Gen Z consumers are emerging as a key growth driver for India’s online fashion market, accounting for nearly half of all digital shoppers in the segment.
Based on Bain & Co data the cohort spends 1.5 times more on lifestyle than other age groups. The trend is contributing to strong growth in India’s online retail market, which has expanded to US $66 billion in gross merchandise value over the past five years.
The rise of Gen Z shoppers is also accelerating the growth of trend-first commerce, a model centred on frequent launches of affordable, trend-driven collections.
Bain & Co estimates that India’s trend-first fashion market is expected to grow fourfold to around US $8 billion–US $10 billion by 2028, with more than half of the revenue projected to come from online sales.
Industry experts noted that India’s large base of young, value-conscious and social media-savvy consumers is creating strong demand for trend-led fashion, while the country’s expanding influencer ecosystem is further fuelling adoption.
Fashion-focused platforms including Myntra, Amazon Fashion, Nykaa and SHEIN are strengthening their offerings to cater to Gen Z consumers, particularly through trend-led assortments, premium fashion categories and digital-first labels.
Globally, trend-first fashion platforms have scaled through social media-led targeting, rapid product launches, data-driven trend forecasting and highly personalised shopping experiences focused on novelty and engagement. In India, both offline and online players are increasingly adopting similar strategies to attract Gen Z shoppers and trend-conscious millennials.
Nikhil Sinha, Director at Amazon Fashion, said that Gen Z’s share of shoppers has risen to 52% from around 30% two years ago and browsing activity, visits and transactions from the segment have increased 2.5 times year-on-year, driven largely by rising demand from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
Sinha noted that shoppers in cities such as Indore, Lucknow, Jaipur and Surat are increasingly accessing the same global fashion trends, creators and styles as consumers in metropolitan markets like Mumbai and Bengaluru.
According to Suman Saha, CXO, House of Brands and FWD for Myntra, Gen Z now represents nearly half of its customer base and contributes close to half of all new customers added in 2025.
Apart from major platforms, brands such as Urbanic, Snitch and NewMe, along with retailers including Zudio, H&M and Zara, are also strengthening their trend-first offerings to capture a larger share of India’s growing Gen Z fashion market.
Industry executives also noted that Gen Z shoppers are showing a stronger preference for premium, trend-driven and digital-first fashion brands, accelerating the growth of D2C fashion and lifestyle labels in India.
