How Does the Indian Millennial Shop Fashion?

There has been a massive addition to the international fast fashion brands, that are opening stores in the Indian metropolitan cities in the past few years. There is a group of earning Indian millennials, who travel the world or aspire to. They have higher disposable incomes as compared to previous generations & splurge on valuable experiences.

So lets talk about the mindset of this millennial group, these are the customers to most fashion brands and service industries today.Please note the information provided is based on various interactions with millennials and trend studies during primary research, for various topics around ones lifestyle. It was interesting to find such a great influence of their experiences on their retail buying behaviour.

The context of the immersions was a mix of understanding their goals, motivations, lifestyle habits, disposable incomes, shopping trends, etc.Heres a compilation of how an Indian millennial student / working professional with the disposable income to shop from brands and malls, makes decisions.1.

Following the WestThe tech-savy Indian shoppers buying behaviour is influenced by their lifestyle. Constant exposure to social media apps like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, etc. This leads to following trends & building mood-boards by inspirational social media influencers, ads of varied brands all day, international Netflix shows, close circles of friends and family traveling the world, etc.

Exposure and connect with the world along with a first hand experience as a student or traveller encourages them to dress like it. Ever thought about why you dress a certain way?People set a personality type of themselves in their heads & dress relevant to it.

Often self identification with an influential and aspirational figure pushes one to appear like the figure.Subconsciously, a customer identifies with whats trending by recalling visuals of a garment seen earlier. Next, they try to imagine how they would appear in the garment.

2. CustomisationIn the Indian fashion wear context especially around weddings, designers like Sabyasachi have a huge influence on millennials directly or indirectly. First copies of their designs or images of their designs can easily be found even in the buzzing local wedding shopping markets.

Other brands like Fab India, Good Earth, Anokhi, etc seem to be leaving a mark on the Indian millennial for branded Indian apparel.Most brands for casual ethnic wear can easily be found in malls, multi-brand stores and shop in shops.The more common ways of shopping Indian wear for a millennials parent and grandparent was to get fabric stitched by imagining the fall and feel of the fabric on themselves.

This custom service has not died out for the millennials, but has definitely reduced drastically with the constant ease of having things delivered and returned with the ready to wear options. Custom tailoring appears to be a time consuming affair today and an effort involving task. There is a certain amount of struggle to visualise a fabric fall and not be able to identify with the model photographed in custom tailored outfits due to different body types.

A masterji is generally known traditionally by the family or feared from due to the fear of the unknown finished product. Word of mouth plays a very important role when trusting a masterji with ones custom tailored outfit.Custom tailoring is struggling to service in a country filled with masterjis.

Custom tailoring is slowly becoming a premium service especially due to the risk of getting something stitched after that does not fit well by an unknown tailor. After having spent so much time and money looking for the right fabric.3.

Brand loyalty dynamicsMillennials are constantly exposed with numerous apps showing them all their options new and old be it for picking food, brands, online shows and what not. The universe of options on their finger tips and the want to try something new each day.With the easy access to internet in their hands, millennials shop smart by easily comparing prices online and in stores and finding the best deals.

Millennials rarely seem to be brand loyal, but are highly brand conscious. Offers, sales and various price points influence their decisions more than the name of the brand. Big or small a brand promises quality clothing and thats all that matters to a millennial.

4. Smart shoppers that careThe Indian millennial may not understand or be interested in the details of thread count, material details, ways of stitching, etc. But a simple tag of green design or helping fund a NGO does play on their minds.

They do seem to consciously care a lot more about being able to give back in whatever small way possible to the society.Millennials are shoppers that care about the people involved in making their garment, environmental impacts, animal testing, etc more of a concern than knowledge about technical details of the garments make. 5.

Paying an extra premiumWho doesnt like feeling pampered? Brands are growing more and more customer centric today with serving their customers right each day. Paying a little extra for being treated well is something millennials are enjoying with all the apps and brands they are exposed to, from to ones hairdresser everyone is treating their customer right.

Customers dont mind paying extra if treated well and hyper personalisation, recalling a customer by their name, etc are feel good aspects that drag a customer back into environments with the recall value of how good they felt the last time. To summarise the article I would say, the Indian millennial values experiences and cherish spending their time in places they care about and vice versa. So creating experiences that gets your customers hooked to you with these factors is a great way to retain customers.

Constant upgradation of the experience provided by serving your customer better than you did the last time they visited you is the best way to stick to their minds. Thank you,Khyati Seth.