New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS): People are trying to become more innovative this Diwali while gifting relatives and contacts with more personalised stuff. And e-commerce is playing a pivotal role in this.
Quirky lamps, paintings, handcrafted utility accessories are the choices, Asheesh Mediratta, chief executive officer of Fashioandyou.com, told IANS.
"Fashionandyou.com has been running with festive sales and special loots along with a Diwali campaign going live from Oct 15. There has been a considerable increase in the traffic and transactions coming from hand-held devices for Fashionandyou," he said. The festive price points range between Rs.799 and Rs.3,999.
"People are opting for purchasing gifts online as it is a convenience at the click of a mouse. It also saves time and effort in customizing stationery items and gifts. More and more people are wanting to customize their personalized accessories.
"The gifts that are in vogue are pens, cardholders, mobile cases. Corporate houses are gifting pen drives, pens, cardholders to employees this season," Saurabh Kochhar, founder of Printvenue.com, told IANS.
"People, high on festive fervour are logging on to shop for various products like electronics, home decorations, apparel and jewellery. We have seen an increase by over 50 percent in sales on account of this upcoming festive season," Amit Maheshwari, vice president, fashion of Snapdeal.com, told IANS.
Vipul Jain, chief executive officer and promoter of House of Technologies, an IT and electronic mall in Delhi, said the change is quite significant. There is a craze for microwaves, LCD/LED, cell phones, laptops and smart household products.
"With the consumers getting more tech savvy, the trend in Diwali gifting is more towards gadgets and gizmos," he said.
"Gifts such as laptops, tablets, microwave, beauty accessories and gadgets (hair dryer etc), mobile phones, other accessories such as headphone, stylish pen drives, smart keypads, watches, ePens, glares and corporate diaries are in fashion."
Most of the business houses are preferring gifting options between Rs.2,000 and Rs.5,000.
"Personalised cakes, sweet boxes, diyas, home décor items and clothing are a few to mention that are going to make perfect gifts for many companies," said Nitin Gupta, chief executive officer, Attero, an end-to-end electronics asset management company.
On a different note, in Teleperformance, India subsidiary of the $3.03 billion US management firm, corporate gifting is being done differently. Just ahead of Diwali, employees visit schools supported by them in Gurgaon, Indore and Jaipur, and share tokens of affection (sweets, books, stationery, woolens) and warmth with the students.