One in three MSMEs is planning to launch new products ahead of the online festive season sale while 34 per cent of sellers plan to focus on promotions and discounts, a Meesho-Kantar survey said on Monday.

The festive season sale of leading e-commerce players is starting on September 23. Besides Softbank-backed Meesho, Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra have also announced to begin their festive season sale on the same date.

The survey was conducted to gauge the festive sale preparedness of online suppliers and understand the way they measure performance during such events.

"Of all the sellers who participated in the study, 36 per cent said they introduce new selections ahead of the festive season while 34 per cent said they roll out promotions and discounts. Importantly, 33 per cent of suppliers said they invest in improving product quality before the festive season to drive greater customer satisfaction," the survey report said.

The survey is based on inputs from 787 online sellers. Sellers were from metropolitan, tier 1 and 2 cities, including Surat, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Tiruppur, Salem, Erode, Coimbatore, Panipat, Kanpur, Delhi, Kolkata, Patna and Cuttack.

Nearly 32 per cent of small businesses said they procure additional inventory to meet festive demand. 

At the same time, 36 per cent of respondents highlighted the importance of communicating with peers to understand market trends. Other steps taken by sellers include diversifying into new product categories, revamping packaging, training additional personnel and investing more in advertising spend. 

The survey found that small businesses have a set of robust parameters beyond sales and profits in order to gauge the success of their festive season sales.

"Nearly 41 per cent of sellers want to create a distinct brand identity, 40 per cent aim to reach out to new customers while 37 per cent want to identify and create a set of repeat customers," the report said.

Close to 43 per cent of sellers believe it is imperative to improve customer satisfaction while 42 per cent feel improving product quality is a strong parameter to measure success and 41 per cent of sellers want to create a distinctive brand identity, the report said.