Fashion to dominate ecommerce by 2020, women shoppers to increase: Study

2020 will witness a shift in the online shopping dynamic, says a study conducted by popular social networking site Facebook and leading consulting firm the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Titled ‘Fashion Forward 2020’, the study observes that the next three years will witness majority of fashion shopping to go online.

Umang Bedi, MD, India & South Asia, Facebook noted,

“By 2020, 70% of all internet users in India will buy online, 76% of them would be digital shoppers, which means that may not buy online but will be digitally influenced, but 71% would be actual shoppers transacting online.”

Interesting insights

The current demographic of online shoppers is young males from metro cities. However, the next couple of years will see a change.Rohit Ramesh, Partner and MD, BCG, said,

“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 37 per cent will be older than 35 years of age.”

The Indian fashion industry is today worth nearly $ 70 billion, and $ 7 to 9 billion of this is influenced by social media and other online influencers. Abheek Singhi, senior partner and MD of BCG indicated that this figure would only go up,

“The online fashion market is estimated to treble by 2020, to reach $12-$14 billion. This will translate to a significant 11%-12% share of the total fashion market. Also by 2020, nearly half the fashion buyers will be digitally influenced.”

85% of online shoppers are using their mobile.

“Mobile has become central not just to the way brands market and sell, but also how they design products, plan merchandising and engage with customers end-to-end,” said Bedi.

40% of the growth will come from new shoppers, while 25% of the growth will be fuelled by the current bunch.

Applying the observations of the study

Google had also predicted that fashion would rule by 2020 in its study ‘Digital Retail 2020: Rewriting the Rules’. Online sellers could use a few of the following tactics:

• Concentrate on strengthening the mobile side – both mobile site and app,
• Channelize efforts to Tier 2 and 3 cities,
• Target women shoppers through ad campaigns,
• Continue to work on logistics and convenient payment, and
• Place more ads in the digital sphere.

Here is looking forward to 2020.