With online shopping catching on, it is not just the major festival season that sees peak shopping by consumers. For customers who make purchases for regional festivals, such as Pongal or Onam, shopping is becoming easier as e-commerce portals offer special range of products for these festivals.
Customers are also sending gifts to relatives and friends living in different parts of the country or in foreign countries through these portals.
For instance, Amazon.in has a dedicated store for Onam, with a range of Kerala deepams, apparel, music CDs and jewellery. It also has gift cards in Malayalam. Some of the popular products purchased by consumers in Coimbatore on Amazon for Onam are brass and silver deepams, sarees, gold plated bangles, and books on traditional delicacies of Kerala. “We have received a very encouraging response from customers in Coimbatore and other parts of Tamil Nadu so far (for the dedicated Onam store),” according to an Amazon India spokesperson.
Rahul Garg, chief executive officer of IndianGiftsPortal (IGP.com), says there are about 15 regional festivals for which the portal has specialised products and dedicated catalogues. The growth of consumers from Tamil Nadu who purchase gifts from the portal is growing at over 100 per cent annually. The portal is also developing products specifically for these festivals. “We want to sell products made for us,” he says, so that customers get not just the regular items that are available in the market.
In an effort to encourage small and medium businesses in Coimbatore to start selling through its platform, Amazon.in has rolled out its Chai Cart here.
The Amazon Chai Cart (a three-wheeler mobile cart) will travel across the city on Friday and Saturday, serving tea, cold water and lemon juice to business owners, sellers, retailers and SMEs. Trained personnel will hold discussions with interested SME sellers so that they start selling online, according to a press release from Amazon India.
