Valentine shopping clicks

Online websites offering Valentine gifts celebrated a good week of sales. Industry experts say sales doubled for a lot of e-commerce sites. Himani Chandna Gurtoo reports.

Online websites offering Valentine gifts celebrated a good week of sales. Industry experts say sales doubled for a lot of e-commerce sites.

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"We have recorded a 250% growth in sales for the Valentine period," said Rahul Sethi, tradus.com, president, e-commerce, ibibo web.

Sachin Bansal, CEO, Flipkart.com, said, "Apart from the Valentine gift sales, overall sales have trebled this year for us. This has escalated our revenue target to Rs 75 crore for this fiscal compared to Rs 23 crore last year. Currently, we are clocking sales of over a product a minute."

E- commerce has worked also because new formats of selling have been added across product categories including books, fashion accessories, gadgets and discount coupons.

Growth of online sales is anticipated to speed up further with the support of adaptation of 3G internet on mobile. The growing confidence of consumers with making purchases online is a huge contributing factor to growth. Initially, consumers were suspicious about security aspects of e-commerce, fakes and overblown prices. But now the mindset is changing.

"By enabling train ticketing online, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) ushered in a huge change in the way people perceived the online system. The convenience of not standing in railway booking queues or getting low airfares while comparing carriers, the convenience, selection and discounted price offers have got people transacting online and trusting it," Bansal said.

As e-commerce grows, banks and payment gateways will automatically become alert and systems are bound to get better.

This Valentine season, almost 65% of orders came from B and C class towns, say industry sources, signifying the increasing reach of the medium. Also, the number of females who have started transacting online is increasing, which the industry says is good news.