A visa study has found that while eCommerce continues to make strong inroads in India, for key occasions and festivities citizens still prefer a personalized experience, accompanied by ‘touch-and-feel’. The card company while doing the study of spending patterns during Diwali in November 2018, analyzed consumer spending patterns via payment cards (debit and credit), both for face to face (F2F) and online shopping across cities and different shopping categories during the period.
During the week leading to Diwali in 2018, Visa recorded 7.9 crore transactions, up 49% from last year, amounting to Rs 15,300 crore, up 37%, year-on-year. While the average spend was 1.48 times more than that during a normal week, it doubled (to Rs 2900 crores) on Dhanteras, which was on 5 November 2018. This could also be seen from a 2.9 times increase in the spend for jewelry during the week, compared to a normal week.
Breaking down the spends via payment cards, there was a 40% yoy increase in credit spend as against a 35% yoy increase in debit spend. Of the total spends, credit contributed to 50% and debit to 48% respectively this year. While the top five cities of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai contributed 46% of total F2F spend, Chandigarh, with a 34% change, recorded the highest growth in F2F spend. Chandigarh, along with other smaller cities like Coimbatore and Pune, showed increases of up to 64% in debit spend.
T.R. Ramachandran, group country manager, India & South Asia, Visa, said this reinforces the confidence that the citizens of India are adapting to digital payments, thereby reducing their dependence on cash. In addition, the higher debit penetration by spend from the smaller cities, validates the healthy progress of the nation towards a less-cash society.
