KOCHI:
Two months of lockdown has turned many Indians into avid gardeners – who are exploring their green side by growing a variety of plants, including flowers & vegetables in their gardens and balconies.
This is reflected in the increase in sale of gardening products on Snapdeal, India’s leading value- focused online marketplace. The overall sale in the gardening category for Mid March – Mid May’20 is more than double the sale in the corresponding period last year.
Over the last two months, users have bought seeds to grow a range of vegetables including brinjals, bottle gourd (Laukee), bitter gourd (Karela), chill, coriander etc. Everyday use fruits like lemon and tomatoes have also been very popular. Lemon & tomato seeds were the most searched for seeds on Snapdeal. Combo vegetable seeds pack with multiple varieties of seeds priced under Rs 300 was another popular pick amongst Snapdeal shoppers.
A lot of concentrated demand was observed starting late April for Moringa seeds as many users decided to grow Moringa (drumstick) plants at home on account of its immunity-boosting properties. For those looking at summer flowers, Roses, Zinnia, Petunia & Marigold have been the choice on account of their ability to grow well in summers.
Enthusiastic gardeners also bought a range of supplies including garden tool kits comprising trowels (Khurpi), clippers and weeding forks, green net to save plants from birds, spraying can, and seedling trays. Grow bags which are a cheaper alternative to pots were a hit. Users also bought indoor plants like money plant, areca palm, rubber plant, and fiddle-leaf fig. Succulents were also widely searched and liked but seldom bought due to its high maintenance nature and difficulty to survive Indian weather conditions.
Plastic pots in a variety of shapes, colour and sizes were in high demand and the popular price range of these were Rs 50-250. Most users bought multi-packs of 4-12 pots. Traditional terracotta pots were also searched for but were not available due to difficulty in transporting the same.
The distinct demand for metro and non-metro users was evident in gardening supplies. Seaweed solution bottles were popular among the metro audiences because they save the trouble of keeping packets of compost. The nonmetro audience continued to buy compost. Cocopeat, which can absorb water for longer than normal soil, was widely bought in north India due to the harsh summers.
Orders for some of these items were placed mostly when deliveries of these products were prohibited and are now being delivered post the lockdown restrictions being removed.
According to Snapdeal Spokesperson, “Gardening is considered a fun and relaxing way to get in touch with nature. In the lockdown period, we saw increased interest from our shoppers in this category, as they spent more time at home. From the nature of buying, we can infer that users are attempting to grow everyday use fruits and vegetables at home. Our sellers also received queries for bulk supplies from those users who intend to grow organic produce for regular commercial sale.”
“Seeing the demand, we have onboarded new sellers in this category to ramp up supplies,” the Snapdeal spokesperson added. Shoppers from Tier 2 cities bought most of the gardening supplies. Most orders came from Bhopal, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Dehradun, Gurgaon, Jamnagar, Lucknow, Mysore, Ranchi and Raipur.
