The festive season that begins with Onam, peaks at Diwali and culminates with Christmas and New Year celebrations is a period of hectic activities for retailers and e-tailers alike as they aspire to offer the most interesting products to attract the maximum number of consumers.
Consumer sentiments are also high during this season and one category on which customers don’t feel shy about splurging is fashion. To make the most of this season of sale, brands like Amazon start preparing for the festive season months before it begins.
Highlighting what Amazon has introduced this year in a run up to the festive season, Mayank Shivam, Director – Category Management, Amazon Fashion India shares, “Fashion is among one of the top three categories for Amazon. One out of every three new customers to Amazon comes through fashion. To attract more customers this festive season, we have introduced a Plus Size Store, a Designer Store and Premium Watches and along with this, we have entered into a strategic partnership with Max Fashion.”
Amazon has also expanded its delivery network with a 2-day guarantee delivery to more than 200 cities in India. To bring alive the touch-and-feel factor alive in fashion, Amazon is offering 30-days return guarantee.
“Apart from this, we have made lots of improvements in our online fashion experience. For example, we have increased the size of the product images, information of the product is shared in a very detailed manner along with a video highlighting the features of the products,” Shivam states.
“As a result of all these changes, more than 65 percent of consumers on Amazon are coming from Tier II cities and beyond. We have a very deep believe that fashion is for everyone. It is our job to make it accessible,” he adds.
Exploring Amazon Fashion
At present, the e-commerce giant has about 86,000 sellers who list close to 8.7 million diff erent fashion styles across categories. In the past one year, the Amazon has added 22,000 new sellers listing 2 million new products.
“With such a huge seller eco-system, we are able to offer everything from regional sarees in handloom to designer wear. Amazon has tied-up with most of the big, medium and small brands to off er the best fashion to its consumers,” he explains.
Customers can shop from brands like Biba, W, Benetton, Mothercare, adidas, Puma, Samsonite, Fossil; celebrity brands like Rheson by Sonam and Riya, Nush by Anushka Sharma, Prowl by Tiger Shroff and designer brands like Rohit Bal, Ashish Soni, Payal Singhal, Ashima-Leena. Apart from offering regular collections, these brands keep on introducing their special collections curate especially for Amazon.
“We are also paying attention to get small artisans and sellers on-board. We have grown our platform from 1,000 small artisans and sellers last Diwali to 34,000 this year,” says Shivam.
Women’s ethnic wear is the fastest moving category at Amazon Fashion. It comprises of sarees from different regions of the country, ready-to-wear salwar kameez and dress materials.
“We also have a jewellery store which has collections from large sellers like Mia by Tanishq to regional large players like Malabar, to a lot of small and upcoming jewellery brands. We have almost 30 plus sellers selling different types of gold coins and the category is seeing 150 percent growth year-on-year,”Shivam states.
Partnership with Max Fashion
The Max store on Amazon Fashion was launched with the latest selection of seasonal fashion and trends from their Autumn ‘19 collection on August 01, 2019. The launch of Max Fashion on Amazon Fashion in India came from the brand’s view of improving its consumer reach and base. Their aim is to ensure that highly stylized fashion at affordable prices is made available across 100 percent pin codes, thereby transforming how India shops for fashion. The store was launched with full-feature apparel selections for men and women – across tops, t-shirts, dresses, jeans, trousers, jackets, and also kids’ apparel.
“We launched Max on Amazon with close to 5,000 styles. The store features apparel selections for men and women – across tops, t-shirts, dresses, jeans, trousers, jackets, and also kid’s apparel. Apart from this, customers saw the Max festive range coming on Amazon which is something that they had specially curated for the festive season,” says Shivam.
Amazon Designer Store
Amazon has tied up 225 well-known and emerging designers. It’s working closely with the designer community in India to get them listed on Amazon. It is also helping them in develop images and create catalogues.
“The new designers have talent on the design side and we are just helping them get access to customers and if you look at the ratings, the feedback on the product that customer give to them, it is very exciting to see an emerging designer and a customer in a small town been connected,” he shares.
“We have created a marketplace where emerging designers from any corner of India can come and reach out to millions of customers,” he adds.
Enhancing Consumer Experience
To enhance the overall consumer experience, the Amazon is focusing on three things – selection, convenience and value.
“We are offering millions of styles to our customers and still we are looking for more options to explore. As far as convenience is concerned, we are trying to improve the data quality, image, detailing in size charts and we are also offering a 30-day no question asked return policy. Lastly, we enable our sellers to provide the best value to our customers and we do that by ensuring that it is easy for sellers to list, lower the cost of distribution for them by giving them a large customer base,” concludes Shivam.
