Mapping India’s 2022 E-commerce Shopping Trends

Hyderabad: Meesho – India’s only true e-commerce marketplace – had a banner year in 2022 as we achieved several new milestones on our mission to Democratize Internet Commerce for Everyone. We set three sale records this year, each topping the previous one, with value-seeking consumers from all corners of the country choosing our everyday low prices and wide assortment.

With e-commerce steadfastly gaining traction across geographies and socioeconomic backgrounds, Meesho continues to boost access and affordability for the country’s heterogenous customer base. Here are some key highlights capturing how India shopped in 2022.

India is taking better care of itself

●      10,000 steps – and no less: ‘Smartwatch’ was the second-most searched product in 2022, showing how Indians are moving the needle on physical activity.

●      Well men-tained: Men are showing higher propensity than ever for grooming products, with more than 60% of orders coming from Tier 4 markets.

●      The fitness frenzy is real: Sales of fitness equipment – dumbbells, treadmills, elliptical trainers, etc. – surged 3X as orders poured in from Srinagar and Mathura to Guntur and Siliguri. Yoga got a thumbs up from metro-dwellers with Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai buying the most yoga mats.

●      Feminine hygiene sees uptick in Bharat: Orders for sanitary napkins grew 9X in Tier 2+ cities, demonstrating how e-commerce is creating accessibility for millions of women in Bharat.

2022 shopping cart

●      The most cricket-crazy state is … Uttar Pradesh. Consumers from the state – which has given us cricketers like Suresh Raina, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Kuldeep Yadav – bought the maximum amount of cricket gear, followed by Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

●      #SareeNotSaree: With 148 sarees sold per minute and demand coming in from all corners of the country, India’s love for the attire continues to grow.

●      Selling like hot cakes: 93,000 t-shirts, 51,725 bluetooth earphones and 21,662 lipsticks were sold every day. Haryana stocked up on bed sheets, Jharkhand snapped up extension boards, Rajasthan took a special liking to bluetooth earphones while Assam bought body lotions like nobody’s business.  

●      The rise of the bookworms: Eight in 10 orders for books came from Tier 2+ markets, with shoppers showing a clear inclination for self-help bestsellers like Ikigai, Atomic Habits, The Psychology of Money and Rich Dad Poor Dad.

India’s shopping prime time

●      Super Sunday: Sundays are meant for unwinding — and it’s also the day when Indians indulged in online shopping the most in 2022. Last year, Wednesday was that day. 

●      Rush hour: 8 PM every day was shopping prime time for Meesho customers, a change from 2021 when 2-3 PM saw the most traffic.

●      Baap ka, dada ka … sabka samaan lega: A customer from Uttar Pradesh placed an order every waking hour, totaling a whopping 6,384 orders in 2022.

●      Desi maps: Millions of customers used local landmarks like ‘pipal ka ped’, ‘bargad ka ped’, ‘atta chakki ke peeche’ and ‘near water tank’ to help direct delivery personnel. Move over digital maps; there’s no competing with the accuracy of the desi navigation tool.

A peek into our scale

●      Order volumes equalled the country’s total electorate: From Mumbai to Mirzapur, a record 91 crore orders were placed this year (up 135% YoY), equalling India’s registered voter base in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

●      Messi, Mbappé, Modrić, Meesho … the M factor: At ~140 million, our annual transacting users exceed the combined population of the top three nations in FIFA World Cup 2022: France, Argentina and Croatia.   

●      Orders from every corner? High Sir: Customers from Andaman & Nicobar Islands are the most prolific with the highest number of orders per shopper, followed by Ladakh and the north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.

Our sellers are scripting a success story

●      Rs 3,700 crore: That’s how much our sellers saved in commissions in 2022, courtesy of our industry-first zero commission model. 

●      Kaun (nahi) Banega Crorepati? Nearly 130,000 Meesho sellers became lakhpatis and 6,000 became crorepatis in 2022, with Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh leading the charge. Thousands of these sellers came from small towns like Sagar, Rewa and Damoh (Madhya Pradesh), Panipat and Karnal (Haryana) and Sanngli (Maharashtra).

●      Digitizing SMBs across India: Meesho onboarded ~500,000 suppliers in 2022, with 61% of them new-to-e-commerce and selling online for the first time.