bengaluru ecommerce platforms could offer a flurry of discounts this festive season as sellers and manufacturers look to liquidate high levels of inventory according to industry executivesthe rebates could be mainly in categories such as fashion small electronics appliances personal care products and toys they saidslow offline sales and shifting consumer preferences have deterred many traders and manufacturers from clearing stocks even six months after india went into a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the covid19 outbreakeveryone has underestimated how much inventory is still with sellers and manufacturers said a senior executive at a leading ecommerce marketplace now they sellers are looking at ecommerce players to help them liquidate the stocks before the end of the year advt high inventory levels and the willingness of sellers to dump stocks to free up working capital could drive down prices on ecommerce platforms to levels before the heydays of the ecommerce markets growth in india in 2015 and 2016 the executive added the entry of reliance industries jiomart which is understood to be planning mega discounts to spur demand among consumers could also see prices on ecommerce platforms hit rock bottom during the festive period there has always been price matching between platforms in segments like smartphones appliances white goods and to some extent in smaller ticket categories such as electronics during the festive period said a second executive who spoke on condition of anonymitywere going to have to wait and watch to see how aggressive jio mart is going to be online marketplace snapdeal said a large proportion of its sellers have significant offline operations but given subdued demand offline over the past six months it is expecting sellers to allocate greater volumes of stocks to online platforms many of our sellers are exporters of fashion apparel handloom products bed linen furnishings etc due to both delay and cancellations of overseas orders a substantial part of this supply is now being sold online and will be promoted by sellers in the forthcoming festive sales a snapdeal spokesperson said walmartowned flipkart said it has seen a 50 increase in sellers interested in moving online compared to precovid19 levels advt usbased online retailer amazon said helping and accelerating business for its sellers was more important than ever beforeexecutives at both firms told et that sellers were holding extremely high levels of stocks in several categories which could lead to some amount of dumping during the festive sales it is a moot point however if consumers will take the bait and shop for items that they may not necessarily need right now they added there is going to be pressure to discount for certain product categories said ankur pahwa partner at ey by alnoor peermohamed et bureau published on oct 6 2020 at 0837 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit