UK online fashion retail sales soar at Christmas

The big retail story of the Christmas season may have been about a strong recovery in brick-and-mortar stores, but it also had its place online. The new data suggests that electronic sales have gained in importance since mid-December and especially in the period just after Christmas.

Digital fashion sales rose at the end of December “as Boxing Day deals fueled increased demand among price-sensitive shoppers looking for discounts on clothing and footwear,” according to data-driven platform True Fit.

Its Fashion Genome dataset showed a spike in web traffic to online fashion sites in mid-December, up 26% year-over-year. He also said that with the increase in traffic, demand for fitness advice has also increased, with True Fit registrations up 30% in December.

Then UK online fashion orders jumped 53% month-on-month in the last week of December. In the week leading up to Christmas, consumers were concerned about orders and non-delivery on time. However, once Christmas Day passed, they took to the e-shops again as they looked for bargains, hence the massive change from week to week.

The figures support other reports that came out about December retail sales with BDO earlier defying forecasts for the month overall and Wunderkind pointing to a post-Christmas online surge.

True Fit’s full-month data also showed that fashion orders from online multi-brand retailers significantly outpaced orders from direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, with digital stores seeing 50% more demand than their DTC competitors over Christmas. peak trading season.

The company believes it could also be related to consumers trying to cut down on their spending, choosing to place multiple orders through one online retailer in an effort to pay just one delivery fee instead of having to pay separate fees for each order placed with multiple retailers, as well as increased levels of credit offered by multi-brand retailers compared to brands.

Sarah Curran, EMEA MD of True Fit, said: “While retailers remained cautious heading into the peak of trading with many forecast to trade down due to cost of living concerns, we saw some retailers, including Seasalt and Next, outperform expectations.

“But retailers won’t be taking a rose-colored view of these results – they know that economic headwinds will continue into 2023, leading to further caution in consumer spending and extended consideration phases in shoppers’ shopping journeys. And that will mean they will have to fight harder and smarter to win every conversion and sale.”