Festive Season and the Changing Trends in E-Commerce

In the past few years, the e-commerce section has become quite popular all over the world.  This has mostly been facilitated by the rise of the Internet and the dawn of the technological era.

The Internet has brought along development and advancement following different perspectives. As the Internet has gradually taken over the world, it has made gruesome and tiresome work a lot easier. It has even made going through everyday tasks a lot easier and effective. One no longer has to travel distances, wait in queues or maintain physical records, all thanks to the many benefits of the Internet.

E-commerce is one sector that has highly benefited due to the rise as well as the popularity of the Internet. People no longer have to search through millions of stores to find that one piece of clothing that they like. No longer do people have to travel distances to buy medical supplies or hard-to-find grocery items. Thanks to the Internet and e-commerce, people can now easily buy things online, be it clothes, medicines, groceries, or any other stuff for that case.

E-commerce giants are always in constant demand owing to the easy-to-order and quick and efficient delivery systems. Most e-commerce sites also promise delivery in just two days from the placing of the order. Plus, consumers can also obtain several discounts on making purchases. Even without extravagant discounts, the prices offered by the e-commerce sites are way more affordable than those offered by the supermarkets or any other source of shopping where the buyer has to go out and buy stuff by himself. All these reasons make e-commerce a much popular and constantly used platform.

However, this usage of the e-commerce sites experiences a surge in usage and profits during the festive season. But have you ever wondered why?

The Profits in E-Commerce during the Festive Season

Traditionally enough, the festive season marks an extravagant shopping season which has been the case for ages now. From a long time back we have experienced the festive season to be a time of wearing new clothes, gifting each other, making new purchases for the house and so on. Needless to say, we have all been continuing this age-old practice of our ancestors, especially in India.

Even during the absence of the Internet, it was a traditional practice for shops to offer a large number of discounts during the festive season. These discounts were applicable in all sorts of purchases, be it for clothes, paint, groceries, jewellery and whatnot. And so, even as online shopping became a thing, the online retailers continued this tradition of offering discounts during the festive season.

Several e-commerce giants also celebrate shopping festivals of their own during the festive season to attract more customers. These shopping festivals mostly begin some days before the actual festive season, allowing people to stock themselves up for the festivals in time. Most of the time, these festivals last well up to December. Eminent examples of such e-commerce festive feasts are Amazon’s The Great Indian Festival and Flipkart’s Big Billion Days.

During these few days, the e-commerce sites offer lavish discounts that easily surpass the year-round prices of objects. Prices are at an all-time low for these couple of days. Discounts go as high or 50 to 60% and sometimes even more. This is one great consumer-drawing trick that does its job extremely well.

The lavish discounts ensure that more consumers are drawn to e-commerce sites. Advertisements are carried out on large pedestals, including celebrities, several known faces and engaging storylines to increase customer traction. This makes the festive season the peak time for several brands and companies.

This year, the e-commerce sites had been expecting a better sale as last year it had almost fallen apart, all due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this year, the pandemic situation is a little under control as of now. Several studies have predicted a rise of 30% in sales, over that of last year, through e-commerce this year. This rise will mostly be driven by the Tier-II and Tier-III cities as they are the most primarily targeted consumers of these festive sales.

Several studies on the market also conclude that most of this year’s e-commerce will be driven by mobile phones. Many researchers believe that mobile phones will be dominating the festive sales this year. The sale of several appliances and electronics are also supposed to rise by 16% this year, as very minimal purchases were made in this sector last year.

Fashion is also one sector of e-commerce that is to see notable sales this year. As offices and colleges are slowly re-opening, there is a new demand for formal and office-wear clothes. Plus, it is always an Indian tradition to get new clothes during festivals, a tradition that was somewhat unfulfilled last year, due to the many complications of the pandemic.

Thus, the festive season highly benefits the e-commerce sector. It can be said to be the one phase of the year that registers the highest growth and sales in terms of e-commerce.