Online shopping is catching up fast in tier II cities of India, say Flipkart & Snapdeal buying trends

Flipkart's FlipTrends 2016 and Snapdeal's consumer buying trends 2016 for once voiced a similar shift. Both buying trends showed that majority of Indians are going 'mobile'. For Snapdeal 35% of ‘Mobiles & Tablets’ were sold in North India. Whereas, for Flipkart South India emerged as the most tech-savvy region, accounting for over 35% sales, while North stood at 28%.

With the rise of affordable data schemes Flipkart saw a rise in sales for affordable 4G smartphones from national and international brands, with new-age features and exciting price ranges.

Ajay Yadav, Head – Mobiles, Flipkart said, “The popularity of smartphones in India, as clearly indicated by FlipTrends, highlight the shift consumers are making towards 4G enabled smartphones. Today consumers are opting for brands and models that could not just offer them the features, but were smart on the pocket as well.”

Flipkart saw tremendous growth of over 500% in the IoT category of smart bands and smart watches as compared to that of 2015. With Apple, Motorola, and Samsung being the top sellers in this category.

Snapdeal revealed 82% of the traffic came from the mobile platforms (app and m-site), which mirrors the rising penetration of smartphones in the country.

Vishal Chadha, Senior Vice President (Business) Snapdeal, said, “2016 was an important growth year for the Indian online shopper - be it in terms of new customer segments adopting online commerce or increased acceptance of digital transaction methods.

Of the total sales of Snapdeal in this year, more than 40% came from metros & Tier I cities, while Tier II cities and beyond accounted for nearly 60% of the sales. On the other hand, Flipkart saw over 50% of sales in the smartphones category coming from Tier 2 & 3 cities.

Guwahati and Jorhat in North East India were first time entrants to the top gainers list of FlipTrends; amongst other Tier II cities Mysore, Salem, and Tirupur from South India led sales in the smartphones category.

For Snapdeal Delhi-NCR became the the most online shopping savvy city in India followed by Bangalore and Mumbai. Similarly for Flipkart, Delhi NCR led mobile phone sales amongst the top metros, followed closely by Bangalore. Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Looks like India is finally gearing up for the digital mission and cashless economy.