For Amazon India, the focus on fashion has started paying off. The Indian arm of the global e-commerce giant has been witnessing a 200 per cent growth year-on-year in the fashion category launched in September 2013.
“Fashion is now among the top three categories for Amazon India and one out of every three new customers visits the fashion category first,” said Mayank Shivam, Category Head at Amazon Fashions in India.
Shivam told
He attributes it to heightened investments and efforts that the company made in the past few months to increase brand selection, innovate in content and discovery and introduce new features.
Besides, the the focus on its mobile app, which brings in close to 30-35 per cent of the overall traffic, is also paying off.
CompetitionOf late, online players have had to contend with the entry of big conglomerates such as Arvind Retail’s NNOW, Aditya Birla’s Abof.com, Reliance’s Ajio and Tata’s CLiQ with a major focus on fashion, a category whose sales are set to grow four times in the coming years. According to a recent report by Google, Indian fashion market is all set to cross the ₹2 lakh crore mark by 2020 and the category is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue, of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce.
Clothes and footwear constituted ₹4,699 crore, or 5.7 per cent of the overall e-commerce market in 2015, the report said, adding that the explosion in growth on the online space is being attributed to increased penetration of internet, ads from the online players and discounts.
Shivam added that Amazon Fashion has roped in over 15,000 brands including premium ones that sell only on Amazon.in.
He said in the past 6-9 months there’s been more traction and demand from smaller towns.
Shivam did not give a break up of urban and rural sales.
Its Seattle-based parent is all set to overtake Macy’s as the top apparel retailer in the US by 2017, according to a report.