When planning to start an eCommerce business, you are surrounded by many questions like:
eCommerce has shaped the global retail market. Today, eCommerce across multiple categories like fashion, electronics, food, etc., accounts for trillions of dollars of global sales and shows no signs of a downtrend. Our experts have performed an in-depth analysis and research on the online fashion and apparel market.
Read this guide to know the global perspective, opportunities, market leaders, trends, and checklist to step into this lucrative industry.
In 2021, the global fashion eCommerce market was valued at nearly 700 billion U.S. dollars. It is expected to surpass that figure by the end of 2022, and in 2025, it could reach just over 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars. The reason behind the explosive growth in this sector is the innovative technologies that have created online shopping an experience worth counting.
The global fashion industry is moving towards the decisive phase of digital adoption with growth in major countries across the globe. Here’s a quick overview of the Fashion eCommerce Industry Statistical data:
Marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are undoubtedly eCommerce giants with over 50% of eCommerce sales. In this fast-growing economy, entrepreneurs are leveraging digital innovations to connect with their target audience with a better and enhanced customer experience. Offline fashion retailers are turning to digital platforms to encash the growing markets.
Why does fashion eCommerce account for growth and futuristic opportunity?
Due to these numerous opportunities in the fashion eCommerce industry, entrepreneurs and business owners are able to tap the untapped markets, increase their customer base, and ultimately increase profit margins. The fashion eCommerce industry can be further segregated based on the products like
Clothing and Apparel:The eCommerce market segment for Apparel covers all types of clothing items for men, women, and children. The revenue in this segment is expected to show an annual growth rate of 11.90% from 2022 to 2027, resulting in a projected market volume of US$12,470.00m by 2027.
With a projected market volume of US$143,000.00m in 2022, most revenue is generated in China. The number of users in this segment is expected to amount to 395.0m users by 2027. User penetration is expected to hit 26.9% by 2027 and the average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$25.48.
Shoes:This segment includes all kinds of footwear such as casual shoes, slippers, etc. Revenue in this segment is expected to show an annual growth rate of 10.28% from 2022 to 2027, resulting in a projected market volume of US$192.80bn by 2027. With a projected market volume of US$30,160.00m in 2022, most revenue is generated in the United States.
In the Footwear segment, the number of users is expected to amount to 2,994.8m users by 2027. User penetration will be 27.3% in 2022 and is expected to hit 37.7% by 2027. The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$56.85.
Accessories and Bags:The eCommerce market for the Bags & Accessories segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2022 to 2028.
Jewelry and Luxury items:This eCommerce segment comprises luxury goods like watches, jewelry, eyewear cosmetics, and fragrances. The luxury goods marketplaces have shown an upsurge during the last ten years. Revenue in the Luxury Goods market amounts to US$312.60bn in 2022. The market is expected to grow annually by 5.40% between 2022 and 2027.
In global comparison, most revenue is generated in the United States which is US$69,520.00m in 2022.
Selling the best fashion brands cannot guarantee the success of your fashion eCommerce platform. Success in online fashion or lifestyle not only depends on the products, a business owner needs to think beyond it. In order to make the visitors stay on your website, here are some online fashion marketplace engagement tips to ensure that the audiences connect with your business.
These tips are ideas that top fashion brands are already following and sustaining greater profit from their online fashion marketplaces.
Personalization:This trend has been popular in the eCommerce industry. Tracking user behaviors through purchasing history data, browsing behavior, demographics, and psychographics has helped brands build across different connections with users. According to Statista, 19 percent of responding U.S. consumers said that personally relevant content significantly increased their purchase intent, with 59 percent saying that personalized content somewhat increased their intent to purchase.
Today the majority of sales are influenced by personal recommendations or promotions. Personalized messages, offers, and experiences have proved to increase revenues across the eCommerce industry. Whether the customer is new or returning, it is very important to know the following factors to get the personalization right:
If we get these right, we can then focus on the kinds of personalization strategies we want to provide to the customers. Personalization in fashion eCommerce can be:
Influencers Culture:Brands discovered that people who truly followed fashion loved to read and interact with influencers and creative designers. To engage customers, online fashion brands started catering to the fashion industry, social media influencers, and designers who would actually tell the idea behind their designs
User-Generated Content as Social Proof:To underline the brands as more authentic and genuine, user-generated content has become an ultimate savior. Utilizing the user content to resonate with customers and show the use of products in real life. People trust reviews and take them closer to the decision-making stage. One of the biggest eCommerce marketplaces Amazon too runs a review process on everything a customer buys.
Amazon sends emails to its huge customer base to submit their reviews. These reviews improve the SEO of the product pages and drive social proof.
We are witnessing a systematic shift in the commerce world. Today offline retailers are making steady moves to enter the online eCommerce arena. It comes as no surprise that Amazon and eBay command the majority of eCommerce sales. Here are some of the market leaders in the fashion industry across the globe that have shown exponential growth over the last few years.
| Sr.No | Name | Region/Country | Visitors per Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zalando | Europe | 119.0M |
| 2 | ASOS | Global | 76.3M |
| 4 | Dafiti | South America | 30.5M |
| 5 | Lamoda | Russia | 16.1M |
Like any other marketplace, the online fashion and apparel industry works in a similar manner. Here’s an overview of the functioning of such kind of online fashion marketplace:
Business owners can implement different commission rates for different products and for different sellers. A fashion eCommerce marketplace can charge a membership fee for opening the online store in addition to the commission on every sale. There can be secondary sources of revenue such as
Here’s a checklist that you must thoroughly analyze before launching your platform to reduce complexities and ease the work for every user on the platform.
