Highlighting that September 2025 goods and services tax (GST) rate revisions acted as a behavioural inflection point, a report has revealed that electronics consumption has restructured sharply. The sub Rs 3,000 segment expanded from 35.4 per cent to 58.7 per cent of total shipments.
At the other end, premium purchases above Rs 30,000 rose from 6.8 per cent to 11.1 per cent. The mid-tier, historically the backbone of Indian consumption, collapsed from 57.7 per cent to 30.1 per cent, according to a report by ClickPost.
The report highlighted that this barbell pattern appeared consistently across metros, tier 1, 2 and 3 cities, indicating that the shift was behavioural rather than geographic. GST 2.0 lowered hesitation at both ends of the purchase spectrum. Low-value purchases became impulse-friendly, while high-value purchases became confidence-driven, it said, adding that ‘the safe middle lost relevance’.
By late 2025, tier-3 cities absorbed a 7.9 per cent peak-season surge in shipment volumes while delivery times increased by less than half a day, from 3.50 to 3.78 days and success rates remained stable at around 86 per cent. Metro and tier 1 cities, in contrast, delivered faster under load, with average delivery times improving from 2.76 to 2.40 days, reflecting route optimisation and shorter fulfilment cycles.
This report is based on an analysis of ClickPost’s 8,38,688 India-only electronics shipments data, covering two comparable periods July to December 2024 (pre-GST 2.0 baseline) and July to December 2025 (post-GST 2.0).
Post-GST 2.0, nearly 59 per cent of shipment volume is now concentrated in low-value purchases, where margins are thin and tolerance for failure is high. At the same time, a smaller but growing premium segment demands near-perfect delivery outcomes. Serving both ends simultaneously places structural pressure on logistics economics.
The report pointed out that this pressure is amplified by payment behaviour. Between July and December 2025, cash on delivery shipments recorded return-to-origin rates between 26 and 31 per cent, across all city tiers. Prepaid shipments, by contrast, remained remarkably stable at 1 to 1.5 per cent RTO, regardless of geography. More than 67 per cent of total electronics returns originated from tier 2 and 3 COD shipments.
Source from: https://www.businessworld.in/article/gst-2-0-triggers-consumption-split-as-mid-tier-electronics-demand-slips-591233
