Despite offline retail going back to pre-Covid levels, e-commerce will clock gross sales of over $9 billion (Rs 66,340 crore) during festive October which is a jump of 23% from a year ago, said RedSeer Consulting.
The rise is moderate in comparison with the biggest year-on-year jump of almost 48% in October 2020 when offline establishments were impacted by Covid.
E-commerce firms are expected to clock sales worth $4.8 billion in the first week of October this year, up almost 30% from 2020, RedSeer said.
According to the management consultancy, this year also growth in gross merchandise value (GMV) will be driven by customers in Tier-II cities and beyond as they shift to e-commerce for discounts and convenience.
RedSeer predicts that almost 55-60% of overall online shoppers will come from smaller towns and cities.
Mobile and electronics will remain as popular shopping categories, making up almost 73% of GMV this year as well, estimates show. Further, fashion is expected to account for 16% of GMV.
The growth in sales of mobiles and electronics is going to be further fuelled by affordability constructs with e-commerce platforms offering attractive equated monthly instalments (EMIs) as well as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offerings in association with partners.
“The bigger shift that we have seen for e-commerce during festive sales is the new financing constructs including EMI and BNPL schemes offered by platforms through partnerships. This will continue to be an important flavour this festive season as well,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, associate partner at RedSeer.
Total GMV is expected to witness almost 37% growth for the entire 2021, touching between $49 and $52 billion, according to RedSeer. Last year, the e-commerce industry clocked more than $38 billion in GMV.
