India’s festive season to spark US$9.2bn in online sales: Forrester

As retailers and brands dangle heavy discounts and attractive offers during India’s month-long festive season, which begins this week, Forrester expects online retailers in India to generate about US$9.2bn in sales during the 2021 festive month, up 42% year-on-year.

Why it matters

A big change this year is that pre-pandemic, most of the market growth was driven by buyers from India’s metro and tier 1 cities, but now, users from tier 2 and tier 3 cities are also contributing significantly to market growth. 

Key insights

• Forrester sees US$6.4bn of online sales or 70% of festive month total online sales happening in the first week (Oct 3-10).
  
• Buyers are more comfortable with online shopping after COVID removed inhibitions of online buyers towards e-commerce.
• There has been a faster adoption of digital payments and buyer trust in online retailers for their order deliveries has increased.
• Buyers prefer online shopping because it is safer, saves time and is easier than going to offline stores.
• There has been a wider adoption of non-standard categories such as grocery, apparel and general merchandise.
• Fashion, the third-largest category, is expected to do better compared to last year as the economy reopens.
  
• Online marketplaces are investing big to ramp up workforce, infrastructure and seller base in metro areas, lower tier cities.

Sourced from Forrester