Online Apparel And Lifestyle Shopping Is Growing Rapidly In India

While the e-commerce segment in India is coming of age, there are signs that there is accelerated growth in certain product categories. A recent F2F (face to face) report suggests that the country’s apparel market is growing very rapidly.

Why is this happening?

This is highly likely because of the rising urbanization in the country. Small towns and cities are catching on strongly to the trends which were previously limited to the major metros not so many years ago. The easy accessibility of low cost smartphones and mobile Internet is getting these folks to explore online shopping in larger numbers. Besides this, there is evidence that this growing urbanization has resulted in people having more disposable cash. Another reason could be the growing fashion sensibilities in the country because of the increased connections between the metros and the other cities.

This makes apparel a hugely promising category when it comes to online shopping and the study indicates that there are now significant opportunities for growth in terms of sales for online fashion merchants.

Trends in Apparel and Lifestyle Shopping: 

Homeshop18 has analysed the shopping trends in the country by looking into their customer base and found that clothing has the highest demand compared to other categories on their website, with one garment being sold every 40 seconds in the country. Sundeep Malhotra, the CEO of Homeshop18 says that customer centric features like Cash on Delivery and EMI are contributing significantly to this increase in apparel sales.

It seems now that most of the pioneering work done by early e-commerce companies like Flipkart, Infibeam, Myntra etc. has finally borne fruit because more Indians are getting used to the idea of online shopping, especially in a segment like apparel which was traditionally bought in retail stores. According to Ashutosh Lawania, co-founder of Myntra, the apparel segment looks like it will overtake electronics this year.

Another interesting insight comes from Deepa Thomas of eBay India who says that women in the country are becoming very savvy shoppers online and thus the drivers behind the clothing and lifestyle category’s surge in sales. On eBay India, the apparel and lifestyle category accounts for 41% of the total transactions carried out. eBay notes that Kurtis ranks fifth amongst the top traded products in the category while Sarees rank fourth amongst the top sold products.

Online merchants should note these trends and start looking at selling apparel on the various Indian marketplaces. The timing seems to be just right and could be an important pillar for you to expand and diversify your business.

Are you a merchant who sells products in the clothing and lifestyle categories on Indian online marketplaces? Do let us know your experience in the comments.

References

Source: SME Horizon.

Image: Rediff pages.