Technological advances, a fading pandemic and returning confidence within the provide chain stand to make 2022 a banner yr for ecommerce.
Based mostly on progress projections, retail ecommerce gross sales will surpass $1 trillion for the primary time ever in 2022, in accordance with eMarketer’s US Ecommerce by Class 2022 report. And whereas inflation considerations would appear to contradict this, shoppers spent $2.8 billion in added price from January to March, in accordance with Adobe Analytics.
With an expectation that ecommerce progress will return to pre-pandemic ranges this yr, understanding what to anticipate and the place to put money into 2022 carries outsized significance.
For BigCommerce’s first trade pattern report, we look at the style class because it emerges from the opposite aspect of two years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of widespread staffing shortages and provide chain points, the style and attire trade noticed $180.5 billion in ecommerce income in 2021, up from $145 billion in 2020.
Relative to all different industries in international ecommerce, trend sits middle-of-the-road by way of projected progress for 2022. Development estimates place ecommerce income in 2022 at roughly $205 billion.
In opposition to this backdrop, the style trade stored tempo with these projections within the first three months of the yr.
Learn our full report for extra insights into the state of trend ecommerce to date in 2022 from BigCommerce and our retailers.
Methodology
BigCommerce’s trend information is sourced straight from our prospects. All information is international and pertains to all nations the place BigCommerce retailers do enterprise, until in any other case famous.
All comparisons quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year are congruent comparisons between the identical variety of current shops courting again to the earliest interval used within the comparability. For instance, a comparability between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022 would use information solely from BigCommerce shops that existed in Q1 2021, until in any other case famous.
For mentions of customer sources in Q1 2022, this information excludes January 2022 and ought to be regarded directionally.
For verbatim insights from our prospects, we posed a survey in our buyer management panel consisting of 4 questions on trend trade expertise traits and ways.
How the Style Business Carried out in Q1 2022
We mentioned 2022 could be a banner yr for ecommerce and that goes doubly so for the style trade.
Thus far in Q1 2022, we are able to see a 3% improve in inclusive GMV for ecommerce as a complete in comparison with Q1 2021. Style and attire, nonetheless, has grown 19% by the identical measure.
The identical outperformance of the ecommerce panorama holds true for trend’s common order quantity. Whereas common order quantity (AOV) grew 3% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022 for all ecommerce industries, trend noticed a 13% improve in AOV evaluating the identical two intervals.
Whereas much less pronounced, the pattern continues to the whole variety of orders as properly. Order totals throughout all BigCommerce had been flat quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), however trend shops noticed a 5% improve in variety of orders between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022.
The highest channels for trend continued their dominance.
The primary quarter of this yr was large for gross sales by way of Amazon for BigCommerce trend retailers. In comparison with final yr, there was a 321% improve in inclusive GMV and a 276% improve in orders.
In the meantime BigCommerce trend retailers promoting by way of eBay overcame a downward pattern for GMV and AOV in Q1 of -12% and -14%, respectively. The style and attire class noticed a whole reversal of this pattern on eBay with a acquire of 29% GMV and 44% AOV in Q1 2022.
We noticed shifts in gross sales by cell machine.
Unusually, regardless of the rising traits in direction of social commerce, Q1 2022 noticed a decline within the variety of orders positioned with a cell machine in comparison with all ecommerce retail in Q1 2021. There was a decline of 4%.
Nevertheless, even with this decline in complete orders we noticed a slight improve in GMV by 2%.
The style trade was counter to this pattern, with a 13% QoQ improve in GMV by cell machine and common order worth additionally jumped 14%.
BigCommerce funded a shopper survey by Profitwell of over 4,000 web shoppers over the age of 18. Of these consumers, 80% mentioned they buy attire and clothes utilizing cellphone apps or net browsers.
Style got here out as the highest class for the query out of 15 classes, with the subsequent highest response being 56% for electronics purchases.
North America trend outpaced total North America ecommerce.
Ecommerce progress was modest for North America within the first quarter of the yr at 2% GMV QoQ, a lower in orders of 1% QoQ and AOV shifting up 3% QoQ.
The style trade, nonetheless, blew these numbers away. Style GMV was up 24% in Q1 2022 versus Q1 2021. Whole variety of orders went up 13% QoQ and AOV was up equally at 13%.
Style in APAC noticed progress; EMEA main decline.
Total ecommerce retail in APAC noticed main progress QoQ in Q1 2022 with an 19% improve in GMV and a 17% improve in orders. Style didn’t precisely maintain tempo with that in APAC and solely noticed a QoQ improve in GMV of 11% and a 9% improve in AOV. Whole variety of orders was flat.
