The fizz was missing in this year’s Ramadan season shopping, with the overall sales in the UAE clocking only a marginal four percent rise during the Holy month shopping compared to last year, a quick market study showed.
The trend was more or less similar in the GCC region as well, the study by Admitad, a global IT major tracking the performance marketing industry, revealed.
Surprisingly, online shopping took a major hit in the just concluded festival sales, posting a 15 percent fall in the overall number of online purchases in the UAE.
Oman and Saudi Arabia, however, clocked a 21 percent and 13.5 percent jump in online orders this year.
Despite the subdued trend, sales of select product categories such as mother’s and children’s goods, however, witnessed a surprise jump of 13 percent in the current Ramadan period, relative to their usual monthly sales.
Similarly, beauty and health products, toys, auto parts and household goods also figured high in the shoppers’ list this time around, the study showed.
Industry experts said the subdued customer sentiments due to the relatively high inflationary trend and the focus on spiritual aspects during the Holy month could be the major reason for the depressed sales growth in the current festival sales.
Jump in average order value
The study, however, revealed the rising trend of per-order spend by customers, with the average checkout value in the current Ramadan shopping sales seeing a 30 percent spike to $48.
“Compared to a non-festive month, users made fewer orders in absolute numbers, but were willing to spend more per order. These are interesting figures which point to a trend,” Admitad said.
The study also said despite a fall in overall online orders, certain items recorded significant online purchasing activity in the current festival shopping season.
“Household items, mothers and children goods, and health and beauty products showed significant online purchases this year, especially on our partner network, compared to last year” Admitad said.
It said this was largely due to the general development of e-commerce in the MENA, as the number of online orders continues to grow steadily every year.
The study also revealed that about 30 percent of all purchases this season were made from affiliate stores – aggregator sites that show users a variety of collections and feeds of products on different topics.
Shoppers are also seen increasingly getting influenced by social media promos, with an estimated 17.6 percent of customer purchase decisions this season were found to be encouraged by content platforms – banners, articles and product reviews.
“When buying, users also paid attention to contextual advertising ads on Google – they accounted for 14.5 percent of all orders. Another 10 percent of orders came from social networks,” the study said.
During this year’s Ramadan, many buyers were also cautious about spending and looking for the best deals, with about 9 percent of purchases made with cash back and another 8 percent using discount coupons, it said.
What did people buy during this Ramadan?
Statistics of online orders showed that UAE residents did not skimp on gifts for friends, neighbors and relatives this time around, as all these categories were in the top sales list.
The ‘home and garden’ category topped the list, accounting for about 17 percent of online orders, followed by ‘mothers and children’ category (13.8%), electronics and smartphones (13.1%), health and beauty products (7%) and jewellery and accessories (6%).
The study also noted that during the main period of Ramadan, the number of food delivery orders usually decreases as believers observe fasting.
“UAE residents from other religious traditions respect it and also avoid demonstrating habits that violate the course of Ramadan,” Admitad said.
It, however, said the number of orders for food and ready meals on the day of Eid al-Fitr increased “many times over” this year, as believers take to celebration at the end of the fasting period.
“Everything changes when the time comes for the Big Day.”
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