Ecommerce logs 24% Q2 growth as premium products click

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Unicommerce showed.This does not include smartphones, where, according to several ecommerce executives and research firms like Counterpoint, the growth is being led by premium devices. Demand continues to be soft for mass-market phones. The 24% quarterly growth follows a slower-than-expected 16% growth in the January to March quarter, as reported by ET in May.

While certain segments like pharma and eye wear have grown at a faster clip, senior ecommerce industry executives said there is an emerging trend of slowdown in online sales of low-priced items across categories like fashion, appliances, etc. This affects the overall volume growth for ecommerce marketplaces, even though the demand for high-value items compensates for the drop in volume. Data from Unicommerce showed that health and pharma, eyewear, and fashion and accessories grew by over 47%, 30%, and 24%, respectively, during the June quarter.

«Rural consumer spending, and I'm including the urban poor in this category, has been extremely sluggish over the past six months. This has impacted both offline and online retail», Ashish Dhir, executive vice president (consumer and retail) at market research firm 1Lattice – earlier PGA Labs – said. Smartphones, which make up roughly a third of the wider electronics segment in ecommerce, saw a 20% contraction in sales volumes between January and June this year on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, said Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint.

By value, this would be a drop of around 13%. “Inflationary and recessionary pressures are making consumers withhold purchases till the second half of the year, when festival discounts will kick in, especially in the segment costing between Rs. 8,000 and Rs.