On November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the replacement of 86 per cent of India’s cash by announcing demonetization Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as a part of legal tender in India in a bid to cut corruption, counterfeit currency, terrorism and move towards a cashless economy.
Even as consumers across India have lauded the Government’s move despite short-term inconveniences, a survey by Cashback and Coupons site, CashKaro.com shows that consumers have increasingly started visiting online sites for shopping and are using mobile wallets as a preferred medium to make purchases.
According to CashKaro.com, over 1,000 recipients across India participated in the survey.
While 78 per cent of the respondents said they have started to shop online since demonetization, 59 per cent of them said online wallets have become a preferred method for payments, followed by CoD – via using debit/credit card (18 per cent) and net banking(23 per cent).
Among the preferred mobile wallets, Paytm leads the pack with 50 per user share, followed by Freecharge (35 per cent), MobiKwik (9 per cent), Citrus (2 per cent), Oxigen (3 per cent) and others.
While offline channels (35 per cent) still rule the roost in terms of preferred channel to shop for groceries/ consumables, people have also started visiting Bigbasket (15 per cent) and other channels.
Talking about the survey, Co-founder CashKaro.com, Rohan Bhargava said, “The demonetization move has definitely given a boost to digital payments and has encouraged people to shop online more. Wallets like Paytm have seen significant growth. We have seen an increase in the number of people clicking through CashKaro and going to our partner sites to purchase daily essentials and consumables.”
Some key insights:
- 78 per cent agreed that they have started to shop online more since demonetization and because of cash crunch
- Going Cashless is the new norm: 35 per cent of the respondents have started using ‘Plastic Money’ even while shopping at local vendors for daily needs and consumables. Others prefer the below sites for buying groceries and daily items:
-Amazon.in – 25 per cent
-BigBasket.com – 15 per cent
-Flipkart – 7 per cent
-Grofers.com – 7 per cent
-Snapdeal – 5 per cent - Paytm has become the undisputed leader when it comes to being the preferred payment wallet with 50 per cent user share. Freecharge ranks second with 35 per cent with Mobikwik, Citrus Pay and Oxigen follow thereafter.
- Preferred payment method used after demonetization of Rs 500 & Rs 1000 notes when shopping online using Wallets like:m – Paytm, Mobikwik etc. – 59 per cent
-Net Banking – 23 per cent
– Cash on Delivery (CoD) – via using Debit/Credit card – 18 per cent
– Cash on Delivery (CoD) – via Cash – 1 per cent - 91 per cent of the respondents agree that ‘Cashback offers’ by retailers, banks and sites like CashKaro.com are definitely helping them to ‘Save & Earn’ during this cash.
The survey originally appeared on CashKaro’s website and has been reproduced with permission.
