Via The Financial Times, a look at online retail in India:

When it comes to internet users, India is growing fast. While the number of internet users globally rose 7 per cent last year, the figure was 41 per cent in India.

And this is creating some interesting opportunities – not least for clothing retailers.

A new report from Comscore, the online researcher, finds there are now 62.6m people above the age of fifteen accessing the internet from home or work in India. That’s still only around 5 per cent of the total population of 1.2bn, so there’s still a long way to go. India also compares well in growth terms to its Bric peers, as this chart shows:

But within that 62m, Comscore found that over three-quarters of Indians online are under 35, and this is reflected in the activities gaining in popularity. Visitor numbers to games websites have grown 60 per cent in the past year and Facebook is also seeing the benefit, with a growth rate of 47 per cent.

Ecommerce may have been left untouched in the recent FDI reforms but this is one of India’s markets with great potential – Comscore labels the growth in this sector “explosive”. At present, three out of five Indian internet users visit shopping websites, a 43 per cent increase on the previous year. And clothing is the fastest growing category, with visitor numbers rising a whopping 362 per cent.

Manu Kumar Jain, co-founder of Jabong.com, an online apparel retailer, told beyondbrics: “Online shopping is rising tremendously not only in the metropolises but also becoming a trend in the small cities, where people have the aspiration and purchasing power to buy but do not have accessibility to the brands and products.”

Growth in online retail will also depend on developments in payment methods. Direct debits are used for 58 per cent of online transactions, but these include travel bookings on India’s popular rail system, which pushes up the number. For online retail, cash on delivery is still the most popular way to pay.