E-commerce industry to spend an estimated Rs 2000 cr on marketing festive season sales

MUMBAI: Festive season is the best part of the year for e-commerce companies and this year they have recorded 12 times growth in sales as compared to the past year despite the economic slowdown, industry insiders revealed to Indiantelevision.com. The e-commerce sector remained largely immune from the impact of the slowdown as the lucrative offers kept the purchase intent of the consumers intact.

Logicserve Digital co-founder and CEO Prasad Shejale explained, “Creative messaging coupled with enticing discounts has been successful in convincing the end-user to spend money on the preferred e-commerce platform.  Post the purchase customers feel a sense of satisfaction that they were successful in saving some bucks after the festive season purchase. Hence, boosting consumer sentiments has helped e-commerce players in India to set new industry benchmarks and surpass their sales targets.”

He added, “Also, if you observe global e-commerce players have started tapping tier-2 and 3 cities of India which have contributed a significant share of growth during the latest sale season. For this, e-commerce companies have been implementing strategies to reach out to the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) customers. In emerging markets like India, the consumers in tier-2 and tier-3 cities may be less educated, especially at the bottom of the pyramid, and given the low purchasing experience may find difficulty in resisting offers, affordable and value-driven sale season themes, especially during the festive season.”

The platforms have been spending extensively to market their online sales during this festive season. As per estimates shared by Havas Media Group India managing director Mohit Joshi the spends by the industry will touch Rs 2000 crore.

Expectedly, Amazon and Flipkart are spending the most to drive their festive season sales. Shejale reveals that the two spent between Rs 700 - 850 crore, and Rs 400 - 550 crore respectively last year. The numbers are estimated to be the same this year as well.

Madison Media Plus CEO Rajul Kulshreshtha shares, “Within a span of two months (Aug – Sep), these players had spent considerate amount, especially Amazon. The total spends by this category so far is Rs 204 crore (as per reported spends) Amazon is spending more on print while Flipkart is following a completely opposite strategy. So is in the case of Paytm and Snapdeal where Paytm is not taking the TV route while Snapdeal’s approach is TV and radio.”

The strategic communication planning for e-commerce platforms is also very tactical during this period as all of them are targeting the same set of consumers with fairly similar offers. Brandintellé Services Pvt Ltd founder and CEO Biswajit Das says that each platform tracks real-time data offers made by its competitors, shared by third-party data providers, based on which they design specific offers and marketing communication.