Sellers expect 15% uptick this festive season

Amidst all the festive excitement, one thing is absolutely clear – the market is all prepared and seller's sentiments are bullish towards a profitable festive season. After a rocky start to the year, Indian small sellers expect at least a 15% jump in festive sales as compared to the previous year.

A report by Redseer Strategy Consultants surveyed a few hundred sellers (primarily the smaller sellers) prior to the festive sales 2023 to arrive at this key finding.

The report's findings show that despite modest sales growth on e-commerce platforms recently – only 40% of sellers surveyed reported a 10% increase in current quarter sales as against JFM 23 quarter –  anticipation for a festive sales boost amongst the sellers is high across categories.

In the 10 years of this festive season tradition, the yearly gross merchandise volume (GMV) for the entire e-tailing sector increased by approximately 20-fold, suggests another recent report by Redseer.

Sellers across all categories, even those with lower average selling prices (ASP), such as fashion, are bullish about this upward trajectory, which should offer some respite in this otherwise difficult macroeconomic environment.

"Our interactions with sellers prior to this 10^th e-commerce festive season reaffirms the transformative impact e-commerce has on these MSMEs," says Mrigank Gutgutia, partner at Redseer Strategy Consultants.

The phenomenon of splurge spending is expected to amplify consumption this season due to pent-up demand and the ease of travel and leisure.

Meanwhile, the festive period is expected to enable sellers, especially the smaller ones, to come out of the challenging sales environment seen through this and in fact sellers are optimistic of strong sales growth ahead, opines Gutgutia.

"Accordingly, they are willing to significantly ramp up their advertising spending on the e-commerce platforms during this festive period," he adds.

A median growth of 26% in sales and a minimum 15% growth from the previous year is expected by the sellers. To accomplish this goal, the survey indicates that sellers are willing to spend more on marketing and advertising during the festive season on online platforms to drive sales growth.

Overall, more than 15% spending growth is expected this year as compared to last year's festive season while a 50% ad spending growth is also predicted from the business as usual (BAU) periods of this year.

More interestingly, smaller sellers are highly willing to spend on ads and remain bullish on overall sales growth. They are willing to spend nearly 22% more on ad growth than last year and 75% growth versus BAU.

The spirited seller is further being boosted by the support provided by e-tailing platforms that are tailoring solutions to meet the optimism of sellers.

The survey further reasserts this notion while noting that 62% of sellers agree that the platforms have been supportive in their festive planning compared to 53% sellers who observed this in the lead-up to last year's festive season. Sellers have attributed this optimism to the support received from these platforms in terms of data analytics, trends predictions, consumer visibility, among others.

"In the longer term, more and more sellers will continue to benefit from e-commerce growth given its strong positive impact on seller top line and bottom line that emerges from our research," says Gutgutia.