With a consistent rise in home-grown businesses, women sellers are making up the majority of the sales of D2C brands in India according to Instamojo’s Women’s Day Insights. With over 56 per cent of the total sales initiated by D2C businesses being led by women and over 50 per cent of D2C businesses being owned by women, the D2C industry seems to be emerging as the next growth engine for enabling women entrepreneurs.

Commenting on the launch of the report, Sampad Swain, Co-founder and CEO at Instamojo said, “According to a McKinsey study, promoting equity of opportunities for women through jobs and entrepreneurship can add $12 trillion to the global economy by 2025 and the post-pandemic digital boom has provided this opportunity for women in India. On a daily basis, on the Instamojo platform, we see at least 5 new D2C brands being born which are owned and operated by women. 

This industry has given them the opportunity to expand their homegrown business into a D2C brand with customers across the world. We strongly believe that the next wave of D2C 2.0 would be driven by women who have the ambition and the curiosity to make it big. At the end of the day, it is this sort of impact that leads to embracing equity and what better than clocking it in the business space.”

This report is an analysis of all sales and demand being created by over 2 million D2C brands who use Instamojo to create their websites. Some of the key insights are as follows:

D2C emerges as a haven for women sellers, 56 per cent of all total sales of D2C sellers and 61 per cent of all buyers are women

• Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities contribute to the largest share of the women's D2C brands in India, making up for a total of 89 per cent of all D2C businesses led by women

• Delhi, Hyderabad, and Pune, the top 3 cities for women's D2C brands in India contributing 34 per cent, 18 per cent, and 17 per cent respectively to the total share of women-led D2C brands in India

• Delhi was the fastest-growing city for women-led brands, recording a growth of 36 per cent since 2021

Baby Products and Jewellery and Accessories have the highest number of women-led D2C businesses

• At 85 per cent women D2C brands, baby products is the largest category for women-led D2C brands, followed by Jewellery and Accessories at 79 per cent

• Baby products also saw the highest growth in women-led D2C business since 2021, at a growth rate of 33 per cent. Footwear brands were the second fastest growing for women-led D2C brands, at a growth rate of 13 per cent since 2021

Knowledge-based women-led D2C brands the best performing

• Women-led D2C brands that provide online courses and books saw the highest sales in 2023 making them the best-performing. Around 31 per cent of all sales made by women-led D2C brands were done by businesses that provide educational courses while 22 per cent of all sales made by women-led D2C brands were done by businesses that sells books

• Sales made by women-led D2C brands that sells books were also the fastest growing at the rate of 23 per cent