Stagnation hit EMEA ecommerce in Q1. There was solely a 3% QoQ improve in Q1 GMV and eight% QoQ improve in Q1 AOV. Style in EMEA seems to have suffered from this total pattern and contracted significantly. GMV was down 15% QoQ in Q1 and complete orders had been down 27% QoQ.
Style and Attire Ecommerce Tendencies in 2022
It ought to come as no shock that the style and attire trade is thought to be a trendsetter, each on the runway and on-line.
As we glance again on Q1, listed here are some notable ecommerce traits shaping this dynamic class:
Social commerce has grow to be a precedence.
The evolution has been gradual however obvious to anybody who spends time on social media. The friction in shopping for and promoting by way of channels like Instagram and TikTok is all however gone.
In a survey posed to BigCommerce retailers, 48% of respondents cited social media or social commerce because the purchasing pattern or expertise with the best impression to their total enterprise in 2021.
When posed the identical query, however particular to the style and attire trade, social commerce remained the highest response.
BigCommerce service provider, Crutcher’s Western Put on, added, “Having the ability to supply checkout on Instagram and Fb had the largest impression on our 2021 enterprise.”
We are able to anticipate this pattern to develop as extra trend retailers chase it. A later query within the survey requested what new ways retailers would implement in 2022, with respondents most regularly pointing to social commerce.
BigCommerce service provider information corroborates this pattern. For trend retailers promoting by way of Instagram we noticed a 741% improve in complete variety of orders evaluating Q1 2022 with Q1 2021.
What’s subsequent for social commerce? Sellers and patrons alike are already benefiting from the rising stay purchasing pattern. If you wish to streamline product discovery and purchases, look no additional than Instagram, Fb and TikTok.
Closing the sale means providing extra fee choices.
The subsequent commonest response to our survey query concerning the best impression to total enterprise in 2021 — excluding uncategorized responses — was “providing different fee strategies.”
This would come with providing Purchase Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and acceptance of cryptocurrency and digital wallets. 25% of survey respondents mentioned providing flexibility in funds proved most impactful to their companies.
Eight % of respondents mentioned that Purchase On-line, Pickup In-store (BOPIS) was the best consider bettering their companies in 2021.
The takeaway is obvious: Giving potential patrons choices yields optimistic outcomes for ecommerce retail gross sales.
A linked buyer expertise stays key.
We are able to all agree on the significance of buyer expertise. However simply how impactful is buyer expertise in 2022?
In our service provider survey, 44% of respondents prioritized enhancing their prospects’ expertise by way of omnichannel presence, improved customer support and delivery, whereas 20% pointed to omnichannel promoting particularly.
Our survey surfaced some miscellaneous callouts.
Whereas not as prevalent because the traits highlighted above, some verbatim responses to our survey confirmed curiosity in different areas of ecommerce expertise and ways.
Curiosity in omnichannel promoting, optimizing the returns course of, search engine optimization, SMS, checkout optimization and personalization was voiced in open responses to questions on applied sciences making probably the most impression and methods retailers are planning to reinforce buyer expertise in 2022.
Mainstays of the ecommerce advertising arsenal like e-mail newsletters and content material advertising warranted passing mentions within the survey.
The Way forward for Style and Attire Ecommerce is Now
The style trade stands to profit most from adopting rising applied sciences. The challenges of matching prospects to the correct product from the consolation of their very own residence and providing frictionless checkout experiences at the moment are largely met.
Some areas which can be ripe for getting forward of the curve are person expertise (UX), augmented actuality (AR), MetaVerse retail experiences and synthetic intelligence (AI).
Optimize the person expertise.
Responsiveness to the best way prospects are interacting with trend retailers is vital to rising and remaining aggressive.
BigCommerce spoke with trend model Natori in regards to the significance of staying the course on the front-end journey in the event you hope to reach on the proper person expertise. They cited their collaboration with BigCommerce companion Groove Commerce of their success.
Natori’s president, Kenneth Natori, gave his perception on the significance of that front-end expertise.
Arriving right here required hanging a steadiness between kind and performance. Ethan Giffin, founder and CEO of Groove defined, “For a model like Natori, website design and performance carry equal weight. Our aim was to carry their model to life by making a purchasing expertise that successfully combines merchandising finest practices with Natori’s distinctive story.
“The brand new web site immerses the patron in an aesthetically indulgent expertise whereas nonetheless permitting for pure discovery and sooner shopping.”
The flexibleness of headless commerce.
