The Top Growing & Declining eCommerce Categories of India

Authored by Maher Ghazal, Chief Growth Officer at PiWheel

As seen on India Today, Business Today, TechGenyz, The Print, Business Standard

This data has been sourced from PiWheel’s eCommerce tools and is meant to enlighten the marketing efforts of brands and advertisers.

A few months ago, I read a meme that asked, who was responsible for your digital transformation? The CEO, CTO or Covid-19. This got me thinking; the pandemic did not only affect human interaction, and work, it also affected what we buy and where we buy it from. Brands like Samsung have realized the importance of these changes in behaviors as Samsung’s SVP announced how its phones are adapting to a pandemic world from an interface, functionality, and aesthetics point of view.

There was no single body that pulled data of the top growing and declining categories to deliver a holistic view of the rapidly evolving eCommerce. So, PiWheel set out to gather this information via its tools and provide some interesting insights about consumer behavioral changes.

To start, PiWheel’s analysis unsurprisingly shows that India’s eCommerce sales grew by 19%. While diving into it, the global retail disruptions had to be considered. From the shipping backup to the great resignation, to the chip shortage, these factors were evident when pricing and availability were investigated but that’s a topic for another article. Let’s have a look at the fastest growing and declining categories and the top eCommerce shakers.

Fastest Growing Categories

Home entertainment and improvement categories led the top growing category list as people are still spending more time at home.

Fashion and personal care categories that saw a decline the prior year such as Men’s Fragrances (+268%) and Boys’ athletic shoes (+208%) have also picked up as people started to enjoy out-of-home activities.

Fastest Declining Categories

Many categories listed here such as pasta & Pizza tools (-30%), baking ingredients -17%) and grilling utensils (-18%), saw unprecedented growth in 2020 as people discovered their inner chef. Now as they started going out, these categories are going back to their expected size.

India's top growing & declining eCommerce categories

Consumer trends are regularly changing and evident through purchase behaviors. While this report aggregates the data annually, it is important for brands to look at weekly or monthly data to understand current trends and plan accordingly.

We at PiWheel help brands in the UAE, Saudi, India, Philippines, Singapore, and Australia grow their digital retail business with data tech tools and services. Our technology activates data, automates execution, and optimizes eCommerce marketing performance for some of the world’s largest companies. Our consultancy grants brands access to the highest level of eCommerce expertise to scale and convert more shoppers with improved content, advertising, and operations.

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