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Even as policymakers grapple with ways to revive demand in the pandemic-hit economy, an online sale fest launched by Axis Bank offering 15% discounts is witnessing a 10-times surge in daily volumes, a senior official has said.

The bank is giving its debit and credit cardholders a flat 15% cashback on partner e-commerce portals like Flipkart and Amazon as part of the ten-day ‘Grab Deals Fest’ which is on till July 4.

“We are witnessing a 10x jump in overall spends by gross merchandise value (GMV) if I were to compare it with the daily average in the month prior to launch and an almost similar increase in the number of customers who are availing the offer,” its president and head of digital business and transformation, Sameer Shetty, told the media.

It can be noted that the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has hit demand across the economy, with many analysts saying that private consumption has fallen in such a way that even staples have been hit. Even as the lockdown measures get eased, they say demand will take time to revive as income generation needs to come back first.

Offers on e-commerce portals

Usually, a lot of the e-commerce sales activity happens around the festive season towards the end of the year, and there are reports saying the e-commerce players are expecting a subdued activity this year.

Shetty said the bank is witnessing a surge in ordering from urban areas where e-commerce ordering is active, but stressed that the ordering is across income segments.

The products ordered can largely be called discretionary items, Shetty said, hinting that the bank’s experience cannot be exactly compared with the macro picture because of a slew of factors like a small set of people in the economy it serves and their background.

The bank launched the offer because it thought that the second wave is now receding and people are coming out of stressful times. The lender’s main focus is making as many customers avail of the offer rather than look at the GMV, he said, adding that such schemes are aimed at deepening the connect with customers.

The discounts are shared between the bank and the e-commerce major, Shetty said, maintaining that the bank does not want to do big bang shopping festivals and will continue with such deals regularly.

The response to the current offer is “far beyond” expectations, Shetty said, exuding confidence that by the time the offer ends the bank would have done significantly better than what it aimed for initially.