Demand from smaller cities pushes lingerie sales

Chennai: With muted offline sales due to lockdowns, women’s innerwear sales are up 4-5x, driven by increased online demand from tier 2 and 3 cities. Closed shops and work from home culture have led to new customers on online platforms in smaller towns, say innerwear brands.
For Zivame its digital platform now contributes 90% of the business with robust demand — with over 50% higher demand YoY coming in from tier 3 and tier 4.There is demand for comfy bras and underwear and multi-purpose sleepwear and loungewear, the company said.
According to a May, 2021 report of consulting firm RedSeer, Indian female innerwear market stands at $6-$7 billion as of CY20 which is 9% of the overall apparel market.
About 30% of the market is driven by the metro cities. It estimates the online female innerwear market to reach around $11-$12 billion by 2025.
Enamor’s online share of the business has grown to the tune of 4-5x as of May, 2021 on a year-on-year basis. “Ours is a premium brand, hence, we get most of the business from tier 1 cities. However, demand is now driven by most people adopting work from home (which includes those who returned back to their homes in tier-2 and 3 cities) which has contributed to the rise in home wear and lingerie sales. However, the fashion wear and occasion wear categories are dull, since people no longer take vacations and have celebrations,” Enamor CEO Shekhar Tewari said.
Enamor’s core lingerie business has increased to 25% of total business, as against 5% a year ago on the back of online sales. This despite the fact that the price of cotton has gone up by 30%-40% in the last 7-8 months. Online lingerie store Clovia says despite muted growth seen in its 250 offline stores, sales of innerwear and ancillaries have grown by 90%-95% between October 2020 to May 2021.
“The demand from non-metro cities have grown substantially in the last few months and we have gone from selling one piece of brassier per second in May 2020 to selling four pieces of brassieres per second in May 2021,” said Clovia CEO Pankaj Verman. Its monthly sales stand between 6.5 lakh and 7 lakh pieces.