I-Day, Rakhi sales signal festive orders may jam ecommerce route

Time of India

4 days ago

The ecommerce sector is gearing up for a busier festive season than last year, with analysts and consumer brands projecting a 15-20% increase in order volumes based on signs from the initial sale events and demand during festivals such as Raksha Bandhan Ecommerce platforms launch pre-festive sales such as Independence Day sale to drive the momentum for the festive season that begins with Raksha Bandhan in mid-August and peaks during Diwali, which is in mid-October this year. Amazon and Flipkart's Freedom Sale this year coincided with the Raksha Bandhan week, which helped brands see more sales than usual.'Typically, these ecommerce sales have seen year-on-year growth of 20%, but it reduced in the post-Covid years. In 2024, it was around 12% and given the trends this year, we are expecting it to increase over 15-20%, with a strong momentum from tier-II and tier-III cities,' said Amar Choudhary, chief executive at market intelligence firm 1Lattice.During last year's festive season, from mid-September to October, the growth in ecommerce gross merchandise value (GMV), or the total value of goods sold, was about $12 billion, according to the data from 1Lattice. In 2024, tier-II and smaller cities reported the fastest festive GMV growth at 13%, compared with 9% YoY in 2023. A similar trend of demand coming from tier-II and tier-III cities is observed this year too.A plethora of discounts, offers and deals during the pre-festive sales is attracting consumers in both metros and smaller cities to purchase categories such as fashion, beauty, electronics and skincare from online platforms ahead of the big sale events in October, according to industry experts. The flagship events — such as Amazon's Great Indian Festival sale and Flipkart's Big Billion Days — during the festive season typically account for almost half the gross merchandise value these companies report in a year.Traditional apparel brand Libas has seen an increase in demand for festive kurtas and Indo-Western outfits during July and August sales, said founder Sidhant Keshwani. 'We grew at approximately 30-35% this time compared to last year. After a little bit of a lull in May and June, July has been fairly nice to us and even the first week of August when these sales happened,' he said.Not just traditional wear, even western outfits were in demand during the sale period.Harsh Jha, founder of men's streetwear brand House of Koala, said sales picked up 50% in July from a year earlier. 'I feel the customer interest, in general, has picked up across platforms,' he told ET.Beyond the usual festive shopping, several analysts said there has been a lot of purchases happening for gift sets, skincare, dry fruits and chocolate hampers.'We saw a 3x jump in sales on Amazon, with the festive week alone surpassing the entire previous month's revenue,' said wellness brand Secret Alchemist cofounder Akash Valia. 'This festive momentum didn't just drive sales, it also improved our account health, rankings, and overall discoverability. With the next festive cycle around the corner, we are optimistic, this is shaping up to be a big quarter for us.'Secret Alchemist plans to launch new products specifically for the bigger sale events in October. According to analysts, these events act as a visibility booster for new brands.Electronic items that are usually more sought after during the Amazon and Flipkart festive sales are slowly picking up demand after a dip during previous sales such as Amazon's Prime Day in July.Wearables and electronic devices brand GoBoult's founder, Varun Gupta, claimed that the ecommerce figures for all its competition had shrunk by about 30% from last year. 'However, for us, ecommerce numbers are going to grow by 5-10%,' he said, adding that the brand saw an over 70% jump in its quick commerce numbers in the last six months.'On an average month, we do about Rs 75-80 crore worth of sales. In good months like May, July and Independence Day sales, we do about Rs 90-95 crore worth of sales across platforms. The Diwali spike is spread across two months, and it will give us around 20-30% higher sales than the sale months,' he added.To tap into this growth, quick commerce platforms are also aggressively offering discounts and deals. These platforms usually promote products tied to specific festivals or occasions driving sales as more consumers opt for rapid delivery services.Beyond the fast delivery and attractive offers, platforms have also increased their stock-keeping units to provide a larger selection of festive items.'This year, we have increased the selection of rakhis on the platform, partnering with Kalyan Jewellers to offer silver rakhis for the first time on quick commerce,' said Manender Kaushik, AVP and category head at quick commerce platform Instamart.Seshu Tirumala, chief buying and merchandising officer at BigBasket, said the platform is seeing strong demand for boxes of sweets and digital smartwatches. 'It seems many customers are pairing their Rakhis with smartwatches as complementary gifts,' he said.Online fashion retailer Myntra's rapid delivery offering, M-Now, witnessed a one-and-a-half time increase in orders placed during the lead-up period to Raksha Bandhan. M-Now is present in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR and offers rapid delivery within 30 minutes to four hours.