~ Footwear, electronic wearables, kitchenware, home decor, jewellery, healthy snacks lead increase in inventory levels ~
23 September 2024, Bangalore: Brands and retailers are loading up in anticipation of the impending festive season sales, anticipating a spike in demand.
While inventory levels have climbed across a number of categories over the last three months, June – August 2024, data analyzed by e-commerce enablement SaaS platform Unicommerce shows that the build-up of the inventory is substantially higher for many categories.
Brands in the footwear, kitchenware, electronics wearables, and home furnishings & décor categories have raised their inventories by nearly 55%, 33%, 30%, and 26% during this time, respectively, providing an indication of the selling expectations. The subcategories of healthy snack and jewelry have experienced the biggest inventory increases in line with holiday purchasing trends.While the inventory of healthful foods has increased by more than 75%, that of jewelry has increased by more than 100%.
Based on an evaluation of Unicommerce’s top 80+ clients’ data, this analysis was conducted. Over 2,950 omni-enabled stores and 8,300 warehouses are managed by Unicommerce across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and India.
Delivery times that are faster are now standard for Indian online retailers. It is imperative to have sufficient and timely inventory availability in order to fulfill the service level agreements (SLAs) that different brands follow. This is especially important around the holidays, when a spike in demand puts more strain on the logistics networks.
Talking about the festive season preparations, Kapil Makhija, MD & CEO of Unicommerce mentioned, “E-commerce is centrestage as shoppers in India load up their festive carts. Unicommerce’s technology provides the capability and extra cushion to support e-commerce companies and retail brands during this period.”
