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Beginning next month, the festive season will begin. The most crucial months for Indian brands and retailers continue to be Sept. 6, Janmashtami, and Nov. 14, Diwali.
For categories like television, home appliances, mobile phones, fashion, and consumer durables, these months account for a sizeable amount of annual revenues.
The Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF), which was organised on December 12th, 2012 in partnership with several Indian online shopping platforms, was launched by Google to meet growing consumer demand. Google promoted this as the Indian equivalent of Cyber Monday.
In December 2013, the GOSF's second edition took place. However, December is not the appropriate period for India's holiday sales events, as Flipkart discovered in 2014.
In 2014, the Indian e-commerce business was unquestionably booming. Amazon made a $2 billion investment in Amazon India, while Flipkart raised $1 billion.
On October 6, 2014, Flipkart launched Big Billion Day. Flipkart and Snapdeal earned a GMV of $200 million during the first Big Billion Day sales, with Flipkart exceeding its goal of $100 million of that coming in the first 10 hours.
To put this in perspective, the total online retail industry was $6 billion in 2014, which means that 3% of the year's sales occurred in a single day.
Google discontinued GOSF in 2015 and Amazon India saw the opportunity and swooped in to fill the gap left by GOSF's departure.
In 2015 Amazon launched the Great Indian Festive Sales from October 6th to 10th. Since then, the two biggest sales occasions for online shoppers in India are Big Billion Day by Flipkart and Great Indian Festive Sales by Amazon.
According to estimates from Datum, online shoppers spent ~$9 billion throughout the festive season in 2022, with $5.6 billion coming in the first week.
This is growth of more than 45 times since 2014.
The online retail market was $52 billion in 2022, which implies that 17% of the year's sales ($9 billion) happened in a single month, and 11% of the year's sales happened during the festive week.
Beginning the following week, Datum will begin publishing articles about the festive sales 2023, covering the following subjects
- Festive Sales Forecast for 2023
- Festive Sales GMV by Category for 2023
- Category deep dive – Fashion, Mobile, Consumer Durables, and Grocery
- Consumer Insights
The 2023 festive sales season promises to be an exciting time for both retailers and consumers alike. With a combination of new technologies, innovative marketing tactics, and a renewed focus on sustainability and personalization, the industry is poised for continued growth and success.
