e-commerce
Shopping on credit almost doubles this Diwali for e-commerce consumers: GoKwik report
Gurugram – Credit has almost doubled this festive season largely led by credit cards and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options for D2C brands on GoKwik’s network. The preference for credit surged from 3.49 per cent to 6.9 per cent this year thus indicating healthy economic performance and increased consumer sentiment.
This Diwali sale period shoppers showcased a higher preference for prepaid payment modes with a 13 per cent surge in prepaid orders compared to last year. On the contrary, cash on delivery (COD) orders saw an 8% dip in the same period, reveals GoKwik, India’s leading eCommerce enabler that helps brands improve profits and efficiency by reducing COD orders.
COD (Cash on Delivery) is a payment method where customers pay upon receiving their goods. This can build trust with buyers wary of online payments, especially in areas with fraud concerns. While COD enables businesses to access a wider customer base in tier two and tier three regions, it can also cause cash flow delays, higher return rates, and increased logistical costs, potentially impacting profitability. However, COD in India still continues to be dominant at 46 per cent followed by UPI at 44 per cent.
“Affordability has always been a key driver for eCommerce growth in India, with shoppers opting for more flexible payment choices. We’ve been focused on building an ecosystem that supports this innate need among Indian shoppers. By offering multiple prepaid options on our checkout, we have not only provided more affordable payment choices to shoppers, but also provided greater control to merchants over their growth. Having a higher prepaid share of orders helps brands mitigate the impact of return to origin (RTO) and enables profitable growth for them. Our efforts in this direction have started to show the much needed shift in consumer preference,” said GoKwik co-founder & CEO Chirag Taneja.
Categories such as footwear and fashion have seen the highest preference for credit-based prepaid payments while certain other categories like beauty and personal care continued to show high preference for COD.
Another interesting trend during this festive period is the shift in consumer preference from COD to credit payment options such as credit cards and BNPL in tier three cities.
Easebuzz MD & CEO Rohit Prasad added, “We are happy to support GoKwik during this festive sale period. With an exceptional 99.9 per cent uptime, Easebuzz platform empowered D2C brands manage millions of transactions without any downtimes, a crucial advantage during peak shopping periods. Our extensive payment acceptance methods, affordability suite with BNPL & EMI options, coupons and rewards during checkout helped these brands deliver a superior shopping experience for their customers.”
While overall Average Order Value (AOV) rose by a nominal three per cent during this period, categories like fashion and jewellery saw particularly strong growth at 15 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. Categories with high AOV products like electronics saw a 36 per cent increase in credit card payments and a 27 per cent increase in BNPL, showing that shoppers prefer these payment methods for high-value purchases. GoKwik houses over 10000 brands in its network including Lenskart, Neemans, Man Matters, Shoppers Stop, etc, ranging from fashion, beauty, health and nutrition, electronics and other key categories of the online shopping space. The e-commerce enabler houses over 120 million shoppers in its network of D2C brands.
MUMBAI: From flights to tracks, Cleartrip is now trying to keep every journey on the same ticket. Cleartrip, part of Flipkart, has launched train ticket bookings through a partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, marking its entry into India’s vast rail travel ecosystem.
The integration allows users to search, book and manage train journeys directly within the app, as the company pushes towards becoming a unified, multi-modal travel platform. The move plugs Cleartrip into one of the world’s largest transportation networks, where over 800 million reserved passengers travel annually, alongside a daily footfall of around 23 million across Indian Railways.
The offering includes bookings across routes nationwide, covering General and Tatkal quotas as per Ministry of Railways guidelines. Users can also access real-time seat availability, fare insights, PNR status tracking, berth preferences and digital payment options within a single interface.
The expansion reflects a broader shift in travel platforms from specialising in a single mode to stitching together end-to-end journeys. For Cleartrip, the bet is not just on scale, but on simplifying a system often seen as complex and fragmented.
Company executives said the focus is on embedding predictive intelligence and personalisation into the booking journey, aiming to make everything from discovery to post-booking support faster and more intuitive.
The train booking feature is currently live on the app, with plans to extend it to the web platform soon, signalling a push towards a seamless cross-platform experience.
In a country where railways move billions each year, the next battleground for travel apps may well be decided not in the skies, but on the tracks.
