The Glorious Winners of the Ecommerce Battle

The Indian Ecommerce sector is nothing short of a battle ground- price cuts, huge discounts, seasonal sales as well as festival oriented sales are a regular feature with retailers trying to gain footing in the ecommerce domain. Ecommerce players leave no stone unturned to catch the eye of potential customers. Their efforts have certainly not gone in vain as 2015 saw an estimated sales worth $7.69 Billion Dollars through ecommerce websites. A lot of factors are responsible for this surge in online shopping trends which includes sales and discounted prices, payment options, cashback and coupons, variety and of course the convenience that follows online shopping.

While there are over hundreds of retailers out there, a few have emerged victorious in various facets of Ecommerce and here’s a look at which websites performed efficiently and delivered apt customer service and satisfaction:

Top Performing Shopping Festivals

India is a land synonymous to festivals be it religious festivals or shopping festivals. One sure shot way of capturing the customer’s attention and increasing sales is by launching shopping festivals where goods are sold at heavy discounts. Such festivals are always met with cheer and rejoice and prove to be quite a success.

As seen by the graph, Flipkart’s “The Big Billion Day Sale” was the most popular and successful online festival with 35% customers voting for it. Closely following Flipkart was Amazon with its “Great Indian Festive Sale” which garnered 32% popularity. Paytm reached a popularity of 27% with its “Diwali Sale” and Snapdeal witnessed a consumer preference of 4%. Flipkart clearly took the largest chunk of consumers during the festive period.

Overall Best Site for Online Shopping

An ecommerce website cannot sustain itself only due to growths and spurts but instead needs a consistent performance. Having loyal customers year round and maintaining the performance at every level is the real challenge as the online retail sector is highly volatile with fierce competition and multiple options available to customers.

The clear winner for overall performance was Amazon with 35% votes from various customers. Following Amazon’s footsteps was Paytm- India’s largest recharge portal with 32% and Flipkart settled for a close third with 30% votes. This clearly crowned Amazon as the champion of the online world which provides the most enjoyable and satisfactory shopping experience.

Most Mobile Friendly Shopping App

Apps have taken centre stage with the expansion of the smartphone market in India due to increased accessibility and improved affordability. Smartphones are being used for every activity- be it booking a cab, finding hotels, browsing through websites like the movie blog to find out latest reviews of movies before watching it in theatres or be it ordering food at home. Almost one in every three smartphone internet users shops online. This means that ecommerce websites have to continuously up the scale to provide improved customer experience in order to have an upper edge.

Flipkart clearly won the race again with 39% consumers finding its app most appealing and aiding them with quick shopping. The second runner up was Amazon with 28% consumer preference and 21% preference went to a chunk of retailers including Paytm, Jabong, Myntra and Shopclues. Snapdeal sadly got only 12% votes which might act as a wakeup call for the retailer.

Category wise Preference

While Flipkart and Amazon are overall preferred apps and online retailers, a few retailers won the race when it came down to the category breakdown of products.

When it came to mobiles and electronics, the top preferred websites were Flipkart, Amazon and Paytm but when it came to Fashion, Jabong too was a name to be reckoned with. For travel and cab services, Uber and Ola emerged winners while the sole recharge winner was Paytm. When it came to hotel deals and lodging facilities, Oyo had a good edge over its competitors. Grocery service providers too had its own list of winners which included Big Basket, Grofers and Pepper Tap. This clearly portrays that almost every service has reached the online medium and more and more customers are willing to try it.

Segmentation of Customers

Every business needs to know who its target audience is and how to further customise its service for its dream audience. India is undergoing a demographic shift where majority of its population is below 25 years meaning India has a very active and engaged population which isn’t scared to explore the online portal unlike the older generation.

The leading chunk of online shoppers was the age bracket of people between 18-24 years which clearly spells that majority online shoppers are quite young and dynamic with access to the internet and smartphones. 30% online shoppers are in the age bracket of 25-30 which mostly consists of working individuals who don’t have time to shop and hence prefer turning to the online medium. 19% of the population was between the age group 31-40 and a mere 9% online shoppers are over 40 years of age. This is a clear signal for online retailers that they’re catering to a very lively and high powered consumer base which isn’t scared to experiment. Surprisingly, the survey also reflected that it is the males who shop more than females with the ratio being 68 to 32 respectively.

This survey by CashKaro.com is a clear indicator that India is the next booming market for ecommerce with customers having clear cut preferences which should act as an indicator for all players that the ecommerce battle field might just be the next war zone and it might be time to pull up their proverbial socks.