Fashion Retail in India to cloud e-commerce portal with 35% revenue by 2020

Fashion retail on e-commerce portal will constitute 35% of the total online retail revenue generated in India by 2020, according to Nitin Bawankule, Director for E-commerce and Online, Google at India Fashion Forum, 2015.

Speaking on the 2nd day of the India Fashion Forum, Bawankule said, “By 2020, India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue out of which $35billion will be through fashion e-commerce. Online apparel sales are set to grow 4 times in coming years.”

According to Google research, every 3rd shopping search on Google is fashion related and the queries on fashion are growing at 66% year-on-year.

Alluding to the rising of the internet and smart-phone population in the country, Bawankule pointed out the rising growth in the online population in India from the present 40 million to 100 million by 2016 and 250 million by 2020. By 2018, India is set to witness 500 million internet users whereas 280 million smart-phone users could be the key drivers for e-commerce portals.

Quoting Forester Consumer Research 2014, Bawankule said that new users will fuel the growth in online sales by purchasing online in the next 12 months that will drive 26-31% increase in Apparels, footwear, baby-care and skincare products.

Earlier in the day, Harish Bijoor, CEO and Brand-expert, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc., shared his thoughts on building brands with fashion being a powerful force and thought. “A powerful brand lives in your mind, tickles your mind, controls your thoughts as 86% of all purchase decisions in fashion retail are intuitive,” Bijoor said.

Sharing his perspective about online retail, Hetal Kotak, Brand Director, ColorPlus and Park Avenue, said, “We are now looking for exclusive launches through e-commerce. Both online and offline will continue to co-exist in today’s generation. There was a lot of pressure in last 2-3 years to adopt the e-commerce platform but now we are open to use this channel strategy.”

Stating that mobile medium is not a technology innovation but consumer behaviour, Prateek Sinha, Client Partner, E-commerce, Travel, Locals & Classifieds, Facebook, said, “Digital recommendation has a strong hold in fashion retail industry today as merchandizing and retail spaces are modifying with the changing times. It is the omni-channel strategy which has a lucrative space.”

Expressing buoyancy on the shifting change towards digital space, Rishi Agarwal, Head-Strategic Alliances, Fashion, Snapdeal.com, said, “Tier II and III towns constitute 2/3rd of our business today. We foresee a varied range of choices for our consumers with more and more international brands coming to the country.”