Small city women to lead online fashion shopping

Kolkata: This will be a year of girl power in the online space. Before 2020 winds up, nearly half the online fashion shoppers will be women, with more than 50 per cent of that coming from Tier-2 cities and below. Nearly 37 per cent of the female shoppers will be past the age of 35, if a recent study by The Boston Consulting Group and FaceBook is to be believed.

The study, titled Fashion Forward 2020, says India's online fashion commerce market would grow four-fold to $30 billion, or nearly Rs 2 lakh crore, by the end of this year and two out of every three products sold would be branded apparel.

"The spurt of new fashion shoppers will bring with it a fundamental shift in the profile of online fashion shoppers. The 2020 shopper will no longer be the typical young, metro-residing male of today. By 2020, nearly half the shopper base will be women, more than 50 per cent will come from lower tiers (Tier 2 or even lower) and nearly 37 per cent will be older than 35 years of age," said Rohit Ramesh, partner and managing director, The Boston Consulting Group, India.

Interestingly, fashion is the first category that most people buy online with nearly 30 per cent of new shoppers likely to start with apparel and footwear. Fashion e-commerce today is already sizeable at 4-5 per cent of the total fashion market and is comparable to sales from department stores put together.

Further, the report says online purchase for fashion category will multiply nearly four times to reach $12-14 bn in 2020, accounting for a significant 11-12 per cent share of the Indian Fashion market. Nearly 40 per cent of this growth will be driven by a spurt in new shoppers, while the remaining will be driven by maturing existing shoppers.

The BCG-FB study delved at length on how the changing face of the fashion consumer will bring about a change in the online purchase behaviour. Today, while discounts are the largest drivers of online shopping, the new online shopper will look beyond discounts. Women and lower tier shoppers, for example, are driven more by variety while older shoppers care more about convenience. Hence, the online fashion market will increasingly pivot towards variety and convenience.