Social media driving spending in India

This festival season, the virtual world has become the playground for both shoppers and sellers. Etailers, with their deep discounts and marketing gimmicks, are creating an online buzz. And, on occasion, running into each other — the honchos of Flipkart and Snapdeal had a friendly Twitter duel when the former’s website was down ahead of their respective festive season sales.

Social media is playing a big role in channeling the shopping spends in India today. Global technology company Pitney Bowes’ second annual Global Online Shopping Study reveals that Indians lead the world (at 27 per cent) in being open to buying products on social media followed by Brazil (15 per cent) and Russia (14 per cent).

Sensing opportunity Twitter too has entered the fray by introducing a ‘buy’ button on its platform. So, seen through the Twitter lens, what does that eshopping world look like? “At 6.4 million Tweets around ecommerce in one year, the buzz around eshopping is huge,” says Taranjeet Singh, business head, Twitter India. Which city are these shoppers coming from? What kind of hashtag wars are etailers indulging in? A Twitter report, exclusive to ET Magazine, dives headlong into some of the answers: