Snapdeal, India’s largest online marketplace, revealed interesting trends from its Unbox Diwali Sale, indicating a significant evolution in consumer behaviour this festive season.
The most surprising trend was the sharp increase in willingness of customers across India to pay at the time of making the purchase instead of opting for cash on delivery. This was in part driven by Snapdeal’s partnerships with eight leading banks this Diwali including with American Express, Axis Bank, Citi Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India and Yes Bank.
With the highest number of card partnerships, additional instant discounts ranging from 10-25% were available every day of the month, over and above the huge festive discounts already available on the marketplace. One of the biggest card-based discounts-maximum of Rs. 10,000 off on iPhone 7 turned out to be immensely popular among consumers. Data showed that customers who bought electronics and furniture were the most likely to go for prepaid options.
Among the cities, Trivandrum had the highest share of prepaid orders, constituting a whopping 85% of the total orders from the city. The preference for prepaid transactions was the strongest in South India, followed by North, West and East in that order.
Customers also showed a clear affinity for larger, premium appliances. 60% of all LED TVs sold on Snapdeal had more than 40 inches screen size. Among refrigerators, 70% of the models bought were of more than 300 litres capacity.
Another interesting trend observed was the increase in repeat usage. More than 6.25 lakhs users ordered more than 5 products and nearly 1.1 lakhs users ordered more than 10 products during the Unbox Diwali Sale. The highest number of products that a single customer ordered during the festive season was a whopping 84.
A little more than 60% orders came from Tier 2 cities and beyond. More than 82% of overall orders were placed through mobile platforms. Highest numbers of units ordered were for the fashion category, followed by home, electronics and mobiles in that order. In the fashion category, women’s ethnic wear was the most popular purchase.
To power faster deliveries, nearly 72% orders were shipped out of Snapdeal’s fulfilment centres (SD+). Nearly 32,000 staff was deployed every day of the month to deliver the packages across India.
On the seller side, out of the more than 300,000 sellers on the platform, more than 32,000 sellers saw sales grow 7x from last Diwali season. The cities where most of these sellers are based were-Delhi NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Bengaluru, Jaipur & Surat.
About Snapdeal
Snapdeal’s vision is to create India’s most reliable and frictionless commerce ecosystem that creates life-changing experiences for buyers and sellers. In February 2010, Kunal Bahl along with Rohit Bansal, started Snapdeal. Today Snapdeal is India’s largest online marketplace, with the widest assortment of 50 million plus products across 1000+ categories from over 125,000 regional, national, and international brands and retailers. For further information please visit visit Snapdeal