Chennai sources stated that heavy discounts offered on the e-commerce channels hit the offline sales of consumer durables and large appliances during the festive season. Meanwhile consumer durable clocked 57% growth on the online platform, the category as such fell flat in terms of growth during the festive season.
Kamal Nandi, business head and EVP, Godrej Appliances, and vice-president, CEAMA “E-commerce platforms account for just 5 to 10% of the entire consumer durable sales. But the discounts that were offered on the e-commerce platforms disrupted the entire category. Customers were not happy with the discounts available in retail shops, where both sales and margins of retail shops, which account for around 95% of our sales, were hit by the e-commerce sales”.
Moreover there were a few brands, which made exclusive launches on e-commerce platforms during the festive sales. Xiaomi and Sanyo were two such channels, which launched their TVs exclusively for online buyers. By exclusively selling online, they could save cost and pass on the benefits to the customers. Nandi added higher crude oil prices increased the cost of transportation, while volatility in the equity market and food inflation also affected sales for the industry for the entire year.
