According to data from ComScore in this week’s New Media Age, fashion websites as a sector have seen an 8% drop in traffic in January 2009 compared to January 2008. Some the of the most prominent UK fashion brands such as Next have seen a substantial drop in traffic (24%) with the Arcadia Group which includes Topshop and Topman falling 7%. However some sites have seen an increase in traffic, ASOS saw its traffic increase from 1.7m last January to 2.1m unique visitors this January. And as with the emergence of value supermarkets this year, value fashion retailers have also benefited from cash strapped consumers – traffic at New Look went up a staggering 93% from 700,000 visitors last year to 1.3m this year.
According to a survey by NMA themselves, 36% of shoppers planned to shop more online this year, with that in mind, retailers have an opportunity to try and halt the slide in visitors through better engagement with their consumers. Although, part of the drop will be down to the economic slowdown, it would not explain why ASOS has done so well over the past few years. Why is this? Because ASOS do not stock bargain basement clothing, quite the contrary in fact. A quick browse of their website I find Diesel, Firetrap and French Connection, hardly recession attire?
The reason why ASOS have done so well is because they offer the widest choice, stock the greatest number of brands, have an innovative and accessible website, backed up with a effective marketing campaign. And despite a clanger over the effectiveness of Affiliate marketing, the company’s strategy online has been pretty much flawless. Maybe it is not fair to compare orthodox retailers such as Topman that principally only stock their own lines and are priced at a certain level in the market, with a site like ASOS which has a much wider range and appeal. Of course with no bricks and mortar to pay for ASOS can keep costs down and invest heavily in the site.
However ASOS clearly demonstrate that there are lessons to be learned for other aspiring retailers about how to execute fashion marketing and promotion online. They send out daily emails to consumers, regularly have a wide selection of clearance items and also refresh the site with new stock on a regular basis. On top of this they run a successful social media campaign which amounted to 15.2% of their total traffic in November last year. Some brands have little chance of succeeding in a downturn, for example Marks and Spencer, who have seen profits slide of late. They have no choice, they cannot cheapen their offering else they will isolate their core customer base. However as ASOS have proved, build a great site offering what consumers demand and back it up with an exemplary marketing drive and you can increase profits even in a downturn.
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