At the Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2023 unveiling event hosted by the exchange4media group in Mumbai on Wednesday, Sankalp Mehrotra, VP - Monetisation, Flipkart, took the centre stage to deliver a special address on ‘The growing importance of Retail Media’.

Mehrotra started by sharing insights on the current scenario of the e-commerce media in the country. “India has the 3rd largest e-commerce base globally and the factors facilitating this growth are ubiquitous data, and the rise of the middle class and the GenZ or digital natives becoming a part of the key consuming segment. The e-commerce market is expected to grow to $170 billion by the end of 2027.”

According to Mehrotra, the top trend in e-commerce is micro-segmentation. “There is a wide cohort of consumers coming in, there are different kinds of consumers who face different kinds of barriers and have different motivations. Along with micro-segmentation, there are new models of e-commerce coming in like social commerce, video commerce and quick commerce. New experiences are being created for the consumers.”

Concluding his address about what the future looks like for e-commerce, Mehrotra shared that the advertising spending on e-commerce is only rising where 80% of the spends is likely to be net new. “Nearly 40% of commerce advertising spends are spent for the top of the funnel and it has to be for brand-building. Therefore, as we move towards the future, commerce advertising needs to be part of every media outreach.”