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India's Young Sparks Rise in Online Retail Activity
Oct 30, 2012 6:25 AM
By Dilipp S Nag
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RAPAPORT... India’s online retail activity is growing at a rate of 43 percent a year with women increasingly active on the web, a recent study revealed.
Women account for about 40 percent of the approximate 125 million Internet users in India, the joint research by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and comScore showed.
“Interestingly, about 75 percent of the online audience is between the age group of 15 to 34 years old, [so] India has one of the youngest online demographics globally,” said D.S. Rawat, the secretary general of ASSOCHAM. “This is expected to be a continuing trend in coming years, given the age distribution in India.”
Rawat noted that India’s young age demographic has proportionally contributed to the country’s online consumption with the strong growth categories focused on younger audiences in the past 12 months.
The study revealed that the age group of 15 to 24 years has been the fastest growing age segment online with the top five popular online categories being social networking, portals, search, entertainment and news sites.
India’s online retail penetration has increased to 37.5 million unique visitors a month spread across all product categories with most showing promising transaction and conversion rates along with growth in visitors.
Apparel has been the fastest growing subcategory in retail reaching 13.4 percent online users in India. The study did not break down other retail categories. Comparison shopping websites have grown by more than 75 percent a year and will continue to grow as more categories of retail come online, the researchers noted.
India has been the fastest growing market for Internet usage among the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China - and is also among the top three fastest growing markets worldwide in the past 12 months. The country added over 18 million Internet users in the past year while China added about 14 million users.
The study reported that direct debit card use is the most common payment method contributing approximately 58 percent of the overall payments in India. Cash on delivery, which has been a popular mode of payment method in the retail category, accounts for about 7 percent of total transactions. The average transaction size online in India across both the travel and retail category was $31 between April and June 2012. ASSOCHAM expects this amount will increase as consumers gain confidence to buy higher priced products online in the coming months.
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Tags:
ASSOCHAM, brazil, BRIC, China, comScore, Dilipp S Nag, Females, India, internet, net, Online, Penetration, retail, Russia, Shopping, Users, women
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