Indian women will fuel $3 billion e-shopping

MUMBAI/ BANGALORE: Indian women fuelled online shopping worth over half-a-billion dollars last calendar and that figure is galloping five-fold to $3 billion in the next three years.

Women-influenced sales would be 35% of Indian e-commerce market estimated at $8.5 billion by 2016, venture capital firm Accel Partners , one of the prolific backers of startups, said in a report shared with TOI.

These projections come in the backdrop of a frenetic growth in internet penetration through smartphones and women lapping up the convenience of shopping online . Indian e-commerce industry totalled $2 billion last calendar, with women-influenced sales at $511 million, or at 26% of overall market.

The huge contribution by women to the e-commerce market — excluding travel and ticketing — contrasts the brick-and-mortar retailers , who derive most sales from men even in categories like fashion and apparel. Working women clicking online rose 43%: Study

Last year, fashion e-commerce sales doubled to $559 million compared to the previous year and will potentially go up about $2.8 billion by 2016 rivalling electronics and mobiles which have traditionally been the biggest draw online.

"Women are emerging as a strong customer base for us, having grown from contributing 20% to our overall sales two years back to now clocking 40% of sales. The offline fashion and apparel industry has been dominated by offerings for men. We expect women will contribute 50-55 % sales in the next two years as we increase our private-label presence," said Mukesh Bansal , co-founder of Myntra.

Facebook investor Accel said working women clicking online increased 43% and formed roughly 10% of the active internet user base in India .

Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel Partners, said Indian women are embracing the concept of fast fashion online which they did not do so far offline. "Apparel, jewellery , home decor and baby products are some of the retail categories which have seen exponential growth in Indian e-commerce in last two years," he said.

Domestic e-commerce will witness a compounded annual growth of 63% in the next three years considering the huge headroom for growth.

Consider this: online sales are just 1% of the $43 billion fashion, accessories and footwear market; 0.2% of the $45 billion jewellery market; 7% of the book sales and 4% of mobile phone and tablet shipments.

"Private devices like smartphones and tablets are taking more women to e-commerce . This is more relevant to private purchase categories like lingerie, which is shifting online in a big way. These devices also provide them an option to indulge in recreational, relaxed shopping ," said Richa Kar, founder of Zivame, an online lingerie store which raised $10 million in funding.

About 9% of domestic ecommerce traffic came through mobile devices last year, reporting an eight-fold jump. Mobile-driven shopping stood at 10% of China's $106-billion e-commerce industry . The rapid adoption of mobiles for online shopping will open up newer forms of payment options. Use of mobile wallets, popular in China , is likely to gain momentum here too, the report said.

Click and shop

India's internet users will double to 400m in 3 years 70% new users are added through mobile devices Core online shoppers would be roughly 10% of the internet base by 2016 Their average purchase value to double from 1,860 in three years.