E-commerce recovers over 90 pc of its pre-lockdown volume: Report

Sales volume in the e-commerce sector in India has recovered by over 90 percent as compared to its pre-lockdown level, said a report on Monday.
The sector is predicted to fully recover and achieve the pre-lockdown order volume by the end of this month, according to the consumer trend analysis by Unicommerce, one of India‘s leading e-commerce focused supply chain SaaS (software-as-a service) platform.
“The e-commerce sector continues to lead the growth for the overall economy of India. The increasing change in consumer behaviour to prefer online shopping has come as a great surprise and relief for online sellers and marketplaces,” Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce said in a statement.
“With the current pace and recovery rate, we are positive that the sector will fully recover in the next couple of weeks.”
Analysing the overall category growth, consumer electronic appliances category, excluding smartphones, have witnessed the strongest growth than any other category.
The sector has not just recovered its pent up volume but also shown great improvement with over 45 percent growth in the overall order volume compared to pre-lockdown levels, said the report.
However, the average cart size has decreased by around 5-10 percent, as people are ordering more low value required to operate from home.
As most organisations continue to work from home, there has been a significant surge in demand for products that will help professionals operate easily from home such as USB cables, extension cords, trimmers and Wi-fi routers to name a few.
On the other hand, the online fashion sector has seen an overall 70 per cent recovery rate compared to pre-lockdown levels. However, the average cart size has decreased by around 25 percent. This signifies that the demand for high-value products is significantly less as compared to affordable products.
The popular products in the category are nightwear and comfortable home wear, which have seen the maximum traction. In fact, a few sub-categories in fashion – such as kids apparels – have witnessed over 100 per cent growth already in the last 15 days compared to the pre-lockdown levels, said the report.