Nothing gives a fashionista more butterflies than having her own fashion store, especially as selling gorgeous bits and bobs is as easy as slipping your foot into a pair of Louboutins. But selling fashion online, wow, that’s an entirely different battle.
Sure, the act of selling it is pretty simple. You pop it on your website – or a famed ecommerce platform – and wait for a buy to snap it off the metaphorical rail. The problem with ecommerce fashion comes with the fact experiential products and the digital world don’t make life easy because nobody wants to buy something until they’ve tried it. That’s a fact. Don’t believe us? Then how do you explain this: of the $359 billion spent on fashion last year, only 17% of that came from ecommerce.
Of course, that means there was still $60-odd-billion spent online and the trick to getting a slice of that pie is all about creating better customer experiences. So, without further ado, here are some tips to help you get ahead and future-proof your online fashion store.
- Make Them ‘Appy
Everyone shops on their phones these days, and of those everyone, 83% of consumers way prefer shopping on an app compared to a web browser. That’s because the experience is so much more user-friendly and simple. So, if you do anything this year, make sure it’s speaking to someone who specializes in IT services for businesses and ask them to sort you out with a native app. You will then be able to send out push notifications, hand out coupons, enjoy more repeat business and lap up loyal customers like never before.
- Virtual Fittings Are A Must
Your potential customers want to know that your products suit them, and that means fit them in all the right places. Virtual fitting makes sure of this, as Fits Me proves. This is an online fitting room that allows its shoppers to simply pop in their height, age, weight, and body shape, and then wait as Fits Me selects products that will fit and suit them. It’s the future.
- Augmented Reality Is Coming
The question of, “How will it look?” is one that has tortured the world of ecommerce fashion because there is no way for a customer to try something on. Or is there? Sure, the world of augmented reality isn’t quite there yet, but there are still some accessories that have found a way to make this work. Glasses.com is a great example. Users simply upload an image of their own face and then the app lets them view their entire inventory on themselves. It’s amazing.
- Show Them Some Love
We all know when we look good in a new outfit, but nothing reinforces that feeling more than having other people compliment how we look or how much they love what we are wearing. It’s called social approval, and you need to use this to your advantage. To do this, allow your users to upload images of themselves to your website or app so that your other users can like the outfits, or favorite them. It will keep your customers coming back, that’s for sure.
