Online discounts to rain heavy from July, ease dry spell of electronics, apparel cos

Online discounts and promotions will peak this month onwards with brands across smartphones, electronics and apparel rushing to clear off unsold inventory ahead of the upcoming festive season and marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart lining up multiple sales events.

Industry executives estimate the average online discount in these categories in the forthcoming sales to be the highest since Covid-19 as their sales have been under pressure from January to June.The chief executive of a leading apparel brand said it will clear inventory from 2023 on hefty discounts in the upcoming online sales.

“Apparel demand has been subdued for six quarters now and though the industry has rationalised inventory last fiscal, still there is unsold stock,” he said on condition of anonymity. “Discounts on old stock will be more than last year,” he added.

Avneet Singh Marwah, chief executive of online-focused electronic manufacturer Super Plastronics, said brands are banking heavily on online sales to clear stock as the industry sales growth is badly impacted this year.

Sales Lined up Till Diwali:
“While the quantum of discounts could be the highest since Covid, the net price may be little more than last year due to recent increase in freight and raw material cost which has increased input costs,” he said. High AC sales during this scorching summer has impacted sales of all other categories, Marwah said. Super Plastronics has the licence for brands such as Kodak, Thomson and Blaupunkt in India.

Amazon has lined up Prime Day sales this month when Flipkart too will run a parallel sale, followed by the Independence Day sales in the first week of August, industry executives said. More sales will continue till Diwali, they said, including the flagship Navratri sales – Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival – around September-end.

Other platforms like Tata Neu, Reliance’s Ajio, and JioMart, too, will run big sales parallelly, executives said. “During Prime Day, we will offer the lowest prices of the year across all top brands such as Apple, Samsung and LG,” Amazon India director (wireless and home entertainment) Ranjit Babu said. “It sets the stage for other events.”

These sales will be an opportunity for the brands to liquidate inventory with one of the highest discounts on offer, and also introduce new technology and variants into the market, he said.

Amazon expects the July sales to be its biggest ever in India and premium products to drive sales, Babu said.

Industry executives expressed confidence that the series of online sales events will get good response from consumers, saying green shoots of recovery are already visible.

Amit Khatri, cofounder of wearable brand Noise, said ecommerce platforms play a crucial role, contributing almost 80% of sales during the festive season. The industry grew more than double last festive season and Khatri expects the momentum to pick up this year too.

Mobile phone and electronic companies are producing 10-20% more for the festive season, expecting to clear unsold stock by then, and hopeful of a widespread recovery in demand, led by normal monsoon, lower inflation, and upgrade cycle kicking in of purchases made during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This despite Counterpoint Research estimating that smartphone inventory – or the stock with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers – increasing to cover 8-9 weeks of consumer demand from 6-7 weeks earlier.

Counterpoint Research also said smart TV shipments declined by 29% year over year during the October-December 2023 quarter and by 14% during January-March.

Ecommerce accounts for 20-45% of sales for most of these categories and the contribution tends to go up in the second half of the year due to multiple online sales events.



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