Fashion sale India: India’s e-tailers seek to wring India’s festive mood further, more sales announced

Following what would be termed a successful festival season by many e-commerce firms, companies are now looking to get more out of Indians wanting to indulge in retail therapy.

Leading fashion platforms Myntra and Ajio have announced the ‘End Of Reason Sale’ and ‘Big Bold Sale’ respectively, offering clothes and other fashion accessories at discounted pricing. For India, the first week of December is well past the festival season, which traditionally begins in October and wraps up by mid-November.

However, companies have continued to offer products at discounted prices via sales, some opting to do it during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The sales are a key indicator of the health of consumption, forming around 60 per cent of India’s gross domestic product. Companies have also been hopeful of tapping into the wedding season, which has only begun in many parts of India, to carry the consumption momentum.

Overall sales between November 23 and December 15 will be about Rs 4.25 lakh crore ($51 billion), the Confederation of All India Traders estimates.

Myntra expects around 10 lakh new customers to shop during the 19th edition of EORS. Ajio’s Big Bold Sale, which begins on December 7, saw a 40 per cent spike in orders over business as usual (BAU) during early access to the sale.Festival season was termed a success by many e-commerce players. “A very large middle class is expanding as we speak. We are seeing that increasing disposable incomes are leading to customers showing very strong preference to premiumise. This is happening in multiple categories,” said Saurabh Srivastava, vice president, Amazon India in October, ahead of the shopping season.Amazon also said that 80 per cent of its customers were from tier 2-3 cities, while claiming that this was the biggest ever ‘Great Indian Festival’ in the company’s history.

“The festive season is expected to be followed by a robust wedding period, both of which combined should support near-term growth,” Teresa John, an economist at Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Pvt, had said late October. “Easy availability of credit and expectations of cooling inflation should also aid a gradual recovery in discretionary spending particularly in the mass market.”