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Unbroken sunshine for online clothing and footwear retailers

There may be doom and gloom on our high streets due possibly to the worst summer any of us can remember, and combined with a pessimistic forecast for our economy, but for online clothing and footwear retailers there's been unbroken sunshine.

Within a number of sectors which include electrical goods and beer & wine, clothing and footwear has seen one of the highest levels of year-on-year online sales growth. Furthermore recent figures reveal that the bad weather appears to have driven this even further during the first half of this year, with clothing sales up by 32%, lingerie sales up 37% and footwear showing an increase of 38%.

For high street retailers the poor weather conditions have simply kept customers away, however these impressive online sales figures show that they appear to have ventured onto the internet as an alternative. This trend has been welcomed by online retailers, and is further supported by last year's figures when in July the country experienced torrential downpours. Again this led to a substantial 85% increase in online clothing and footwear sales totalling over £90 million during the third week of July 2007. 

Of course it’s not just the wonderful British summer that is driving this rapid online growth, but a combination of other influential factors. Improved access to faster broadband connections has been an important trigger to the recent explosion in online shopping, along with a rise in consumer confidence in online security driven by the banking industry and payment service providers.

Clothing and footwear sales have grown relatively slowly online due to the challenges of being able to offer consumers an experience that ultimately results in a purchase. Improved website technologies such as the ability to offer multiple images, magnifying tools and video clips to name but a few have all resulted in improved conversion rates for online retail websites encouraging retailers to diversify onto the internet. Young people are of course a key target audience for the clothing and footwear industry and this generation spends an increasing amount of time using the internet. Social networking sites such as Facebook work as effective organic marketing tools, and internet advertising itself can be particularly cost-effective due to its ability to accurately target customers and channel them right to the products they are looking for.

For those struggling with inconsistent high street performance the internet offers not only a viable additional sales channel but also offers the potential for long term growth. Online shopping accounted for 15% of all retail sales in the UK during 2007, and over the next five years this is expected to rise to between 30% and 50%.

Figures from the IMRG (Interactive Media In Retail Group) Capgemini Index.
In association with www.fashioncapital.co.uk