A part of providing a powerful person expertise is staying agile. Headless commerce, or the decoupling of a retailer’s frontend design from its ecommerce backend, affords a service provider precisely that.
Mark Howes, Vice President of Gross sales for EMEA at BigCommerce explains it this manner.
“Conventional methods have labored properly for years now, however the tech and the client panorama has advanced quickly. Companies have to take a brand new method to content material administration. That is the place headless is available in.
“Headless commerce is concentrated on having the ability to evolve your providing at pace and provides prospects the chance to work together together with your model within the ways in which they select.”
If there have been any doubt the place a trend model’s priorities ought to be relating to offering a versatile person expertise, Howes dispels it:
Increase the purchasing expertise.
The augmented actuality market is estimated to succeed in $78 billion by 2028. A big driver of this predicted progress is the adoption of AR by each on-line and brick-and-mortar retailers to enhance upon the purchasing expertise.
Visualizing varied kinds and colours of a garment or accent with out really manually swapping them out was the stuff of science fiction, however it can now outline the ecommerce retail expertise for the discerning shopper.
Equally, having the ability to work together with three-dimensionally rendered high-definition representations of merchandise in real-time will give consumers confidence in pulling the set off on purchases of merchandise which can be presently nonetheless met with hesitation.
We really feel we must always look at craftsmanship and spatial attributes in particular person. Now we will do that from our cell units and AR headsets.
BigCommerce interviewed augmented actuality product configurator ThreeKit’s VP of Advertising and marketing and Alliances, Marc Uible, for the Make It Large Podcast to listen to an knowledgeable perspective on how and why trend retailers ought to undertake this pattern. Uribe had this recommendation:
Enter the MetaVerse.
You will have absolutely heard of the MetaVerse — the digital actuality community for real-time social and retail experiences that has dominated expertise information cycles for the final yr. Then, you have to be conscious that the MetaVerse guarantees to alter our very existence perpetually by marrying our insatiable starvation for info with the flexibility to expertise it in a tactile, immersive means.
What you might not know is that trend manufacturers like Hermes and Gucci have already invested in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to generate curiosity within the MetaVerse retail future.
Customers’ curiosity in purchasing within the MetaVerse exists already. Referring again to our shopper survey with Profitwell, 46% of these web shoppers responded that they might be prepared to buy within the MetaVerse based mostly on their present understanding of the expertise. Considerably encouraging to retailers planning on capitalizing on the MetaVerse, 2% of web shoppers responded that they have already got shopped within the MetaVerse.
Of curiosity to on-line retailers: These most prepared to make purchases within the MetaVerse skewed largely within the Gen Z and Millennial demographics and had a positively correlated curiosity relative to their revenue.
Remedy buyer ache factors with AI.
BigCommerce has seen this pattern for a while. There are a selection of ways in which synthetic intelligence can impression ecommerce. The vast majority of them end in optimized and automatic workflows for the service provider and seamless experiences for the client.
For instance, on-line retailers searching for methods to curb returns have begun implementing synthetic intelligence options to cease that bleeding from their backside traces.
For trend retailers serious about utilizing AI in 2022, our companion Bloomreach developed a complete How-To Information.
Trying Forward to the Second Half of 2022
If the traits of the primary quarter of 2022 keep fixed or enhance for the style trade, we are able to anticipate that the style class will outpace ecommerce retail total, however see a yr that’s in the course of the pack in comparison with all different verticals.
In a yr projected to prime $1 trillion in gross sales, that’s encouraging, if not thrilling.
BigCommerce Senior Vice President of Product Advertising and marketing Meghan Stabler sees a continuation of the expertise traits outlined above.
The ecommerce panorama is continually evolving and will see but extra traits emerge earlier than the yr is out.
The Closing Phrase
Taking inventory of our information and the sentiment of these within the trade, we are able to confidently say that trend and attire retailers are taking properly to the traits which can be sweeping ecommerce retail.
We see the style class outpacing total progress for ecommerce in 2022, with the potential for a record-setting yr.
Moreover, the style and attire trade is uniquely positioned to capitalize on rising expertise and shopper traits.
Social commerce stays a definitive point of interest for the trade in addition to omnichannel presence. Buyer expertise and fee kind flexibility spherical out the patron wants of Q1 2022.
Trying forward, we see AI, AR and MetaVerse retail experiences looming as the subsequent challenges for retailers seeking to keep forward of the curve.
Make sure you learn our subsequent 2022 Ecommerce Forecast in Q3 after we’ll check out the sports activities and outdoor class heading into the vacation season.
