56% of online shoppers first time shoppers: Nielsen

The e-commerce industry in India is seeing a huge spurt in customer growth with 56% of the net shoppers being new to the online shopping space. This is among the highlights of insights from a report by market research firm Nielsen’s E- Analytics solution - that claims to passively capture digital shoppers behaviour through an opt-in panel of 190K internet users spread across 52 cities across the country. It was released on Wednesday. It covers the period from May to August this year.

Prasun Basu, South Asia Zone President, Nielsen Global Connect said, “Digital Retail has caused a paradigm shift when it comes to shopper trends among Indian consumers in the last decade. Every second person on the channel is a new shopper, and it is imperative for brand managers and marketers to get actionable insights into online shoppers.”

The report throws out a multitude of interesting data points. It suggests that while mobiles continue to rule the roost in terms of share of online sales, cornering 48%, online shoppers are increasingly buying fashion apparel, footwear, luggage and accessories getting 16%, followed by FMCG at 11%. It states that within the fashion category, men’s clothing at 58% was the highest contributor. However, in terms of volumes of orders, FMCG dominated with 56% of the net orders.

Another interesting data point is that in the eight metros(cities with a population of 5 million and above), consumers seem to be moving to try out new baskets, with mobiles with 38%, followed by FMCG at 21% and fashion apparel at 16%. In smaller cities, mobiles contributed 50%, followed by fashion at 16% and FMCG at 9%.

The report suggests that more than 53% of new shoppers get mobiles as their first online purchase, followed by fashion16% and Appliances at 9%.

According to Neilsen, the online consumer looks forward to deals and festival offers with both periods seeing a huge jump in sales at the start of a festive sale. It states that in the September to October period, a whopping 84% sales came from this period of ‘Big Day sales’ as against just 16% during non-sales days. High ticket categories such as electronics, large appliances, and home decor saw a 3-4X jump in sales this year.

Kunal Gupta, Head E-Commerce, Nielsen, South Asia said “The E-Commerce channel is seen as a critical channel for the consumer, and is an extension of brick or mortar retail. There is a phenomenon of ‘prime time’ that is apparent in digital shopper today; with 23% sales happening between 8 pm-11 pm and a third of the sales coming through the course of the night. This reinforces the quest for convenience with anytime anywhere access to the shopping cart.”