Chennai: Growing consumer trust and confidence in online buying has helped e-commerce platforms expand their share in India’s total FMCG retail sales by as much as three times, reports have said.
According to market researcher Nielsen, this has led to online purchase of a broader range of categories, with a particularly interesting upswing seen in fresh and packaged groceries.
In its report, The 2018 Nielsen Connected Commerce Report, it further stated that global online grocery purchasing is up 15 per cent in the last two years, leading to an estimated $70 billion additional sales in online FMCG.
It said e-commerce categories – travel (69 per cent), fashion (66 per cent), and IT and Mobile (63 per cent) continue to account for the largest proportion of online transactions in the country.
Interestingly, categories posting the most significant growth in e-commerce channel included packaged grocery (where 40 per cent of respondents said they made a purchase), fresh groceries, and baby and children products.
The report also revealed that consumers are more open to purchase packaged and fresh groceries online when they are offered certain 
purchasing options and quality assurances.
“From tracking the e-commerce evolution in pioneering countries like South Korea where online sales now account for a staggering 20 per cent of the total FMCG sector, we know that consumers follow a certain pattern of online shopping behaviour,” executive director (Retail Measurement Services), Nielsen South Asia, Sameer Shukla, said.
Travel, fashion and IT/ Mobile products are typical categories for first-time online shoppers and as their familiarisation, comfort and trust levels increase, their category repertoire expands into areas like beauty, personal care and baby products, he added.