HT Media, one of India’s most trusted content and news platform with a massive reach across print, digital and radio channels, set out to decode the Indian consumer’s sentiment this festive season. HT Media partnered with a research agency Aroscop to conduct a pan India survey of over 13,000 Indian consumers who read various HT Media platforms, to unravel their shopping & purchase channel preferences this festive season.
According to the survey, Indians are ready for some much-needed revenge shopping and travel, after two years of lowkey celebrations. HT Media has thus become a preferred destination for brands who wish to establish high brand recall among HT Media’s premium, affluent and engaged audiences, with a penchant for informative content with relevant messaging served to them.
1 in 4 HT Media readers said they plan to buy a four – wheeler around Diwali and Dussehra. The most popular choice of car is a hatchback with 38% opting for it, followed by MUVs/ SUVs preferred by 31% people who intend on buying a car this festive season.
40% of the interested automobile shoppers stated that they receive 4-wheeler offers related information from newspapers, while 31% get it from digital advertisements, implying that almost 3-4th of the willing shoppers, are already utilizing HT Media’s print and digital platforms as channels for information on new launches, festive offers and deals.
When it comes to tech, close to 1 in 2 HT Media readers said they are looking to buy a smartphone this festive season, out of which, a whopping 76% intend to buy or upgrade their smartphone via e-commerce platforms, whereas the rest would still prefer the offline shopping experience, more than half of this population also indicated that they have a budget of over Rs. 25,000 for smartphones.
Keeping up with the personal gadgets upgrade trend, 50% of the survey respondents said that they plan to buy consumer electronics, such as TVs, headphones, speakers etc., around Diwali. In an interesting development, nearly 1 in 3 respondents said they would shop for wearables, a fast-emerging tech category! Of these enthusiastic shoppers, almost 60% stated that they receive consumer electronics offers related information from newspapers and digital ads.
Dhanteras and Diwali have historically been important occasions for jewelers, in addition to wedding peaks. This trend is yet again endorsed by the Indian consumers with 66% of HT Media readers saying they intend to buy gold, jewelry or investing in other gold vehicles this season, and a whopping 90% of them said that they will be visiting physical stores to buy jewelry, a great sign for retail jewelers!
A massive 45% of Indians plan to buy home & kitchen appliances during festive such as refrigerators, food processors, air-fryers & more. Interestingly, the choice of purchase channel (online versus offline) is an equally divided poll where 50% of the people said they will buy appliances online, and the rest said they will visit retail stores to shop for appliances.
What speaks in favor of physically shopping at stores is in fact that very experience, of physically observing and trying the products before buying them and being instantly gratified with the purchase. The same ratio and channel preferences were applicable for apparel & footwear categories too. Discounts and Offers were the predominant reason for people to choose e-commerce platforms for shopping.
Indians have missed going on vacations and eating out at restaurants the most, in the pandemic with 42% of Indians said they missed going on family vacations followed by 30% respondents saying they missed going to restaurants and movies.
HT Media’s attempt at capturing the Indian consumer sentiment towards festive spending shows an optimistic picture for businesses across the country. With the country turning towards online channels for a large percentage of their shopping needs across categories, the opportunity for e-commerce and D2C brands to be visible to a premium audience on HT Media properties is immense. The biggest advantage of displaying product offerings on HT Media’s 240 Million audiences on print, digital, and radio properties is that they will be targeted to premium readers who have already shown a propensity to purchase these products online. HT Media offers a plethora of partnership options including video, display, branded content, event led opportunities so that brands can create the right messaging in the right format, to the right audience, thereby moving their brand metrics.
The study was conducted in partnership with Aroscop.
Aroscop is an advertising technology platform that combines advanced programmatic ad serving, consumer insights, data, and machine learning to help brands make intelligent marketing decisions across consumer buying journeys.
The pan-India study was run using Aroscop ASK1. ASK1 is an online consumer insights stack that uses interactive creatives to serve short form questions at scale & speed to an identified or pre-built demographic, behavioral or usage based micro-cohorts.
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