D-Talks:Bulletin#307 – Top Digital Media News Updates For CXOs

India’s quick commerce sees 22% growth in active users amid festive surge, but faces drop in retention and rise in UX complaints; reveals report

India’s quick commerce experienced a boom with the festive season incoming as a 22% rise in monthly active users on India’s top five quick commerce in July of 2024 when compared to January 2024, revealed a report. At the same time, a seven percent decline in consumer retention rate on the same apps was also observed. Customer experience proves to have a stronghold as a 12% surge has been observed in discussions around users uninstalling apps due to poor user experience. The average monthly ‘sale’ search was 5.9 MN in January-July of 2024 as compared to the 3.7 MN in January-July of 2023. While there was a 71% increase in mentions for great offers, there was a 127% rise in conversations claiming quick commerce to be a saviour for late night deliveries. The report also revealed that there is a 50% rise in average monthly searches for same day delivery.

75% online shoppers are aged between 18-44: IPG study

IPG Mediabrands, in collaboration with Google, presented “The Indian Online Shopper 3.0,” a comprehensive exploration of consumer behavior in the digital shopping landscape. This in-depth study surveyed over 7,000 consumers across India, delving into 18 key categories to unveil crucial insights for understanding the evolving online shopping trends.

Key takeaways include:

The Indian Online Shopper is open to hedonistic shopping; however, is still mostly conservative across categories.

Shopping missions (motivating factors) vary not only across categories, but also across shopper profiles

15 years after the advent of e-commerce, Indians still need hand holding from online retail platforms

Social commerce is not ready to be a sales channel. However, it’s becoming the most important point of discovery and influence.

Marketplace giants are bleeding users to category-specific marketplaces and D2C brand websites

Indian Online Shopper Profile:

Key findings include:

Online shoppers skew younger: 75% of shoppers are aged 18-44.

Shopping for household, not just self: Most are married (69%), living with children, and nearly half (49%) live with parents.

Significant portion are affluent: 62% of online shoppers have medium to high household income.

Concentration in select states: Five states account for over half of online shoppers: Maharashtra (16%), Delhi (12%), Karnataka (9%), West Bengal (9%), and Tamil Nadu (8%)

Amazon says exports from India-based sellers to cross $5 billion in 2024

Amazon Inc expects to help Indian exporters to sell $5 BN worth of small-ticket items through its platform this year in markets such as the USA and UK, up from nearly $3 BN in  2023. Under the Amazon Global Selling Programme launched in 2015, nearly 150,000 small exporters across India are expected to sell their products directly to overseas consumers using the company’s eCommerce platform. “We are investing significantly in tools and technologies to help sellers optimize their reach, enhance product delivery, and increase sales”, said one of the top executives of Amazon. This move by Amazon, one of the top eCommerce sites in the world, underscores India’s growing role in the global supply chain and reflects a broader trend among multinational companies to diversify supplies away from China.

Short videos drive over 47% consumer choices

As the festive fervour sweeps across India, a notable shift in consumer behaviour is being observed with almost half of (47%) of Indian consumers being influenced by short-form videos while making their purchases, cites ‘Short Form Big Impact: Festive Blueprint’, a report by social media platforms ShareChat and Moj. The report mentions that short-form videos have become a staple in the daily lives of Indian consumers as 81% consumers actively watch bite-sized forms of content. Increasingly influential among consumers aged 25-44, almost 50% of them base their purchase decisions on the content they consume on short video platforms.

Key highlights:-

Influence of short videos

Native language supremacy

Rise of micro-influencers

Festive must-haves: The top trending choices for consumers are clothing, home decor and gifts, followed by beauty, food and electronics. 

Brand affinity: Around 34% of shoppers are open to exploring new brands, making this a key moment for brands to shine. In the West, 39% of Indians are ready to experiment with new brands, showing a strong sense of curiosity. On the other hand, the South showcases brand loyalty, with 68% preferring their trusted favourites.

 Spending budget to rise by 47% this festive season

A Disney+Hotstar’s Festive Shopping Sentiment Survey says that shoppers during this festive season are expected to increase their spending by 47% compared to last year. Millennials are expected to lead the charge and women shoppers notably increase their budgets by 70% over the previous year. Women are expected to focus more on categories such as clothing, mobile phones, food, and beauty products. Customers will be focussing more on buying items related to 5G technology. Smart TVs will be bought more. 59% of customers will prefer to shop online. There will be 58% of consumers buying more through the influence of online ads, that is they will discover new brands. 67% will prefer paying through digital payments. 

Gen Z scripting big shifts in consumption trends

According to a report by Bernstein ‘India Internet’, Indian GenZ (born between 1996 and 2010) shops, eats, works online. It makes about 27% of India’s population. They have become the ‘Swipe Up’ generation who swipe for anything – social media, ride-hailing, and food delivery. GenZ shows a preference for ‘Digital-first new age brands’. The report says there are big shifts in consumption trends (short-form content) like Youtube, Instagram shorts, quick commerce delivery like Zepto, Blinkit. There are more new food discoveries through food delivery apps like Zomato, Swiggy. There are also discoveries of D2C brands. Through this brands are forging deeper connections with GenZ. They contribute about 17% to India’s total consumption. Time on smartphones has gone up by 60%. Because GenZ MAUs (Monthly Active Users) have gone up in APP ecosystems. D2C brands scale up on the buying behaviour of GenZ than traditional FMCG brands. India is the world’s largest footprint across Meta,  across their APP universe (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, FB Messenger). GenZ prefer categories which are digitally native, APP first and prefer categories like food delivery, quick commerce, short-form video, edtech, athleisure, co-living, new-age D2C brands.