Micro Businesses flourish post lockdown with the Religion & Spirituality sector witnessing a 311% uptick : Instamojo report
New Delhi: With India being under a lockdown for more than a month now, the impact has been experienced across sectors and the economy alike. A recent data report by Instamojo, a full stack solutions provider for MSMEs, depicting transaction volumes on the platform, indicated the growth of several micro businesses, and sectors like religion & spirituality saw a 311.8% jump owing to the increasing need for mental health and wellness, while pets and animal care saw a surge of 183.17% with pet owners stocking up on pet food and hygiene products. On the other hand, the sectors majorly impacted included the travel industry with a 76% dip in transaction volumes along with online sales of gifts & flowers dropping by 72%. The data represented in the report is a comparative analysis of digital transactions on the platform before and after the COVID-19 lockdown.
The lockdown has also resulted in the upward growth of the following sectors :
– Business-Business services by 117.5%
– Food & Retail by 86%
– Education sector by 66.5%
– Financial Services and Products: 38.31%
– Not for Profit: 42.39%
– Books and Magazine: 48.47%
On the other hand these sectors witnessed a slump :
– Vehicle services & Accessories by 89.5%
– Gifts & Flowers by 72%,
– Beauty & Fragrance by 42.7%.
Given the current scenario where physical transactions have come to a halt, moving to a digital platform is the only available solution to ensure business continuity for many small and medium sized businesses and offline retailers alike. Sharing his views, Sampad Swain, Co-Founder & CEO, Instamojo said, “Post the lockdown, we have witnessed some interesting growth trends in sectors like pets and animal care, and transactions related to payments towards non-profit organisations helping Covid warriors. While the increase in food and retail is justified by the demand for essential supplies, travel restrictions imposed during Covid-19 have resulted in an obvious dip in the travel sector, and also vehicle services.”
He further added, “While several sectors are impacted due to lockdown in the country, micro-businesses in particular experienced a meteoric growth owing to the implementation of novel ideas. Given the size of these businesses, they have the bandwidth to be flexible, and explore unique ideas with low risk involved. Also small-sized digital payment transactions from these businesses have picked up rapidly, contributing to a major percentage of growth volumes. Through our unique digital solutions ranging from payments to setting up on online shop, we at Instamojo aim to empower and support micro-businesses across the country with the right growth enabling digital solutions.”
Today, reports suggest that more than hundred thousand Indians are going online every day, with approximately 2 million merchants going online every year. With the increasing number of micro-businesses going digital post the lockdown, this indicates the birth of a new digital revolution in the sector. Focused towards empowering the MSMEs of India, Instamojo provides a host of services ranging from digital payments, logistics to lending. The company today works with and enables over a million MSMEs to build, manage and grow their business.