Online shopping websites in Pakistan, to which a large traffic of women come to make an online purchase, have been keeping track of their purchasing behaviour in Pakistan. A report aired by a private news channel said, there are high peak times, when there are a large number of potential female consumers looking for an online purchase.
Various recent studies have confirmed the fact that Pakistan's commerce industry is growing fast and has the potential of expanding multi folds in the near future.
In Pakistan, there are 30 million internet users. Among them online purchases have accounted for $30 million and are expected to grow.
But most of these purchases are recorded to be done far more than males relative to the female population. According to the Commerce Report on 2015, 70% of the online purchases are done by males while only 30% are carried out by female internet users.
This figure is substantially low because of variety of reasons. There are some concerns which regard women more than men when shopping online.
Women's intention to shop is largely dependent on an experience of first hand narration from a reliable friend who shopped online. So word of mouth plays a strong role in their intention to buy online.
When a woman has to shop online, it's mostly because of fashion related.
Even though she would prefer to shop physically but if she faces some hindrance or wants to avoid the rush, she would open up her laptop or mobile app and start browsing.
They also shop online if they can't find something similar in the shops which she knows or the fact that they are only available online and are in trend. Pakistanis make online purchases between 2:00pm to 8:00pm.
Furthermore, the mode of delivery and payment method also plays a major role in women's intention to shop online.
Despite the availability of other payment methods, cash on delivery is the most common mode of payment among e-commerce users of Pakistan.
This is mostly because of the physical association factor. As long as they don't physically see and touch the product, they will be skeptical of their money being lost.