Indian e-commerce industry has been growing at a scorching rate during the last few years with hundreds of million dollars being invested by venture capital funds in the sector. E-commerce has been around in India for more than a decade but has become main stream only in the last few years.
Online shoppers have now graduated from buying only Books/Consumer Electronics to buying Clothes, Shoes and Accessories. In fact, as per a recent study by Accel Partners (one of the most prolific investors in Indian e-commerce), Fashion category recorded highest number of transactions in 2013. As per this study, Fashion is expected to grow by 400% in next three years.
Baggout.com (a social commerce and cashback website) conducted a survey amongst its users to dig deeper into this trend and the survey produced some deep insights into the underlying reasons as well as possible risks to this growth story.
Main findings from the survey are –
- 50% respondents buy Fashion products (Clothes, Shoes, Accessories) online at least once a month while 31% buy rarely or never buy online
- Clothes and Footwear are the two most popular categories in Fashion
- There are a number of fundamental reasons leading to growth in online Fashion sales including Ease of shopping from home, low prices, discounts and prolific Product collection available online
- However, the industry needs to still solve a few problems so that this growth story does not get derailed. The biggest impediment to buying online is the inability to check for fitting which discourages a lot of people from buying online in spite of the liberal return policies of online retailers. The other big problem is the lack of touch and feel (which is a big decision factor in Fashion category)
- Online buyers decide to buy from a retailer based on a number of factors including Product Collection available and Pricing on the retailer’s website
- Flipkart and Snapdeal are the best rated retailers and are ahead of vertical sites including Myntra and Jabong
Do you buy Fashion products online? What are the main positives and impediments in the same – Do let us know in the comments.
