It’s been 1.5 years.
Said goodbye to your sweatshirt yet?
Vaccination rates are up, and North Americans are getting ready to go back to the office. Borders are starting to open up, airlines are back on the runways – it’s finally starting to feel more normal again.
As people start to socialize more, travel more, and spend more time outside the house – they also want to look good. This means more money spent on fashion and retail.
So, what does this mean for the retail industry?
Goodbye sweatshirts & sweatpants, hello fashion
1.5 years ago, everything changed.
A global pandemic started, and this impacted businesses and people like never before. The pandemic lead to most North Americans working from home. Many businesses had to close their physical locations for an extended period of time. This meant little to no face-to-face interaction.
As a result, people cared less about what they wore. For many, it was sweatshirts & sweatpants on a daily basis.
The retail sector suffered because of this. It is estimated that 80% of transactions in the fashion industry still happen in physical stores. With stores being closed, this caused a further decline in retail sales.
But, as the world starts to open up again things look a lot brighter. In 2021, digital sales in the fashion industry are expected to increase by 20% annually.
Let’s take a look at how retailers can prepare for a surge in online retail demand.
Retailers: Preparing for the back-to-work apparel surge
1. Use a multi-channel approach
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The same could be said about marketing.
The fewer people you reach, the less chance you will find your potential customers. A multi-channel approach allows you to reach a much larger audience by allocating your marketing budget to more than one channel. You can then tailor your messaging to different audience segments.
Different channels to be utilized are: display, social, search, video etc.
2. Offer a promotion
Who doesn’t like a little incentive? This is a good opportunity to win customers over from top competitors.
Entice people to choose you by providing value with a small token of appreciation. Promotions don’t always have to be tangible, you can also offer a discount or coupon.
Promotions are great for attracting new customers who don’t know much about your business or brand. They bring back current customers too!
3. Make shopping online easy
Whatever you are selling or offering, make it accessible for your customers. In other words, ensure you have a seamless customer experience by making it easy for customers to take action.
As well, provide customers with quick support if they need it. You can do this by incorporating a chat bot on your website or by having a dedicated phone line.
There is never too much information. Always provide your customers with enough information about your offering.
4. Utilize social channels
Everyone is on social media these days – even your parents and grandparents (well, maybe – we didn’t actually ask them). This makes social media such an attractive place to spread the word about your business.
Pick one or two of the most popular social channels (tik tok for example) and promote your offer. Social media is ‘social’ for a reason. People talk and share things they are interested in, with others, which makes this a great channel for word-of-mouth.
A couple great formats to use are video and GIFs as they stand out the most on a news feed.
5. Ramp up SEO efforts
SEO is the process of improving your website to increase visibility on search engines like Google. SEO should always be an ongoing activity in your marketing efforts. Especially if your business relies on online sales.
First, look at new ways to increase your on-page SEO so that your page ranks higher than your top competitors on Google. As well, ensure that you are ranking well for the keywords that are most relevant to your business.
As a fashion retailer, you likely have an ecommerce presence, so ensuring your page is user friendly and easy to navigate would be a high priority too.
Without good SEO, customers won’t be able to easily find you online.
