record 29% increase over last year, finds a new study on online shopping trends of the Indian consumer.
The study conducted by Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, uncovers surprising insights into the Indian consumer’s choices and behaviour during the country’s main online shopping season, when top e-commerce brands go to war with massive discounts and innovative sales.
Oath has several media brands in India, including HuffPost, Yahoo Cricket, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Mail. The findings are based on data points across these brands and an in-depth understanding of consumer behaviour based on content consumption by users.
The online shopping season in India begins with Dussehra around October and goes all the way up to Christmas and New Year. However, Oath data reveals that the online shopping burst begins as early as mid-September, when Indians actively begin filling their shopping carts.
The huge momentum in the festive season continues to catalyse the explosive growth of online shopping in India. Sales increased 29% year-over-year in September 2018, setting a record high for India’s festive shopping season online.
Indian online shoppers love to buy electronics online, bargain-hunting for festive season discounts. 42% of shoppers bought an electronic item, making it the top selling category. Smartphones and headphones were the most popular items they checked out. In a growing trend, online shopping is becoming a part of ‘daily life’ for shoppers. FMCG comes in second after electronics as a best-selling category, with shoppers buying their everyday products online, from sugar to shampoo.
“The huge volume of data points across our brands gives us a comprehensive understanding of consumers in India and their behaviour. These deep insights in turn are helping our advertisers to make sense of audiences’ preferences and market trends at a very strategic level, to put in place data-driven marketing strategies during this crucial season,” said Erin Chao, Head of Platforms, APAC, Oath.
India’s online festive shoppers are predominantly male, at 79% — in line with the ratio of men and women online shoppers in India. Tech-savvy Millennials between 25-34, with greater purchasing power, tend to shop more online during festivals. They come in ahead of other age brackets during this season.
2018 key insights and online shopping trends during India’s festive season, based on Oath data:
Oath, a subsidiary of Verizon, is a values-led company committed to building brands people love. It is a global leader in digital and mobile with a house of media and technology brands. Globally, Oath sees more than 200 billion data points every day and reaches one billion people around the world.
