Amazon India eyes bigger pie of Fashion segment

The company has doubled its selection and has grown over 150% y-o-y by mid of 2016

E-commerce major Amazon India has witnessed a significant growth in its fashion category especially from tier-II and tier-II cities. Amazon Fashion has doubled its selection and grown over 150 per cent y-o-y by mid of 2016. The category includes watches, apparels, shoes, jewelry and luggage has shown upwards of 200 per cent growth in 2016. Around 55 per cent of the orders are being received from tier-II cities.

"Amazon Fashion is now among the top three categories for the Indian arm of the global e-commerce giant which contributes 30 per cent of the total customers of Amazon India. has the highest traffic coming from mobile app contributing close to 40 per cent of the total mobile app sessions to overall Amazon. Incidentally, over 60 per cent of the total orders on app for Amazon Fashion comes from outside the top eight cities," said Mayank Shivam, category leader, Amazon Fashion.

However, Amazon India's daily consumables category, which includes gourmet food and washing powder, has emerged as among its biggest, driving additional growth momentum for the online retailer in India. Amazon India has started its two-hour delivery service of daily essentials called Amazon Now in Mumbai, following Bangalore and parts of New Delhi.

"The market has enough scope for multiple players in India's booming online fashion market. We have formed a strategic partnerships with several fashion brands. The market is expanding and for us, its just a beginning. We are planning long term investment in Fashion category, " Shivam, added.

In fashion business, Amazon is competing with Flipkart, which owns Myntra and Jabong, two of the largest specialty online fashion retailers in India.

Recently, Amazon has launched its private fashion brand Symbol to boost sales and margins in the second largest product category in e-commerce. Amazon (Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd) wanted to start selling Symbol ahead of the upcoming festive season sales to attract shoppers in the initial months of the launch.

According to a report by Google, fashion segment in India is expected to be the single largest product category in online retail by 2020 and is set to cross the Rs 2 lakh crore mark, offering higher margins.