India’s online retail growth driven by women and mobile users
India is currently experiencing major growth in its online retail industry driven in part by female shoppers and mobile purchases. The Internet and Mobile Association of India recently estimated the number of online retail businesses serving India to be approaching 1 million, and this sector is estimated to be worth about $12.6 billion, according to The Economic Times of India.
"Nearly 1 million large and small retailers make use of online marketplaces to reach out to their customers in India today," Subho Ray Friday, the president of the IAMAI, said in a release, the source reported. "These online retailers represent a very wide range of categories including electronics, books, apparel, accessories, footwear and jewelry."
Women are driving online sales growth
A recent report by global venture capital firm Accel Partners revealed that the online consumer base in India, which was 20 million in 2013, could reach about 40 million by 2016. This will largely be due to female shoppers, as they will grow five times more influential for online sales by 2016, especially in categories such as fashion, jewelry and motherhood products. Fashion ecommerce, for instance, is set to grow exponentially. It doubled between 2012 and 2013, and by 2016 Accel predicted this sector would increase another 400 percent. Jewelry, accessories and other female-led retail sectors are already making moves to online shopping platforms, according to the IAMAI report.
Mobile sales will continue to increase
Ladies aren't the only influence over India's online retail customer trends, either. Mobile users are becoming a formidable demographic for retailers as well. Tech Crunch indicated that India currently has about 155 million citizens using mobile devices to go online. Between 2012 and 2013, the amount of people using their phones to shop online increased by 800 percent, and that trend is expected to continue at a compound annual growth rate of 150 percent through 2016.
Having a mobile-optimized site will prove to be an advantage in coming years for retailers in India, as most online merchants have yet to invest in ecommerce software that works across multiple channels. As mobile shopping increases, Indian retailers may want to invest more time and funds into mobile marketing. Currently, the budget for marketing initiatives tends to be less than 10 percent of a company's overall marketing budget, according to the Accel study.
