As we all know, E-commerce is booming! While I write this post as of June of 2023, It has already boomed. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when it was just starting to cause chaos and burdened the health and medical services around the globe due to an overwhelming number of infected patients and deaths.

In this pandemic, we saw a large rise in the digital services across various sectors. Let it be productivity tools, office management software, cloud based SAAS products and much more. There has also been a significant increase in the online shopping behavior of customers for fashion and apparel products.

A study done by McKinsey and Company specifically on a UK customer base, talks about some factors which contributed in the success of online fashion. It also talked about this rise in consumer buying behavior and the reasons which led to that buying behaviour. Looks like in 2020, 75% out of the collected sample space of 2642 buyers chose to shop online and they expected that projection to reach 85% in the following year. It also highlighted that out of the amount of budget people allocated for buying things 54% of that budget was spent in online orders while an additional 6% was made in buy online and collect offline channels keeping only 37% to purchase online. The study also highlights products like dresses, jumpsuits, athletic apparels, accessories, loungewear, lingerie, footwear, jeans, coats and jackets being one of the top items bought online by the same customers. 


This study also well highlighted the reasons why customers shop from a particular retailer?

While amazing experiences like live streaming to direct checkouts on social-media platforms drive customer interests but the toppers of the reasons list are interesting news and offers, relevant advertisements, appealing content, value for money, availability of size and their expectations being met are also some of the reasons. While this study shows the increasing rise of consumers intent in buying online, the reasons of buying online and the type of products they buy, we were curious to see if they face any issues whilst buying online specifically for fashion and apparel products and it looks like, they do! It doesn't just end there we also have a solution to solve this and this is why our bets are on Hyperlocal Marketplaces. But first, let's talk about the study.

When we came across this study by McKinsey and Company which highlights ways to improvise the numbers of returns for apparel companies looks like returns are almost inevitable and a major issue of online retailers. Turns out, 25% of products went to returns just in the post COVID periods and they expected the same number to rise along with the rise in the online sales. Further they mentioned about the reasons why managing returns is a difficult issue. Looks like,Managing returns in the retail industry, including apparel, poses significant challenges. Key challenges in returns management are not unique to apparel but prevalent across different retail segments. Maintaining consumer-friendly return policies, while satisfying customers, lead to higher return rates and added costs for retailers further reverse logistics processes are often fragmented and inefficient, making it difficult to invest in improving efficiency.

They study also highlights the facts that returns management involves multiple departments, leading to difficulties in defining ownership and accountability. Lack of aligned incentives among teams hinders coordination and reduces the impact of returns management. Data limitations prevent retailers from understanding the full economics of returns and addressing root causes effectively. Initiatives like advanced shopping tools have been used to reduce return rates, but comprehensive strategies are still limited. While even if advanced shopping tools are used, we also need to consider the higher costs involved to develop these shopping tools like 3D sizing technologies and they can have their own possible inaccuracies.


In this study, we noticed one solution to top the list i.e. "In-store clienteling tools" having the maximum effectiveness. Graph below:

When we saw In-store clienteling tools have the highest effectiveness of 6.0 but being one of the least used options by companies. This is where we see an evident gap which can be filled by Hyperlocal Marketplaces which pretty much provide the same features. Moreover the way a shopping model is setup by Hyperlocal Marketplaces, we can see an opportunity for brick and mortar stores to also increase the in-store footfall in a fraction of a cost or in the cost the retailers have already invested. One such hyperlocal marketplace is an app on Google Play Store called D'vastra which allows store owners to create their store in minutes, easily add products and on the other hand allows customers to browse products the convenience of their homes but touch, try and feel them in the store. What happens when we do that? The aspect of experiencing the product by themselves allows customers to be confident in terms of sizing or any visible defects which are not always possible to avoid in a purely online buying scenario.