Delhi's toxic smog leads to spike in sale of air purifiers, face masks on e-commerce platforms

Customers are thronging various e-commerce platforms to buy air purifiers and pollution masks to protect themselves from the thick cloud of smog that has been enshrouding Delhi since Diwali. 

While many people bought these items as a preventive measure before the festival of lights and crackers, there has been a significant rise in sales post Diwali as well.

According to e-commerce platform Snapdeal, the category has seen an overall three-fold increase in demand this year compared to the same time last year.

"Between pre-Diwali and post-Diwali, we have already seen a seven-fold increase in the number of air purifiers and masks sold on Snapdeal," it added.

Interestingly, the city-based portal has curated a special store for the category and is expecting a 10-fold surge in orders placed for air purifiers.

Consumers are also opting for air purifiers on the go. Unit sales of car air purifiers in the first 5 days of November was 14% more than that seen in the month of October for the devices on Snapdeal.

The city's air quality has steadily worsened over the years, a result of pollution from vehicles and industrial emissions.

Apart from atmospheric dust, burning of crop stubble in farms also contributed to the thick cover of hazardous haze that has been shrouding the city for nearly a week.

The air quality have levels of harmful PM 2.5 particles hovering at dangerous levels, something that has been seen in cities like Beijing. These fine particles less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter are linked to higher rates of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease.

E-commerce giant Flipkart, too, has seen a year-on-year growth of 2.5 times in sales in terms of units sold and 2.8X rise in revenue.

The country's largest e-commerce player said about 50% of the air purifier demand is coming from Delhi, while 71% of the the demand is from the north zone.

Amazon.in has also witnessed three-fold increase in unit sales of air purifiers in October this year (compared to trhe previous month) and 4X increase as against last October.

"About 50% of our orders are coming from customers belonging to cities like Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore apart from other metros.

With the onset of winters and the growing smog/fog situation in cities during this time of the year, we expect the customer demand for Air Purifiers to peak over the next three months," an Amazon.in spokesperson said.

Sales of pollution masks have also jumped six times in the last few days on the US-based e-tailer's India website with customer demand rising 13 times over last year.

"The highest number of orders for pollution masks were placed by customers on November 1 this year. The demand continues to be high from northern India with most orders coming from Delhi," the spokesperson said.