Online has potential to boost net fashion sales – Fits.me

07 Sep '13

2 min read

The latest results of the BRC-KPMG Online Retail Sales Monitor reveals that retailers would have been struggling in August without the boost that fashion and footwear sold through the online channel provided.

Online accounted for 22.5% of fashion sales in August, up from 19.7% in 2012, which makes it clear that online and retail are working hand in hand.

According to Heikki Haldre, co-founder and CEO of Fits.me, a virtual fitting room solution company – “Online has the potential to increase net sales even if gross sales are down.”

He adds, “By now, surely everyone who regularly or even occasionally buys clothes online has had at least one experience when the clothes they bought didn’t fit. Confirmation that shoppers try on clothes in-store but opt to buy them online comes as little surprise.

“It’s not exactly the greatest customer experience and from a retailer point of view there is too much opportunity for shoppers to get distracted during their purchase journey and complete their purchase with a different retailer.

“Far better, surely, to use the fantastic technologies available today to enable the shopper to find clothes, try them on ‘virtually’ there and then, and complete the purchase immediately. That’s a vastly improved experience for the customers, and for the retailer there’s far less opportunity for customer to be distracted elsewhere.

“Almost a quarter of clothing purchases in August were made online. Without online fit solutions, an average of 25% of these items will have been, or will be, returned, mostly for reasons of fit.

“Put another way: without a virtual fitting room solution to reduce garment return rates, retailers will need to make more and more gross sales simply to maintain the same net sales”, he winds up by saying.

Fits.me

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