New Delhi As the COVID pandemic pushes more fast-moving consumer goods sales online, an estimated 10.7 million households bought such products between April 2020 and March 2022, data from Kantar Worldpanel shows.
However, the frequency of purchases, as well as the number of categories purchased, differed across consumer segments.
“The pandemic has further increased the footprint of FMCG on the e-com platform. E-commerce penetration increased to 5 times of pre-Covid level. Not only on the recruitment but also on the retention front, e-commerce climbed up,” said the company, which tracks domestic consumption.
In fact, 31% of those surveyed said they made an online purchase in the past year. Of these, 28% bought groceries online, including fresh vegetables, fruits, poultry, cereals and pulses.
Grocery is one of the top three segments to buy online.
Kantar surveyed socioeconomic A and B consumers for this data.
FMCG penetration as a category in e-commerce stood at 15.6 per cent for the 12 months ended April 2022, up from 10 per cent a year ago.
In fact, the figure stood at 3.6% during the 12 months ended April 2020. The data shows a significant increase in the adoption of the online category.
The pandemic prompted new shoppers to buy goods online as mobility remained restricted and stores operated under restricted hours.
As a result, new consumers emerged online, and existing shoppers experimented with buying more categories and shopping on more online platforms.
“At present, for e-commerce, the base is very small, but the growth will certainly be sustained. We are talking about our one big country where we have only a few e-commerce buyers. So, from that point of view, it is headed for growth for quite some time,” said K. Ramakrishnan, Managing Director, South Asia, Worldpanel Division.
Kantar classified shoppers as evolved e-commerce shoppers and entrants.
In fact, among developed shoppers, e-commerce accounts for 3% among entrants compared to 17% in FMCG consumption.
During the 24 months ending March 2022, developed buyers spent on an average 5,620 on buying fast-moving consumer goods online; In contrast, entrants spent 1,164.
Developed e-commerce buyers, though they were only 13% of the total households who made online purchases of FMCG goods between April 2020 and March 2022, contributed to 59% of the expenditure on such goods. Developed buyers also buy more types of ranges at roughly 10, while entrants buy 2.7.
Expectedly, the most developed e-commerce consumers are the affluent shoppers in the top metros.
Buyers of daily commodities buy large packs through e-commerce, thereby delaying their purchase cycle. They also experiment with variants. This is why niche segments and categories, for example, have better traction online.
“Personal hygiene categories and some core food categories are the topmost e-commerce recruitment categories. However, as e-commerce shoppers grow, they expand their category repertoire of those purchased from e-commerce,” the report states.
When it comes to the priority of platforms, developed buyers prefer grocery specialist platforms such as Big Basket and Grofers (now called Blinkit). However, entrants are leaning towards reliable e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart and discount-driven platforms such as Jio Mart and Dmart.
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