As coronavirus cases rise and social distancing becomes a normal, social gathering and celebrations have taken a backseat. Like everything else, friends and families are choosing to go online for gifting and parties are moving to video calls. Most people are now celebrating important occasions like birthdays, and anniversaries by embracing e-gifting and opting for more meaningful gifts with enduring value during the pandemic. And betting big on these opportunities are players in the gifting industry.
Flower and gift retailer, Ferns and Petals that covers 400 cities & towns across India and 120 countries worldwide recently introduced digital gifting options such as guitarist on a video call, personalised video message, and personalized e-story books.
“During the countrywide lockdown phase, there was approximately a 30 percent drop in demand & in the post-lockdown phase demand for general personal gifting has picked up, although still not up to the normal demand. But at the same time, demand for Rakhi & Rakhi gifts has seen unprecedented growth of 100 percent growth in comparison to the previous year. We have already received 300k orders for Rakhi & Rakhi gifts, and by the end of this festive season, we should see this growing to 1.5 million.” says Manish Saini, COO, Ecommerce, Ferns N Petals.
According to gifting platform Frinza, the latest estimates predict that the market for digital gifting solutions is registering a three-fold increase annually and will increase to USD 4 billion by 2024. In India, the gifting landscape caters to festive gifting, personal gifting, and corporate gifting. While personal gifting is reporting a surge, work from home, and reduced travel for work has meant that gifting platforms like Frinza are seeing a significant drop in their corporate gifting.
“During the lockdown (March-April), when most businesses were finding it hard to make their ends meet, Frinza observed month on month growth of 103.5 percent for personal gifting while the Corporate gifting has seen a dip,” says Truptimayee Lenka, Co-founder, COO, Frinza. Founded in 2018, the company offers a wide range of gifts, ranging from souvenirs, flowers, cakes, chocolates, plants, books to gift cards, and handicrafts.
While flowers, cakes, essentials have become the hottest selling products for many gifting platforms, the ongoing trend of digitization and a growing number of active online users have led to an increase in demand for innovative options such as coupons, cash backs, discounts and vouchers as gifts are high.
“When customers use an e-gift voucher, they aim to utilize the entire voucher value in one go. To achieve this, they may shop for products that are worth more than the e-gift voucher’s value, but never less than it. Thus, they end up driving more revenue for brands. Further, an O2O platform allows its catalogue partners, including airlines, banks, etc. to enhance their customer experience by offering loyalty points and e-gift voucher redemption capabilities. This increases the probability of repeat transactions, thereby boosting revenue generation. Finally, such platforms facilitate seamless gifting by allowing shoppers to buy instant gift vouchers digitally which can be delivered to the recipient via SMS, e-mail or even physically, and can then be redeemed against any product/service of a set value from leading brands.” says Arvind Prabhakar, Founder & CEO, GyFTR, an O2O digital gifting platforms serving both corporate gifting and personal gifting. GyFTR’s expects its business to grow 100 percent YoY in August as festive demand kicks in.
Increased activity on social media by platforms has also helped them capture the mind space of the digitally savvy Gen Z & millennial consumer.
“Due to the drastic increase in the usage of social media, we have been experiencing a surge in the number of orders from Gen-Z. We receive orders from all age groups, but the ones from the younger lot are extensively higher. We also saw a 30 percent uptick in the number of followers on our social media platforms. Due to our social media presence, we saw an increase in orders from 40-50 flowers per day to 60-70 flowers per day.” says team Fiorella.
Founded in 2017, Fiorella is a luxe flower brand. During the lockdown, the startup started offering virtual flowers at a very minimal price for their customers as a way of connecting people and making occasions like birthday and anniversaries special.
With new pivots, trends, and novel ideas, the gifting landscape is now moving away from the traditional route to adapt to the new way of life. And as we usher in a weekend of festivities – from Eid-Al-Adha to Friendship Day and Raksha Bandhan – the cash registers for most gifting platforms are all set to sing their way to the bank!
