E-com volume up, but cart value down
E-commerce has recovered 90 per cent of its prelockdown sales volumes in the last 45 days since restrictions were relaxed on non-essential deliveries. However, sales values are still lagging behind.
Unicommerce eSolutions, a cloud-based ecommerce service provider for various brands, says there has been consistent growth in consumer preference for online shopping and this trend is expected to continue even after Covid-19 subsides. It said order volumes have recovered by over 90 per cent compared to the pre-lockdown levels and are poised to fully recover by the end of this month.
Categories like grocery and pharma had seen more than 100 per cent growth even during the lockdown and that trend is still continuing.
Among non-essential categories, consumer electronic appliances, other than smartphones, have not only recovered due to the pent-up demand but also achieved over 45 per cent growth in the overall order volume compared to pre-lockdown levels.
However, the average cart size has decreased by around 5-10 per cent, as people are ordering more low-value products required to operate from home. As most of the employees continue to work from home, there has been a significant surge in demand for products such as USB cables, extension cords and wifi routers.
The online fashion sector has seen an overall 70 per cent recovery compared to pre-lockdown levels. However, the average cart size has decreased by around 25 per cent. This signifies that the demand for high-value products is significantly less. The popular products in the category are nightwear and comfortable homewear. Kids' apparels have witnessed over 100 per cent growth in the last 15 days compared to the prelockdown levels.
Snapdeal too had found that demand for budget phones, kids garments, pressure cookers and trimmers had gone up once the e-commerce players were allowed to sell non-essentials.
"The e-commerce sector continues to lead the growth for the overall economy of India. The increasing change in consumer behaviour to prefer online shopping has come as a great surprise and relief for online sellers and marketplaces. This will lead to the rising adoption of omni-channel solutions by companies across sectors and focus on digital transformation to significantly improve customer buying experience with the help of relevant technology solutions. With the current pace and recovery rate, we are positive that the sector will fully recover in the next couple of weeks," said Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce.