Travel Leads Consumer Spending Online with 73% growth in H1 of 2024; Gen X and Boomers power growth: Simpl’s Checkout Scan

· Months long Union Elections, Cricketing extravaganza, summer vacations and a rise in visa-free tourist destinations key factors driving travel spends

· Overall 42% increase in consumers transacting via Simpl’s 1-Tap Checkout on travel, food and beverage, services and grocery among other categories

New Delhi, 26th June, 2024: A slurry of activities including the Union elections, cricketing extravaganza, summer vacations and an increase in visa-free tourist destinations in the first half of 2024 has peaked consumer spending on travel, registering a 73% growth in the first five months of 2024 as compared to the same period last year, according to Simpl’s Checkout Scan. This comes on the back of an overall 42% increase in consumer spending via Simpl’s 1-Tap Checkout across a range of categories including travel, food and beverage, services and grocery among other categories.

This growth was led by consumers from Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad along with the top metros with the emerging metros registering a growth in consumer spending by 77%, 74% and 64% respectively during the first five months of this year. The spends were majorly done on travel service providers including MakeMyTrip, EaseMyTrip, Redbus, Goibibo, AbhiBus, Oyo and ZoomCar among others.

Interestingly, consumers in the age group of 51-60 and over 60 years commonly referred to as Gen X and Boomers posted 89 and 87% growth respectively, highlighting the increasing travel by middle-aged and retirees on the back of growing convenience and affordability. Travel demand was also fueled by weekends, festivities and summer vacations along with rising temperatures, leading travellers to cooler destinations.

Other categories witnessing growth in consumer spending were food and beverage, services and grocery which posted 68%, 53% and 35% growth respectively. While metros led a majority of the consumer spending, smaller cities including Thiruvananthapuram, Indore, Guwahati, Vijayawada and Lucknow posted 84%, 47% and 45% growth in spending across merchants such as Blinkit, MakeMyTrip, Zomato, Myntra, Bigbasket, Dunzo, Meesho and Nykaa.

Commenting on the trend, Nitya Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive Officer said, “The first half of 2024 has been a blockbuster year for the internet commerce economy where union elections, cricketing events and tourist destinations made visa-free played a pivotal role in significantly driving consumer spending online. This is reflective in categories such as travel, food and beverages, services and grocery that have posted robust growth in consumer spending. As merchant’s preferred checkout partner, we understand that convenience is becoming a real differentiator in e-commerce today after selection and affordability and we are excited to witness the growing adoption of our 1-Tap Checkout by millions of consumers across our exhaustive merchant universe”.

Interestingly, the single day highest order in the last five months in 2024 stood at Rs 39,000 as against Rs 25,000 in the first five months of 2023 via Simpl’s 1-Tap Checkout while the cumulative spend by a single consumer in 2024 till date stands at Rs 9.5 lakh. This stands as a testament to the growing adoption of internet commerce (e-commerce & quick commerce) for higher spending across an array of merchant categories.

Simpl’s 1-Tap Checkout, which is available across 26,000 merchants, offers the convenience of a checkout in a single tap with near zero transaction failures and is preferred by millions of consumers. This growth in user transactions has been driven by increasing adoption of Simpl by consumers and merchants across the country.