Clothing and fashion are very vulnerable to high street decline because online clothing sales only amount to 15% of total apparel sales, compared to perhaps half of all sales for books and consumer electronics.
When the High Street sneezes, clothing retailers catch a cold – as we have seen several times this year already. So, slowing online growth should be a call to action for retailers to innovate in order to restore growth, boost the proportion of online sales to a healthier percentage and reduce that vulnerability.”
“What do clothing retailers need to do? They need to repair the purchase journey, which has changed – arguably, broken – in the shift to online. In-store, customers acquire tangible information such as appearance, availability, cost, quality, colours, texture and size.
Then they make a decision based on those attributes and additional, personal factors such as the affordability, value-for-money, desirability or fit of the item in question. Online, much of this information-gathering process is completely disrupted: colours sometimes display differently, texture is tough to convey, and quality will most likely be inferred from the price or from the brand in question.
And without a virtual fitting room to enable shoppers to try on an item before they buy, the highly personal decision over fit becomes almost impossible – guesswork, even.”
Addressing these issues is where clothing retailers need to innovate. Solve these deficiencies and people will be happier to buy online, promoting growth via that channel.”
