Almost half (45%) of consumers now prefer shopping for clothes and accessories online, while 64% consult a fashion retailer’s website before purchase, according to a new study.
The latest ‘Multichannel Fashion Report’ from e-commerce providers GSI Commerce points to a decrease in the number of consumers concerned about common problems with purchasing from online fashion retailers, such as the lack of ‘touch and feel’ of items.
Hosein Moghaddas, VP & MD International of GSI Commerce commented: “The online fashion buying boom is long overdue, primarily due to the problem that consumers had with not being able to touch and feel items by buying online. However, it’s clear that fashion retailers have pulled out all the stops to eliminate this issue by installing features including advanced zoom facilities, interactive catwalks and 360 rotation options. Most of the leading fashion brands now have these options widely available, and it appears to have worked.”
Optimisation attracts online and offline fashion consumers
The figures also revealed which aspects of the shopping experience attract consumers to fashion retailers’ online and offline outlets over those of competitors.
Results show that over half (56%) like being able to filter searches by size, colour and price over any other online feature. Conversely, only 5 per cent of consumers claimed that their buying decisions were engaged in any way by the presence of celebrity videos and adverts.
The results also identified which in store features attract consumers to visit bricks and mortar fashion stores most. 43 per cent said that they would like to determine delivery time and location where items were not on shelves.
A further 42 per cent of shoppers said they would like to see more transactional online kiosks (as pioneered by John Lewis), which replicate online inventory and allow a consumer to determine delivery schedules.
A third (35%) also claimed that retailers could do no more to persuade a shopper to visit a bricks and mortar store.
Luxury fashion retailers offer the worst integrated customer service
Luxury fashion retailers were generally cited as offering the worst online and offline customer service; favoured by only 10 per cent of respondents.
Winning 33 per cent of the votes, department stores were the clear winners of the best online and offline customer services mantle. Grocery retailers (such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco) followed with 20 per cent, and all other forms of retailers, including high street fashion brands, tailed behind in the list.
The report reveals almost 9 in 10 (86%) consumers expect customer service teams to be aware of a complaint they’d made, regardless of the channel they used to make it. For example, if a customer made a complaint through a fashion retailer’s Facebook page, then they would expect its call centre to be completely aware of the enquiry should the customer follow up later on.
Moghaddas continues: “It is now imperative that fashion retailers give shoppers the same shopping experience at every level. In this ‘omnichannel’ era where the consumer is king, it is of no consequence to your audience which channel they use, or whether a retailer is out of stock of an item in one store. Brands now have everything at their disposal to make sure that their customer’s shopping experience is completely synchronised, regardless of where they are searching.”
Methodology
This survey has been conducted in partnership with OnePoll, and was undertaken during the period 2nd – 8th May 2011. Total sample size was 2,000 adults. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults.
Source: www.gsicommerce.eu