Bengaluru, August 13, 2020: E-commerce firms Flipkart and Amazon may have kicked off their sale events this month, but nearly 66% of respondents in a survey said they didn’t shop during the recent online sales.
According to a survey by community media platform LocalCircles, which received over 17,000 responses from 211 districts in India, 36% of respondents said they browsed through the sale but did not shop, while 30% said they did not even visit the sites.
Global e-commerce giant Amazon conducted its Prime Day 2020 sale in India this year, before hosting it in the US market. Alternatively, even Flipkart kick started the sale season by announcing ‘Big Savings Day’ sale, which is a run up to its flagship ‘Big Billion Day’ sale expected to be conducted in October.
Following the Prime Day sale, Amazon India on Saturday announced its ‘Freedom Sale’ which ran until August 11, including various deals.
According to the ‘mood of the consumer’ survey by LocalCircles, 27% of the respondents said that they spent at least ₹1000 to shop at these e-commerce sales. Around 7% of the respondents said they spent over ₹10,000, and another 20% said they spent between ₹1000 and ₹10,000 during the sale. Almost 7% of respondents said they spent up to Rs. 1000.
The survey also added that close to 79% of the consumers who shopped during the recent Amazon and Flipkart sales events did not want to step out for shopping due to the covid fear, and resorted to online means of shopping. Further, 11% of the respondents said that they shopped only due to the good discounts according to the reports published in livemint.com.
According to previous LocalCircles surveys, several consumers surveyed held back their big ticket purchases between the months of March and May and hence there has been pent up consumer demand that the e-commerce platforms may have been able to benefit from.
In the recent survey, conducted by the social media platform, consumers indicated they purchased gadgets, including laptops, mobile phones, tablets, printers, related supplies, routers and related items as well as fashion, household items and essential supplies.
Recently, while announcing its performance for the Prime Day sale, Amazon said that it clocked close to $600 million over the two day sales. For Amazon India, personal computing, large appliances, kitchen, smartphones, apparel and pantry categories were among those that sold maximum units, Mint recently reported. Alternatively, Flipkart’s recent ‘Big Savings Day’ sale has also seen considerable business sales, according to industry analysts.
Flipkart-owned Myntra, which conducted its first sale of the year – ‘End Of Reason Sale’, between 19 and 23 June, also saw around 3.5 million customers buying 10 million products during the four-day online sale event.
According to Ankur Bisen, senior vice president, retail and consumer at Technopak, the current pandemic has forced e-commerce firms to enter and develop newer categories, in a bid to remain relevant to the consumer, as new categories around wellness and direct to consumer brands are being launched around this sale season.
Other smaller online retailers, like Grofers and Paytm Mall have also announced their respective sale events starting August 11.
