Mumbai: Snapdeal, India’s largest value online e-commerce company, today shared that its home category sales have grown by 70% since March 2020 – a time marked as the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The growth has been led predominantly by kitchenware and home improvement category products – which saw a 50 and 100 percent jump in demand respectively in the said period.
The home category has seen a steady expansion in the last three years on Snapdeal. However, the pandemic-induced stay-at-home guidelines have led people to invest more in the one aspect of life that has brought them comfort – their homes. “Our customers tell us the home has never been more important. With homes doubling up as their office and workout space, kids’ rooms being remodelled to be classrooms, they are comfortable to spend more to make their homes more suitable for the way they are living now,” said Snapdeal Spokesperson.
Snapdeal customers bought more home decor items – like rack shelves, blackboards & whiteboards, wall clocks, paintings and decals, lampshades, home linen which mostly included bed sheets & bed covers, pillows and tablecloths etc. Home temples, figurines of deities, pooja thalis and framed religious motifs accounted for bulk of the increased sales in religious accessories.
Many Snapdeal customers said as they got a chance to upgrade their homes in the lockdown, their initial priority was to replace worn-down kitchen appliances like mixers and choppers, storage containers, and change their serveware to easy-to-use steel or unbreakable glass variants. Pressure cookers, multi-function knives & peelers and water dispensers were the other popular buys for the kitchen.
Home cleaning items too have been popular among Snapdeal customers and they bought automatic mops, microfibre cleaning cloths, upholstery brushes, gloves, disinfectant wipes, and drain unblockers.
The gardening & related category saw exceptional growth with volumes growing 2.5X in the last 15 months. Some of the more popular buys have been fruits and vegetable seeds, bio compost, pot holders and water sprinkler attachments.
With more free time and an uptick in DIY culture, customers have undertaken minor home renovations to spruce up their living space and balconies to create relaxing escapes to combat stress. There has been an unusual spike in demand for home improvement tools like home tool kits (incl drills and screwdriver sets), painting machine sets, wiring solutions, and closet organizers. Users also bought utility items like step ladders and solar rechargeable lights.
This demand for items was not only from metro cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, but more substantially from places like Srinagar, Udaipur, Guwahati, Bhopal, and Mangalore. More than 75% of the products were shipped to non-metro addresses. On average people bought items in the range of Rs 400-900.
“We expect to see continued growth in the segment and are working with retailers and manufacturers to ensure a wide variety of affordable choices,” added Snapdeal spokesperson.
In the last year, Snapdeal has doubled down on adding more home category sellers and manufacturers, with a majority of them coming from popular hubs like Jaipur, Panipat, Ludhiana, Rajkot, Moradabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Chennai.
