E-commerce giant Amazon India is expecting a “healthy double-digit” year-on-year growth in sales during this festival season, buoyed by higher average ticket size and consumer preference for premiumisation across product categories.

“One of the biggest differences (during this festival season sales compared with the same period last year) is the focus and the customer preference for premiumisation. Till about a few years ago, we used to see that around 35-40 per cent of the customers are first-time users of the category. But what we observed over the last few years consistently is as category penetration has increased, a vast majority, approximately 85 per cent of the customers, now are upgrading,” Nishant Sardana, Director, Amazon India, told businessline.

Sardana said when customers upgrade their purchases to latest appliances, they are typically preferring more premium products. “Customers have demonstrated a very, very distinct preference towards premium products. That is the big trend we have seen,” he pointed out.

Festive season

For this year, Amazon Great Indian Festival, targeting festival season sales, began October 8 and will run till November 10.

According to Sardana, average ticket sizes during this festive season sales have already grown about 15 per cent year-on-year for categories like consumer electronics, personal computing and large appliances, among others.

“The other big trend which we have noticed is that almost 80 per cent of the customers are coming from the smaller towns. The smaller towns are growing much faster than the rest of the market. That is another clear big trend that we have noticed,” he said.

More sellers

The e-commerce company said its overall base of sellers increased compared with last year. Currently, it has over 14 lakh sellers on the marketplace, and around 15 crore products are offered.

“This year we have seen that the performance is not isolated to one or two categories. All the categories that are offered here are doing well,” Sardana added.

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