Diwali might be more than a month away but the festive season has already kicked off for Indian B2B e-commerce companies.
While online retailers like Flipkart and Amazon gear up for online shoppers to loosen their purse strings during the festival of lights, their B2B counterparts like Industrybuying and Tolexo look forward to Vishwakarma Puja – which happens to falls this Friday.
Vishwakarma, according to Hindu mythology, is the creator of weapons and chariots for the gods and the architect of the entire universe. He finds mention in the Rig Veda and is credited for the Sthapatya Veda, the science of mechanics and architecture.
As a result, Vishwakarma is worshipped once a year in factories, especially in the shop floors of north and east India. Vishwakarma Puja is also a time when industrial firms place bulk procurement orders.
“Vishwakarma Puja is an auspicious day and is observed in factories to ensure safety and success in their ventures. Targeting festivals are an integral part of our strategy and we have been very active in leveraging them successfully,” said Prashant Chauhan, cofounder, Tolexo, an online market for industrial goods and safety equipment.
Most online B2B companies rollout special deals during this period. “Last year, we saw a 15% surge in traffic and sales during this period without any targeted marketing,” said Ravi Verma, vice-president, marketing, Industrybuying, an online industrial goods store.
“This time, we are betting big on it and actively running promotions in specific categories and expect a 25% increase in sales over the previous month,” he added.
Industrybuying has been working with Google to identify spikes in search trends for industrial goods, and most of them happen around the period of Vishwakarma Puja.
“A month ago, Google predicted that there would be an increase in business purchases in north and east India, in line with the search queries,” said Verma. States like West Bengal, Orissa, UP , Bihar and Jharkhand tend to be the biggest drivers of demand during this period and Industrybuying is running targeted campaigns for SMEs in these regions.
Last year, Tolexo noticed a 100% spike in sales during the entire festive period from September to November, and decided to offer special deals for power and hand tools, along with some dedicated brand stores, specifically for Vishwakarma Puja.
“The (ad) spends during this period would surely be 30-40% over regular months,” said Chauhan, adding that Tolexo uses a mix of Google AdWords, email marketing, affiliate advertising as well as SMS and push notifications to reach out to customers during this time.
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