The e-retailing environment has changed drastically due to evolving online purchasing patterns (Zhang et al., 2019). With internet-connected devices and easy access to internet connection facilities, consumers prefer to purchase online to fulfil their requirements, such as movie tickets, flight tickets, apparel products, beauty products, and grocery items (Ariffin et al., 2018). Among all product categories, apparel products played a leading role in e-retailing within the past decades (Zhang et al., 2019). According to Statista (2021), the fashion industry is considered the most considerable B2C e-commerce activity, with US $ 752.5 billion in global volumes in 2020, and it is estimated to reach US $ 1164.7 billion in 2025.
When considering the Sri Lankan context, there were 10.90 million internet users in January 2021 (Datareportal, 2021). Approximately 34.11% of Sri Lankans had internet access by 2019 (Statista, 2021). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2020) expressed that over half the population in highincome countries engage in online shopping compared to low-middle-income countries, where their proportion of online shopping was only 5% of the total population. Also, the adoption rate of online shopping is high in developed countries rather than in developing countries (Pentz et al., 2020). The retail apparel sector in Sri Lanka is showing rapid development because people intend to follow and be updated with the latest and trending fashions (De Silva & Herath, 2019). Most of the traditional apparel retailers have expanded their business into online platforms and also Sri Lankan consumers have switched very slowly from traditional retail stores to online platforms (De Silva & Herath, 2019).
