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After a rocky first three quarters this year, online sellers, especially small ones, expect at least a 15 per cent jump in festive sales year-on-year, with the median growth figure of 26 per cent sales increase expected, a report showed on Friday.

Despite modest sales growth on e-commerce platforms recently (only 40 per cent of sellers surveyed reported a 10 per cent increase in current quarter sales), anticipation for a festive sales boost among the sellers is high across categories, according to market intelligence firm Redseer Strategy Consultants. 

Sellers across the categories, including in the lower average selling price (ASP) ones like fashion, are bullish about this growth trajectory, which should provide a respite in this otherwise challenging macro-environment.

“The festive period is expected to enable sellers, especially the smaller ones, to come out of the challenging sales environment seen through this and sellers are optimistic of strong sales growth. Accordingly, they are willing to significantly ramp up their advertising spending on the e-commerce platforms during this festive period,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, Partner at Redseer.

In the longer term, more and more sellers will continue to benefit from eCommerce growth given its strong positive impact on seller topline and bottomline that emerges from our research, Gutgutia added.

Overall, sellers anticipate a 15 per cent spending growth vs last year’s festive season and 50 per cent ad spending growth vs business as usual (BAU) periods of this year. 

Interestingly, smaller sellers are highly willing to spend on ads and bullish on overall sales growth, anticipating a 22 per cent ad spend growth vs last festive season and 75 per cent growth vs BAU period of this year, the findings showed.

Driven by about 140 million shoppers, India is likely to witness Rs 90,000 crore worth online gross merchandise value (GMV) in the festive month this year -- up 18-20 per cent from last year’s festive month sales.