'We saw 581 chocolate orders per minute and 324 rose orders per minute.'
Mad dash for roses, chocolates, jewelleries, books and strangely de-tan kits kept e-commerce players and delivery boys on their toes on Friday as youngsters celebrated Valentine's Day.
'Our analysts have crunched the numbers, and the Valentine's Day rush is mad,' Phani Kishan Addepalli, co-founder of Swiggy and Swiggy Instamart wrote on X on Friday.
'At peak, we saw 581 chocolate orders per minute and 324 rose orders per minute. If there was ever a stock market for love, this was the bull run,' Addepalli said.
Swiggy Instamart pods across the country were stocked and ready with chocolates, roses, teddy bears, and everything else one needs to make the day special.
'We were tracking chocolates, but clearly, roses are stealing the spotlight. With 16-times more orders than a regular Friday, it looks like every cart is saying it with flowers,' said Addepalli.
For consumers looking for a more immersive experience, Zomato offered at-home date night options in select locations in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
This included DIY (do it yourself) culinary kits. The offerings included DIY sushi, ramen, taco, and cocktail-making kits.
E-commerce giant Amazon too curated a Valentine's Day Store on its platform. It offered a diverse assortment of fresh flowers to chocolates, stylish accessories, indulgent treats, and heartfelt keepsakes to mark special moments.
This included millions of products from brands such as Cadbury, Ferrero Rocher, Lindt, Giva, Bella Vita and mCaffeine.
India's gifting habits are evolving rapidly, with online platforms playing a central role in festival and occasion-based shopping.
In the first 11 days of February 2025 alone, Unicommerce's Uniware platform processed over 10 million gifting order items.
The popular categories this Valentine's Day sales period are beauty and makeup, healthy eatables, fitness products and books, according to Unicommerce.
Brands are also offering increased options online, with choice of special packaging or gift wrapping designed for the occasion.
According to Unicommerce, most shopped products included skincare gift combos, de-tan kits, makeup face palettes, healthy chocolate combos, scent hampers, books and bookmarks, and jewellery products like silver bands, rings, and gold pendants.
Tier-II cities drove order volume growth during the nine days of this month with over 37 per cent higher volumes as compared to the same period in 2024.
There is overall a 24 per cent year-over-year GMV (gross merchandise value) growth, with a higher value growth seen on brand Web sites than on marketplaces.
On Valentine's Day, Rebel Foods, the world's leading Internet restaurant company, unveiled QuickiES, a '15-minute or Free' food delivery app in Mumbai.
This Valentine's Day, QuickiES promised to deliver freshly prepared, high-quality dishes within 15 minutes of order placement, failing which the order will be free for the customer.
QuickiES featured a specially-curated menu that includes popular dishes from category leading brands such as Faasos Wraps, Ovenstory Pizza, lunchbox meals, Behrouz Biryani, Sweet Truth desserts and The Good Bowl.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
581 chocolates and 324 roses were sold per minute on Swiggy & Swiggy Instamart on Valentine's Day
- Zomato saw twofold increase in sales of rose-themed or flavoured dishes on Rose Day
- On Chocolate Day (February 10), over 125,000 chocolate-based dishes were sold
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
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