Grinding It Out

White goods may not have it all hunky dory this season as price hike and rupee depreciation play spoilsport. But online e-commerce is where the business talks.

- Clifford Alvares

THE HIGH-STREET HERD is missing in action, but it seems that the number of couch shoppers are increasing. In the opening festival-season sale, online e-commerce players have shown phenomenal growth for large appliances and television sets. Flipkart reported sales grew 105 per cent in this category with a large chunk of them coming from tier-2 and -3 towns.

But, so far, large format stores are reporting slower footfalls and lower volumes.

The white goods festival business does not seem to have kicked off with the same gusto in urban centres, but rather in the tier-2 and -3 towns where the distribution channels of e-commerce players have further made inroads.

If the initial response to the festival season is anything to go by, the white goods business could be a mixed bag in this year’s festival figures. As is always the practice, most consumer durables and white goods sales take place during the festival season of September to January beginning with Onam. Last year, reports say that consumer durables witnessed 10-15 per cent slower sales growth. But most of it was due to the pre-GST offers that drew customers much before the festival season began. Indians consider it auspicious to buy consumer durables during the festival season, and hence there’s always many launches, discounts and freebies during this season.

This year, of course, you have to look past high-street and modern-retail footfalls because volumes are being set through online channels. Online e-commerce players have widened their distribution networks to smaller rural towns for large appliances, and it’s paying off. Online e-commerce stores have reported over 100 per cent increase in white goods sales following huge discounts. E-commerce companies and distributors are said to be taking margin cuts in order to gain volumes, and that’s the reason why some offline brick-and-mortar sales are moving online.