Product Catalog:The product catalog feature allows the owner/admin of the fashion eCommerce marketplace to control and manage as many catalogs as possible. The vendors select the product from the existing catalog and add it to their inventory and mention the pricing. The feature helps to enhance the overall experience of online shopping as the admin controls and optimizes the product images, descriptions, and specifications.
Payment Gateways: Payment Gateways play a significant role in the online retail environment as they are the digital equivalent of credit card processors. Payment gateways conform to safer payment transactions and safeguard against security issues. Multiple payment gateways make it easy for users to order products instantly online.
Analytics & Reporting:It is extremely important to review the performance of your marketplace. Based on the number, you can decide the future strategies and goals. Having a close look at the visitor statistics, sales report, and traffic analysis helps you understand your customers & reduce marketing costs.
Seamless Product Management:If you aim to scale your business rapidly and want millions of products, it is very imperative that your eCommerce platform has strong and robust product management that easily allows the marketplace owner to manage the products.
Customizability: Your eCommerce platform should be customizable according to the growing needs of the consumer. A future-facing solution is the need of the hour to customize and scale the business as per the current/ongoing marketing scenarios.
Multicurrency:The biggest convenience of a multi-currency platform is easy accounting and global expansion. Billing the customers in their preferred currency unit improves their user experience on the platform.
Mobile Applications:Personalization is one of the major reasons why mobile apps are performing better than desktops. Mobile applications help buyers to make purchases on the go and make them aware of real-time discounts and sales. Mobile apps have been proven to increase customer engagement and retention. Developing mobile apps for your eCommerce marketplace will help in increasing the business with a convenient and customized shopping experience for the buyers.
Rewards and Discounts:Rewards and discounts are an extra way to win additional revenue and word of mouth for your eCommerce marketplace. They have been highly effective in encouraging customers to shop online and driving customer loyalty. Not only rewards and discounts are driving sales but are a great way to increase product awareness and reach.
Responsive Layout:A well-optimized website will bring more visitors and conversions. A responsive web design allows a seamless user experience across multiple devices. Ease of use, better site speed, and increased conversion rates are not the only reasons why responsive designs, search engines too favor responsive stores online.
Smart Recommendations:Including recommendations as a part of the user experience has helped in increasing the average order. Displaying a list of suggested products based on the browsing history helps in personalizing the user shopping experience and therefore increasing the conversion rate of your eCommerce store.
Review and Rating:The majority of people read reviews before making a purchase online. Reviews and ratings have become an innovative way to gain social proof that persuades customers to buy online.
Streamlined Checkout:A streamlined checkout process is directly linked with the conversion rate for an eCommerce marketplace.
If you want to sell online, an eCommerce platform is a must-have. Fortunately, the market is full of high-performing and reliable eCommerce software that can support your storefront. However, instead of quickly choosing the easiest and cheapest option, try to answer the following questions in your mind.
One option is going for SaaS solutions, which are actually subscription-based software. These are built and maintained by third-party vendors and are available for rent. By paying a monthly or yearly subscription, SaaS users have access to the pre-designed themes, plugins, modules, templates and add-ons that allow users to customize their storefront.
However, the monthly/yearly recurring subscription cost increases the total ownership cost to a huge extent. Moreover, issues such as identity and access management need to be addressed before trusting any third-party service providers. If this is not enough, software running on a remote server often lacks in performance when compared to the on-premise one.
The other option is a readymade solution offering complete control over the source code, thus allowing for complete customization. The upfront purchasing cost may seem a bit more than the SaaS, however, the total ownership cost is much low in the long run. The readymade solutions also offer the ability to start small and scale the businesses at a later stage to accommodate the growing needs.
One such solution is Yo!Kart that has all the benefits associated with a readymade customizable solution. On-premise hosting, lower cost of ownership, faster go-to-market time, coupling with platform-wide APIs, and integration with external applications and services make it an ideal eCommerce marketplace solution.
Yo!Kart is developed to tick all the boxes required to start and launch a winning fashion marketplace. Check out the features & modules and case studies of Yo!Kart, and if you are ready to proceed, book a meeting with us for a free initial consultation. You can also have a look at the demo and explore how Yo!Kart can help create a customized marketplace solution for your fashion marketplace idea.
Yes, Yo!Kart is a white-label solution that provides the majority of eCommerce features a fashion marketplace would need.
Can I launch mobile apps for my fashion eCommerce marketplace?Yes, Yo!Kart offers customer-centric buyer mobile apps for Android and iOS to provide a seamless shopping experience to customers.
Yes, our eCommerce platform is fully customizable and can be customized as per business requirements.
The cost of building a fashion eCommerce platform depends on the approach you decide on. If you choose to develop the platform from scratch, the cost of the platform will be very high. The starting cost of building with a readymade solution like Yo!Kart will be $999 and will vary as per the requirements.
Launching an online fashion marketplace with the help of Yo!Kart will depend upon the customizations. With the GoQuick package, the marketplace can be built and launched within 5-7 days.
To conclude, hope you have gained sufficient information in building a fashion eCommerce marketplace. With an upward trend and numerous successful business models, starting an online shop can be an easy recipe for success. You need to understand the market and should effectively leverage the above-mentioned information that will help you in building a strong marketplace platform that can survive well in the market.
And lastly, when backed by the perfect eCommerce solution like Yo!Kart and a strong business plan, there’s never been a better time to bring your clothing store dreams to life.
