E-commerce transactions grow up to 25% in second week of May

Digital transactions on e-commerce picked up in the second week of May as lockdown restrictions were eased in some parts of the country, say industry players. As more people placed orders for products like electronic goods and even flight tickets, some platforms reported an up to 25% rise in transactions between the first and second week of May. Soon after the lockdown was announced, digital payments had seen a dip in volumes through the second half of March and the whole of April. In May, some of those volumes have started to come back with the easing of restrictions.

Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder, Razorpay, said with the situation starting to ease out in parts of the country, the payments firm has seen a spike in transactions in the last few days, particularly in e-commerce. “On our platform, we saw that the transactions in e-commerce (including transactions for non-essentials) increased by 25% in a week’s time (between May 11-18, compared to May 3-10),” Mathur said, adding that transactions through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and cards grew by about 30% and 18%, respectively, indicating that spending patterns are getting back to normalcy. Madhusudanan R, CEO and co-founder, M2P Solutions, said there has been growth in categories such as grocery.