India's festival season spurs online shopping spree

NEW DELHI, Oct 12 (Reuters): Run off their virtual feet at the start of India's festival season, e-commerce companies like Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart are looking forward to a potentially record breaking few weeks.
Any lingering fears that inflation and higher interest rates would dampen consumers' spirit in Asia's third largest economy, are being rapidly dispelled.
RedSeer, a Bangalore-based consultancy, which monitors over 100 platforms covering 90 per cent of online sales, predicts virtual shoppers will spend a record $11 billion during the month to mid-November - which would be nearly 20 per cent more than last year.
Amazon India has made its "best-ever start" to the peak period in the shopping calendar, according to country manager Manish Tiwary, reporting a record 95 million customer visits in the first two days of its 'Great Indian Festival 2023' campaign.
Over at Flipkart, sales of electronic products, lifestyle garments and furniture were seven to ten times higher than in the pre-festival period, said vice president Arief Mohamad.