Shopping is a daily activity which is basically carried out by everyone, may it be a male or a female. The traditional way of shopping, which is also performed to date, is by physically purchasing something from retail stores.
When we are out to make a comparison as to who shops the most among the two genders, statistically it’s the women who do. There are many factors that contributes towards this phenomenon. This includes the fact that women have more needs than men, whether it’s fashion wear, household items and others. But with increasing priorities among women in terms of family, career and self, they don’t get enough time for such retail therapy nowadays.
Thanks to the 3G and 4G internet services along with advance mobile devices, there is an easier and more efficient way for women to fulfill their shopping needs, on the go. When we say shopping has been made easy through the advent of online stores, there are two sides to the story. It not only affects the consumer’s convenience but also the retailers as well.
From the retailers’ perspective, online store enables them to only store their commodities in warehouses. For retail stores, they had to rent a store space for products display along with extra storage for stock. On top of that, the hiring and training of the sales staff is also quite a tedious and costly business. Retail business may be beneficial for those whose products come in the expensive range thus have to be displayed physically. Otherwise, if you want to move fast with the market demands then making an online presence is the best way to go.
Through running an online shop, you just have to have a warehouse to store your inventory and your online platform to sell it. The only antics that are used to attract customers are done on the website. So the investment in online business may be relatively far less with a higher return, if done right.
Coming back to our online women customers. In Pakistan, a very low portion of total women internet users carry out online purchases. This is because their judgment towards online shopping has been too clouded by other external factors instead of weighing in all the benefits which they indirectly get.
According to the traditional style of shopping, women mostly have to spend an entire day to get a few things. This is because through window shopping they get to know more variety of products. But the amount of time which they spend on travelling from one place to another may be a wastage and can be spent on other important activities.
Through e-commerce, they have a large variety of products at their disposal only through a few clicks. Products are listed properly with full details and descriptions so that women are aware of everything before they order. It does not require a lot of movement or transport cost. According to an online marketplace for women’s accessories named Tesoro.pk, women spend a duration of 3 ½ to maximum 30 minutes on a website to buy their desirable items. That is the tenth of the time which they spend on roaming around individual stores.
In Pakistan, there are quite a handful of websites which have been introduced recently who offer a range of women-centric products. These include Losha.pk, Daraz.pk, Tesoro etc. Not only for clothing and fashion wear, women can also buy groceries online and get them delivered to their doorstep. These include Cartpk.com, Gomart, Aramshop.com etc. So, no more going to shady grocery stores and queuing up on long lines in malls. These websites may not be too famous among women, but at least there are alternatives for women in Pakistan, to make their lives better and easier.
With top fashion brands entering the ecommerce industry through their online stores, including Khaadi, Sapphire, Maria B. women are now more inclined to order online. This is because of their brand name and that consumers are convinced of the quality of their products.
The major concern among women when ordering online is the the payment method and whether the product can be exchanged. Even though Cash on Delivery is the most popular mode of payment, there are other options as well including branchless banking like easypaisa, Mobicash etc.
Flexibility of exchanging products purchased online is also increasingly prevalent among the online stores and marketplaces. This feature has allowed women to gain some trust and rectified their worry of losing their money on something they didn’t like.
Women have been recognized an integral market segment in terms of consumer spending. As a result online businesses are investing in order to tap the needs of women in order to increase their intention to buy online. Even though there are a lot of options for women in Pakistan, through which their shopping experience has been made easy, still these online business have to go a long way in order to give women what they really want.