With yearly consumption in emerging markets nearing USD30 trillion by 2025, the next five years will see the most overall market growth in history, giving e-Commerce businesses more opportunity to expand exponentially than ever before. The fashion trade, which is currently the most expeditious growing retail section in the e-Commerce market, is sure to be at the forefront of this historical growth. That is, as long as fashion businesses seize the opportunity and continue to match the ever-changing demands of modern customers.
Looking to touch the end-goal of added value to both the labels and the users, Instagram will start using the capability to drive participation somewhere in-between their collective browsing experience and this full-fledged investment experience. The market will begin to see retailers, particularly in the fashion vertical, use this innovative technology to drive micro-conversions, such as ‘Add to Cart,’ signing up for an email account or activating a promotion. Sixty percent of marketers struggle to personalize their website content in real-time, yet 77 percent of them believe real-time personalization is essential to their business. To accomplish this, the average fashion retailer, worldwide, uses more than eight separate analytics and commerce technologies. The difficulty for retailers — and an opportunity to convert — lies in harnessing real-time behavioral data between these technologies to deliver personalized expertise.
As visual research becomes more mainstream, it will convert more accessible and more affordable for more diminutive retailers to follow suit and provide these functionalities. Consumers will be able to discover new goods and brands more conveniently, resulting in an even more seamless shopping experience across online and offline channels and increased brand exposure and income for retailers. Traditional customer relationship management is generally available for pretty much every industry and organization in the world. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) — a marketer-controlled system that encourages external marketing execution based on persistent, cross-channel customer data — are the next development in understanding and engaging customers. However, there’s a catch — right now, that technology may be generally available to enterprise retailers, but mid-market retailers can’t utilize such tools yet.
For decades, any confluence between fashion and technology was rigidly on a manufacturing and logistical level. Today, technology is assisting drive business possibilities in the fashion retail market, and it’s up to fashion brands to develop alongside the industry to remain ahead of their engagement — and in front of their consumers.
