JOIN USSome years back, though not too long ago, prominent Indian fashion brands thought in terms of strategies, site locations and finding right ‘franchisee’ partners to expand their business in tier-II and tier-III cities. They knew these cities were a melting point for fashion aspirations, but the complexities involved in logistics and implementation invariably derailed the process of products reaching consumers on time.
“The wait used to be long, very long,” recollects Parul Sharma, a Jammu resident. “I have just ordered a dress from an online portal. I plan to wear it on my farewell party. I never thought I would have so many choices and the ease to shop from home. It is a blessing, isn’t it?” she asks animatedly.
The freedom of choosing while sitting at home was never an option, till the giant rise of e-commerce captured the fancy of businessmen who daringly chartered this unknown territory and invested in giving consumers the comfort and ease of browsing, exchanging and engaging by spoiling them with a range of options to choose from. The rule of ‘touch-and-feeling’ the garment is now a thing of past: it is all about zooming in, knowing your size and clicking the ‘confirm’ button to order anything online.
“We work very closely with the brands to present an overall compelling brand experience to the customers, and not just product experience. To achieve that, we use multiple mediums – online and offline to simplify fashion for our consumers,” Vikas Purohit, head, Amazon Fashion, India, tells Metrolife.
“There is rich content, images and videos to bring out the right look and feel of products online. We have also made significant investments in studios and creative teams who enable us to put out interesting trend guides, look-books and style guides.”
For fashion brands, the idea of investment has shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to having an online presence – to reach out to a larger audience. But this change in mindset and business pattern has a lot to do with the Internet penetration in India, and accessibility and affordability of smart phones and tablets.
A testimony of this successful courtship reflects in a Google report that says “India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue by 2020, out of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce.”
“Accessibility to designer labels, premium brands on online platforms is certainly seeing great response from Indian customers as the online luxury market in India is also evolving,” Praveen Sinha, managing director and co-founder, Jabong, an online retailer, tells Metrolife.
“A strong plus point of the online world is that we don’t have to open up a high-end physical infrastructure. So, you don’t have high rentals and high operation costs. These factors allow us to have savings which we give out to customers as discounts.”
No one would disagree with the role “raining discounts” play in increasing the traffic of online portals. It is a win-win situation for everyone, but it also leads to cut-throat competition in the virtual market and hence allows room for new developments that make this market equally exciting.
In a first, Amazon India roped in veteran designer Narendra Kumar as creative director “to provide a more creative vision to the fashion store”. “We are deconstructing fashion for customers so that they are more involved and aware while making their fashion choices and thus, make informed purchase decisions,” points out Purohit.
But Kumar is not new to experimentation. He was the founding fashion editor of Elle India when international fashion magazines were trying to gain footprint in India, and though he believes fashion has evolved tremendously, Kumar candidly tells Metrolife that “online fashion market is still in its nascent age.”
“We have seen fashion as something that was occasion-based. However, now as you must have noticed, fashion is more like an everyday element attached with you. You want to look trendy and fashionable when at work, party, beach, or lunch. It is no longer restricted to only special days,” he says.
“With the growing e- commerce industry, the marriage of content and technology is changing the way people consume information about fashion – and how they shop for fashion,” he adds.
Fashion weeks have always been synonymous with glamour and glitz of the fashion world. It is a perfect breeding ground to build brand visibility, and offer space to renowned and young designers to showcase their talent. Last year, when India’s first shop-able fashion event ‘Jabong Online Fashion Week’ was announced, it got on board the best names from the fashion world, including Bollywood.
“We aspired to target the discerning and fashion forward consumer through this fashion week,” points out Sinha, adding, the idea was and has always been to make fashion accessible to a large audience and not restrict it to a particular metropolitan city.
These developments hint at work opportunities the online fashion industry alone would be offering to the young fashionistas in making.