Are you a fashion eCommerce retailer? You’re in luck, as the industry is growing at a rapid pace. According to Statista, the retail eCommerce revenue from fashion apparel, accessories, and footwear is expected to reach $146 billion by 2023.

This rapid growth means opportunities, but it also means fierce competition. For that reason, you need to find ways to set yourself apart from the crowd and build a profitable fashion eCommerce brand that can generate steady profits. Here are 6 ideas that will help you.

1.  Visuals Are Everything

Brick-and-mortar stores heavily rely on the quality of the product display. Customers can touch the product and try it on before deciding whether it’s worth buying. However, with online stores, the visual experience is limited to the photo content on the website. That’s why it is absolutely necessary for fashion eCommerce stores to provide high-quality images that convey maximum information and highlight the perceived value.

It also helps if you provide a zoom option and enable users to see the product from multiple angles. Another option is to show customers how the product can be worn and/or combined with other items. Finally, you can also add images of your packaging so that customers can see how they’ll receive the product.

Beside product images, you should also ensure that the overall visual experience (navigation and website design) is attractive and user-friendly.

2.  Use Apparel Management Software

In this day and age, fashion businesses can no longer rely on manual processes. The great number of products and operations requires a higher degree of adaptability and flexibility from fashion retailers in order to be able to grow their business and remain successful. Fortunately, this can be easily achieved with the right tool.

Apparel management software can help retailers to streamline a number of processes including manufacture, design, sourcing, sales, inventory tracking, analyzing customer feedback, etc. If you want to learn more about the benefits of using apparel management software, click here.

3.  Focus on Content Marketing and SEO

When it comes to content, online fashion retailers should focus on fashion blogging. Try to create high-quality, lengthy fashion-related articles on a regular basis (4-5 a month) to market your looks and brands.

Besides creating interesting stories, such articles will also contribute to your SEO efforts. This is very important as nearly 40% of global eCommerce traffic comes from search. So, incorporating relevant keywords throughout your content, as well as in your URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, images, and headings can help boost your rankings in search engine results, bringing you more organic traffic.

You could also invite guest bloggers who would help market your brand with their audience and, as a result, provide greater exposure to your products.

4.  Personalize Your Emails

Personalized emails can be a very powerful marketing tool for eCommerce retailers as they help build long-lasting relationships and improve the entire shopping experience.

Email marketing campaigns can be synced with shopping preferences and behavior to make customers feel important. Personalized emails can cover a few different aspects of shopping, such as:

• Sending discounts for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries
• Reminding customers about products they had added to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase
• Adding customers who may be interested in new products to particular categories
• Sending updates about items in their wish list
• Sending a thank you email for purchasing products.

Besides being a great source for data, email can also be accessed from anywhere, which is one of the reasons why it has better conversion rates compared to other marketing tactics like PPC and social media.

5.  Make It Easy for Customers to Contact You

Although digitization has made shopping far more convenient, people still expect a human touch to the process. This is especially true when we face issues and difficulties.

If you want your business to be successful, you need to make it easy for your customers to get in touch with your representatives. The common tools to achieve this include live chat, email, phone calls, social media, contact forms, etc. 

When it comes to fashion eCommerce brands, live chat is probably the most useful of these tools as it allows you to respond to customers who require immediate help or those who have an urgent question concerning your products. Oftentimes, live chat can push an indecisive customer closer to making a buying decision.

6.  Take Advantage of Customer Reviews

As you might already know, customer reviews can greatly influence the purchase decisions of future buyers. Play it smart and moderate your product reviews to make sure that only the positive ones are displayed. However, bear in mind that there is a limit to which you can filter out negative reviews. Websites that show exclusively 5-star ratings are often viewed as fake.

The goal is to help your future customers make an informed decision. So, for instance, if certain products on your website have a high percentage of returns and refunds, you should attempt to achieve a balance between the negative and positive reviews.

Take negative reviews as constructive criticism and use them as a foundation for making improvements. Don’t be afraid to post genuine negative reviews and respond to them to help other shoppers make a buying decision easier.

Final Thoughts

Staying competitive in the online fashion retail industry isn’t easy but if you are doing all the right things, there should be enough motivation for you to continue learning and improving. Armed with these 6 ideas, we urge you to start experimenting and see what works for you.