Source: ActivMedia ResearchOnline markets for Fashion & Style products (F&S) awoke in 1999, and promise to have a fabulous season in 2000. An influx of traditional mainstream shoppers to the Web in the past year has been encouraged by arrival of traditional mainstream marketers who are no longer merely testing the potential for online sales. Companies like JC Penney’s just closed a $100 million e-commerce season for 1999, up 370% from 1998’s meager beginnings. The result, across all F&S categories, is a $4.2 Billion online marketplace that still represents only 1.3% of the total $325 Billion spent for these goods in the U.S. Clearly, the potential for online markets in Fashion & Style merchandise is huge.
A new study by ActivMedia Research dispels and disputes traditional wisdom that all online markets are alike, that all consumers only seek bargains or novelty, or that “first-mover” advantages are the key to long-term success in major online markets. The new data indicates that in online Fashion & Style markets, today’s online consumers buy from names they know and trust in the offline world, and that branding and brand equity play a major role in certain online markets.
ActivMedia Research’s latest syndicated study, “Fashion & Style: Building Consumer Loyalty Online” , explores the foundations of success in this specific online market. The comprehensive, highly detailed study investigates the compelling factors that contribute to consumer loyalty online to Fashion & Style products and the vendors that sell and promote them online. Differences, similarities and cross-selling opportunities are evaluated in depth for five F&S product groups: Clothing, Jewelry & Accessories, Home & Garden, Furniture & Appliances, and Sporting Gear in an effort to provide specific guidance for merchandisers and website executives in the turbulent online markets.
ActivMedia Research’s VP of Research Harry Wolhandler points out that, “All the marketing effort in the world cannot offset failure to develop loyalty in the online Customer base. While pundits still mouth the early online wisdom that ’speed to market is the sure key to success,’ they are misinterpreting their experience in early online markets for books and computers and misapplying the results when faced with these newer online markets. In fact, it can be argued that high marketing expenditures that stimulate trial at sites that are unable to command loyalty are the fast path to oblivion as customers are exposed to a flawed online business at a more rapid pace.”
