The Key to E-Commerce Success: Treat Clothing as Content

Some procuring experiences are extra addictive than others.

The age-old methods manufacturers have drawn customers again to their websites and apps is with e mail prompts, promotions and, most significantly, new stuff individuals will need to purchase. Quick vogue was constructed on this working mannequin, and it’s a key ingredient of among the most-addictive procuring experiences.

The poster baby for this method right this moment is Shein, which commonly uploads thousands of new items daily. However this type of hook isn’t solely discovered at Shein and even simply in quick vogue. Resale websites and apps like The RealReal, Grailed, Poshmark and others have the same enchantment. Theirs is a slower however nonetheless regular stream of novel gadgets to browse — a number of instances a day for some customers.

These disparate clothes feeds aren’t far off from the social-media feeds that draw us again a number of instances a day. It’s like cute canine photos, however vogue. It’s clothes as content material. And types are simply getting began.

The concept of utilizing new arrivals to commonly draw customers again isn’t, in fact, new in itself. Late within the 1600s, Louis XIV mandated textile makers produce new designs twice a 12 months, successfully creating our modern fashion seasons and spurring consumption by the wealthy as they shopped to maintain up with seasonally altering types. Somewhat extra just lately, Zara-owner Inditex gained fame for delivering collections to shops twice every week so there was all the time a cause to wander in.

Quick vogue retains getting quicker, extra customers are shopping for garments on-line they usually’re more and more doing so by handheld computer systems we name smartphones that enable them to buy each time and wherever they like.

I wrote about these shifts in 2015, and from what I can inform, they’ve solely accelerated since. Enterprise fashions, provide chains and consumer experiences have been optimised to make retailers quicker, extra environment friendly and extra participating to customers, usually by using know-how. That could possibly be something from a digitally built-in provide chain that lets a model quickly reply to traits surfacing on social media or AI that enables it to personalise what the consumer sees so that they’re solely served gadgets they’ll like.

The growth in on-line resale has added a curious dimension to the scenario, since shopping for used is arguably one of many more practical methods to counter vogue’s overproduction. However resale websites can nonetheless faucet into the will to see new gadgets on a regular basis. I purchase most of my clothes used — and discover myself checking just a few totally different websites regularly. There’s all the time contemporary stock, and since there’s usually solely certainly one of every merchandise obtainable, with occasional offers available, it produces the texture of a treasure hunt. (Grailed, a males’s resale website, advised me for an additional story I wrote in 2016 that customers will verify it very first thing within the morning once they get up.)

Non-tech traits are contributing. Drops and collaborations present an everyday drip of hyped items and vogue’s pop-culture enchantment has solely broadened, fuelling the urge for food for clothes.

The result’s extra procuring websites and apps you’ll be able to go to every day, or generally repeatedly in a day, out of your sofa or wherever you might be. It’s very like scrolling by Instagram, and simply trying on the garments — to chill out, to keep away from work, to kill time throughout commercials — is nearly nearly as good as shopping for them. Extra than simply bodily merchandise, they’re digital media too.

To learn extra from BoF’s Know-how Correspondent Marc Bain, sign up for our Weekly Technology Briefing out each Thursday, exploring how blockchain, AI, 3D, prolonged actuality and different improvements will change how vogue companies design, manufacture, distribute, market, promote and resell their merchandise.

For extra on know-how, make certain to not miss the BoF Professional Summit: New Frontiers in Fashion and Technology on Wednesday, Could 4 2022. Full entry to the livestream is included together with your BoF Skilled Membership.