If you want to buy clothes online in Pakistan, there is not only a wide variety of options in terms of independent and outlet websites, you can also find products from different price levels, from small boutiques to large collections, from national level brands to names you would not have heard of. For a lot of women entrepreneurs designing and stitching small collections to sell in their neighborhoods or social circle, the internet provided a great opportunity to make it big and some did.
We will be reviewing some of the top websites selling apparel in Pakistan and look at features such as the product range, website design, service options and overall proposition.
Daraz.pk
Daraz is one of the largest online retailers in the country and the pioneer in enabling multiple brands and outlets to market their products to the online consumers. They have a beautiful website that is easy to browse and navigate in terms of narrowing down your search to the exact product that you are looking for as well as comfortable browsing through their collection. They have invested time and money in photographing the products properly with models or manikins so that online users can see the product clearly and from useful angles. This might not still stop some prospective buyers to prefer seeing the product in real life before they purchase it, but they go a great job at the level of detail they can provide.
From Sana Safinaz to Warda and Al Karam, Daraz has a strong suite of brands selling their products from this common marketplace, while Daraz performs the job of the middleman and running the online shop.
Labels E-Store
This store focuses on a high-end designer wear collection. You can browse the collection of individual designers or look at clothes by design (more than 70 options) or style (13 options). Most of the products have slashed prices, which might be representative of the pricing display strategy of the website or the actual pricing strategy to attract customers to the online portal.
Designer stores have to pay high levels of overheads to maintain and operate outlets in posh areas of cities, and any kind of diversion to online portals can work wonders for their bottom line. This website is easy to browse, the quality of the photos of the products and models is decent and the specifications and descriptions of the products are detailed.
According to the website, LABELS retails Maheen Kareem, Elan by Khadijah Shah, Umar Sayeed,Jannat & Sadaf, HSY, Ammara Khan, Faiza Samee, Sania Maskatiya, Sanam Chauhdri, Sara Shahid and many other designers. The original brick and mortar business dates back to 1996 and is linked to the popular TV Channel HUM TV.
The Warehouse
This website appeals to a younger crowd as compared to the previous two websites and offers more casual wear. This includes women’s shrugs and kurtas as well as men’s shirts and hoodies. The website design is simple and the products are displayed well. The pricing is also decent with (for example) polo shirts starting at PKR 695.
Other features such as exchange in 7 days, free delivery for orders over PKR 1500 and use of cash of delivery are standard in the industry and also used by the Warehouse. The demographic that they are targeting (teenagers and young adults) are the most active internet users in the country and also most likely to purchase products online.
Style Shop
This website has a more comprehensive range of clothes compared to The Warehouse – and/or slightly better cataloguing. They sell everything from sleep wear to party dresses from women and jackets to shorts for men. The focus is mostly on western styled clothing which fits better with the online shop model as these products come in standard sizes and are almost always ready-to-wear.
Zeen Woman by Cambridge
Zeen Woman’s website is a great example of an online portal for an actual brick-and-mortar store in the clothing industry. Zeen has stores in all the major cities in the country as well as an elegant website that displays their entire collection. The visuals are classy and the website is easy to browse. A great online ambassador for on-the-ground store can actually be a great way to direct foot traffic to the store even if the final sale isn’t always made online.
While this list is not comprehensive by any means, we tried to cover some of the top sites for buying clothes online in Pakistan while looking at different product ranges, business models and ideas.
