With air purifiers gaining popularity, Flipkart has registered growth by five times growth in the category this festive season. For the e-commerce giant, the year-on-year growth of air purifier sales was up to 400 per cent in the month of October this year, as compared to 250 per cent in October last year.

The increasing air pollution and deteriorating air quality in various cities across the country has led to a significant increase in the demand for indoor air purifiers for personal use. There has been an influx of air purifiers coming from many popular established brands as well as startups, across different price categories. Unlike modern home appliances, air purifiers are still a niche product and have a limited selection in offline retail. And a lot of growth in the sale of air purifiers is coming from e-commerce platforms as they offer an extensive selection of products at different price points and has a wide reach of delivery network too.

Sandeep Karwa, Senior Director, Flipkart, says, "There has been a lot of interest from Delhi and Mumbai. As per the region wise-growth, Flipkart registered approximately 8x growth from the North, 5x growth from the West, and 2x growth from the South as well as East."

Of the total number of the sales of air purifiers on Flipkart, 75 per cent consumption came in from North India. The demand for air purifiers was highest amongst metro pin codes with Delhi NCR and Kanpur, Patna, Bangalore showed the highest interest.

Karwa further adds, "Even the search traffic conversion on Flipkart has increased by over 300 per cent during the festive season, based on high customer intent and a wide selection of air purifiers available in every segment."

Flipkart has over 500 products listed under the air purifier category, starting at Rs 4,599 and going up to Rs 85,000. The ones with HEPA technology and priced in the range of Rs 4,000 to Rs 10,000 were the most popular. Mi, Philips, Honeywell, Tefal, Samsung, Livpure and Blue Star came out as top-selling brands on Flipkart.

Talking about the return rate, Karwa explained, "Unlike other products, which experience a huge return rate, air purifiers face the least amount of returns because orders are placed with high customer intent, and also due to our strong brand partners who have focused on quality of products, advanced technology and packaging standards."