Mumbai: Snapdeal, India’s leading value-focused e-commerce marketplace concluded its “Kum Mein Dum” Diwali sale, bringing the depth and diversity of India’s bazaars & markets to the doorsteps of users shopping from the safety and comfort of their homes.
Offline sellers & value prices powered up online this festive season:
The 5-day sale was noticeable for the extensive involvement of sellers from the physical markets, who brought online a vast assortment of popular products – across home, fashion, electronics, mobiles & tablets, daily needs, and much more – previously available mostly offline.
The impact of this was visible in the choices made by buyers – 80% of whom chose a regional or a local brand for their Diwali purchases vis-a-vis 20% who opted for national & international brands. The comparable percentage was 65% & 35% respectively last festive season.
The strong growth of lesser-known brands relative to national/international brands was because of two key reasons: increased choice and a substantial price difference. As part of sale preparations, Snapdeal had conducted a survey of nearly 1.25 Lakh users and one of the key insights was user unwillingness to pay for brand premiums this year and instead focus on the functional value of their purchases.
Based on these inputs, the assortment was expanded in a focused manner by onboarding additional sellers for popular products like kitchen appliances, kitchenware, bed linen, apparel, footwear, and fashion accessories like watches, wallets, etc. In the run-up to Diwali, Snapdeal also on-boarded 5000 manufacturer-sellers who sold popular products like water purifiers, choppers & blenders, steel & copper utensils, crockery items, bedsheets, quilts, geysers, etc directly from their manufacturing units.
Small sellers have done exceedingly well this Diwali; grab 70% market share:
At the end of the “Kum Mein Dum” Diwali Sale, nearly 70% of the orders were received by sellers located beyond the top 5 metropolitan areas of the country. These include sellers in major non-metro commercial hubs like Jaipur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore who receive a large volume of orders every year, including in the festive season.
However, what has been different this is the steady flow of orders also to sellers in smaller centers like Avinashiin Tamil Nadu for textiles, Palitana in Gujarat for footwear, Rewa in Madhya Pradesh for gaming accessories, Muktsar in Punjab for herbal products, Birlapur in West Bengal for home decor products, etc.
Sellers located in Delhi NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Kolkata, Chennai & Bengaluru accounted for nearly 30% of the total sale orders.
The dominance of sellers from smaller cities is a reflection of the main-streaming of e-commerce as an option amongst the MSMEs in India.
Bharat shows “Diwali Mein Hain Dum”; users in 3700+ towns shop online, 4 out of 10 orders by new buyers
Continuing the trend of Bharat leading the way, more than 90% of Snapdeal’s orders were placed from non-metro cities. At the conclusion of the sale, buyers from 3700+ towns across India (accounting for 92% of India’s ~ 4000 towns & cities) bought on Snapdeal.
4 out of every 10 orders placed on Snapdeal were by first time users, which is consistent with the fast adoption of e-commerce by new users. During the pandemic, Snapdeal added 6Mn + new users on its platform – a trend that accelerated in the festive season.
As expected, populous cities like Nagpur, Vijayawada, Surat, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam, Ranchi, Patna, Guwahati, and others continued to drive orders on Snapdeal. Smaller cities like Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Raniganj& Durgapur (West Bengal), Patiala &Gurdaspur (Punjab), Anand, Bharuch, Una, (Gujarat), Miryalaguda (Andhra Pradesh), and Bhimavaram (Telangana) also clocked impressive order volumes.
Post its recent network expansion, Snapdeal also shipped orders to rural places like Palasner in Maharashtra, Abdasa in Gujarat, Kalsi in Uttarakhand, Chitkul in Himachal amidst many others.
2020@Home: Diwali shopping and preparations for festivals are different this year
Snapdeal’s “Kum Mein Dum” Diwali sale clearly showed how Diwali is different from previous years.
Reflecting how closely the lives of users revolve around their homes, the sale in the home products category grew by 30% over last year. With this, it became the largest category on Snapdeal this year, overtaking the fashion category, which has traditionally been the top-performer.
The growth in the home category was propelled by popular products like food processors, kitchen tools, pressure cookers, kitchenware for storage & serving, bedcovers, quilts & comforters, home decor items, home cleaning equipment, LED lights, etc.
With the onset of winters in North India, Snapdeal also saw purchases pick up for water heaters, electric kettles and other products like Air purifiers and Humidifiers often bought at the beginning of the winters due to rise in air pollution.
Sellers in the home category had the most successful Diwali season and saw a multi-fold increase in order volumes being received by them -the top 1000 sellers in the category saw volumes grow between 3-4 times as compared to pre-sale days.
Atma Nirbhar festivities as users prepare to cook, pray & celebrate at home
Consumer buying indicates that festivities may be more self-sufficient, with smaller celebrations at home.
Users bought an expansive range of kitchen equipment & supplies, indicating an intent to prepare more of the festive delicacies at home this year. Shoppers spent on buying puttu maker, paniyaram maker, cake molds, Sancha / murukku maker, modak / ghughra moulds, wet grinder, smart choppers, graters, dough makers, etc.
Users were also seen preparing for religious rituals at @home by ordering idols of various deities, small home temples, silver & copper utensils, and Pooja Thalis, all of which are part of the festive range.
Snapdeal shoppers also bought items to prepare their homes for the festivities. Cordless vacuum cleaners, microfiber dusters, cleaning gloves, spray-mop sets, kitchen racks, tool kits, paint kits, drills, home ladders, etc were indicative of shopper preference to do most of the tasks themselves.
Popular Diwali items like string lights, toran, rangoli stencils, wall stickers, and pooja accessories – sold directly by the manufacturers – were high selling items. Bedsheets, bedcovers, and home decor items from Rajasthan continued to be popular among shoppers for the color and festiveness that they add to the decor. Boho decor items including crochet hangers and dream catchers were among the new favorites. Indoor plants, a post-lockdown favorite, continued to do well. Indoor games like Karaoke mics, cards, and poker sets were also widely sold.
Gifting started early via e-commerce
With the world going digital furiously this year, Snapdeal witnessed an increase in gifting via e-commerce early in this festive season. The range of festivals starting with Karva Chauth and followed by Dhanteras, Diwali, Bhaiya Dooj, and Chhath Puja have become important gifting occasions for users in various parts of the country.
While in the previous years, shoppers used e-commerce channels to buy and ship to families & friends in other cities, this year many shoppers in metro cities are also sending gifts to people living in the same cities. Some popular gifts on Snapdeal this year have been toys, kids garments, Sarees, LED Diyas, watches, photo frames and home products like utensil sets, serving sets, quilts, blankets and bedsheets, and electronic gadgets like mini Bluetooth speakers, earphones, Rechargeable LED lights, food items like dry fruits and now even festive masks!
This year gift cards have also been hugely popular among people to send to their friends and family, with a 3X surge in orders as compared to the festive sale last year. These include gift cards of travel, entertainment, food, and retail brands which were up to 30% off.
Commenting on the sale, Snapdeal said, “For us, it is extremely satisfying to bring the best selection across experienced online sellers and new sellers from physical markets right up to the doorsteps of our users. Not only does it offer safer choices and better prices, it also allows more sellers to utilize the festive season demand to spur on their businesses. The extent and depth of orders received and shipped from non-metros cities illustrates the accelerated growth of online commerce in recent months.”
