Women Shoppers - A Potent Force for Lifestyle Focused E-commerce Players

We recently covered Fashos, a personalized online footwear destination which has struck a chord with online women buyers. The company had some interesting insights from their experience which they were willing to share.As much as 40% of FASHOS.com transactions come from ‘My Stores’ or personalized ‘user showcases’ online. Orders placed by women in the month of March on FASHOS.com contributed 52% of all orders placed. This was also a result of the exclusive offers they had for women in the month of March.

But are women really a potent force online or fast becoming one on Internet India? According to a recent Comscore study 1 in every 3 users in Internet India is a woman. This number is up from 1 in 5 in 2009. Of those women who are online in India 1 of 3 are on Facebook. According to the Microsoft Starcom Mediavest, May 2010 study: Indian mothers spend 3X more time on the internet than on television. AMAZING, one would never think that!  As per the same report 63% of all Indian mothers who are online search for self- related information based on Fashion and accessories (read lifestyle).  According to the Synovate survey in 2009 titled ‘Role Of Digital Medium in Asian Mums’ Lives’ conducted in 8 countries including India: 81% of Indian digital moms are between the age band of 20-39 yrs, 75% are working, 44% with monthly HHI of 1lac+.  The same study claims 48% of all digital mom’s in India share their purchasing experiences online. Today, the online Indian woman uses the internet as a tool for continuous self-improvement and for shopping needs.

The bigger question is: does targeting women online audiences lead to a sustainable, viable business proposition? After all, any brand that does that is addressing just 30 percent of a relatively small universe of about 80 million online users in India. So let’s look at the advantages of such a focused online strategy:

1. It brings immense focus to an ecommerce player’s marketing plan. You can go after a smaller segment with the same amount of spends making your marketing budget look larger than it actually is.
2. As a business focused on women online shoppers you can afford to pace your investment in offline marketing channels or even if you do invest you can cherry pick marketing channels like radio that are cost effective and highly localized for effective message dissemination for timely schematic promotions.
3. From a value proposition stand point there is clarity in concept from day one!
4. Focus brings efficiencies not just in marketing spends but inventory and stocking. You can offer depth in range, wide choice without excessive capital outflows.

The views mentioned in this post solely belong to Fashos.