Where are Sellers Headed This Diwali? Shiprocket in a report notes a five-fold growth in first-time shippers after the onset of the pandemic
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Tech-enabled direct-to-customer (D2C) aggregator Shiprocket, just ahead of India's festive season, has released a report on the state of the D2C e-commerce segment that details various aspects including new sellers, most popular online channel, top product categories among others, on Wednesday. Since the onset of the pandemic, the platform has added several new sellers with 69 per cent new sellers who joined after the global pandemic, availing of the brand's service in September.
The report is an analysis of shipment trends just ahead of the grand festive season in the D2C sector for a period of 1-30 September, with a sample size of over 40,816 sellers across the country.
The up-and-coming company also observed that the most popular sales channel for new sellers of 17.92 per cent were social media platforms while for existing sellers, it was the online websites is 35.19 per cent. The second most popular channel for new sellers was offline channels around 12.04 per cent and for existing sellers, it was noticed that social media of 32.75 per cent was the next most popular sales channel. Shiprocket also noted that the top product categories during the festive season were personal care for about18.45 per cent, food and groceries of 16.51 per, apparel for 15.09 per cent, electronics is11.37 per cent, healthcare 7.60 per cent, household and cleaning supplies 4.59 per cent, and jewelry is about 3.83 per cent.
"It is interesting that we are seeing an increased adoption of social media channels for online selling amongst new sellers during the pandemic. We expect that many of these sellers will now also set up their own website to help build their brands and increase online sales. This has been especially true in the personal care segment where we have seen a host of new brands emerge during the pandemic with unique product propositions. Shiprocket is an essential service to provide a superior customer experience and we expect to see strong growth even post the festive season as many of our sellers will continue to build their brands further," said Shiprocket chief business officer and co-founder Akshay Ghulati, in a statement.
With a strong presence in tier-I and tier-II cities, sellers from tier-I cities accounted for 44.20 per cent and sellers from tier-II cities accounted for 32.19 per cent of the sellers on the Shiprocket platform. Sellers from tier-III cities constituted 23.16 per cent of the seller base. The report found that cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Surat, and Gurgaon were the top cities for pick-up of goods. New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore topped the charts again for the most delivery of shipments with Hyderabad and Kolkata securing the 4th and 5th positions.
The report also determined that the transactions, which involved cash on delivery, had significantly declined in the post-COVID era as compared to the pre-pandemic times. The e-commerce aggregator witnessed 63.64 per cent of male sellers on its platform and 36.36 per cent of female sellers. When determining the most popular products, the survey found that N95 facemasks, health and sexual wellness supplements, personal care products such as hair oil and hair shampoo, and kurtis were some of the in-demand products.
"This is a time when the e-commerce segment is growing at a breakneck pace with the demand for home delivery skyrocketing. Our festive season report is aimed at analyzing the current position of the D2C sector and forecast its progress. We have noticed that as compared to September 2019, there has been a 160 per cent increase in the order volume. We are also expecting that the festive season will bring in added value in terms of revenue, sales, and the number of sellers using Shiprocket. Our team of experts has predicted over 100 per cent of growth in the volume of sales by 2021 and we will continue to expand our services to cater to small and medium sellers across the country," added Shiprocket chief executive officer and co-founder Saahil Goel, in a statement.
Launched in 2017, the platform works with MSMEs in the e-commerce sector, providing seamless shipping experiences over 27,000 pin codes pan-India and 220 countries globally, leveraging cutting-edge technology.
