Most customers will make festive purchases from places offering home delivery: LocalCircles

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Consumers are looking forward to making purchases during the upcoming festival season with a majority of them likely to shop online or through local stores who offer home delivery, according to a survey conducted by LocalCircles.

Of the households surveyed for this report, 60 percent said they will spend during the festive season this year, indicating that there has been a strong improvement in consumer sentiment from May 2021 when only 30 percent households in the LocalCircles survey had indicated that they plan to make discretionary purchases in the next 12 months.

On the other hand, 52 percent of households that will shop this festive season are likely to do so by ordering online and via local stores for home delivery.

India continues to be driven by value conscious customers. As per the survey
49 percent of households spending this festive season will only shop where they get value.

Of those spending on big ticket items, 55 percent are likely to spend on smartphones and consumer electronics while 67 percent of those spending on fashion and beauty will focus on apparels.

Of those shopping for food, 72 percent will spend on buying dry fruits, traditional sweets and chocolates.

Interestingly digital payments is expected to be the primary payment mode for 2 in 3 households during this festive season.

The major festive season commences in India in the months of October and
November brings with it the cheer of high spirit and positive sentiment with people prepping up their homes for Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali, buying various discretionary items, gifting families and friends.

In the aftermath of the four months of the brutal second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, citizens across the country have started moving more freely given that most public places from shops, hotels, malls, markets to parks and religious places are now open.

During these festive months, Indians usually spend on major purchases from making big-ticket purchases such as smartphones, consumer electronics and whitegoods to fashion and beauty-related products, along with festive foods and groceries.

The September-October survey done ahead of the festive season focuses on
capturing what percentage of household consumers are likely to spend during the season, what is the important criteria for them while shopping, and categories of products that they are likely to spend on.

Also, with rapidly growing digital payments, the survey tracks what percentage of consumers will use it as their primary payment mechanism. In addition, with the pandemic still being a reality and many people still being careful about their social interactions, the survey seeks to find out how gifting is likely to take place.

The study received over 115,000 responses from over 38,000 households located across 396 districts of India. 63 percent respondents were men while 37% respondents were women. 44 percent respondents were from Metros-Tier 1 districts, 31 percent from tier 2 and 25 percent respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.