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Feb 21, 2018
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Amazon second most popular apparel retailer in the US, study shows

Published
Feb 21, 2018

According to a new report from Coresight Research, e-commerce giant Amazon’s apparel offering has skyrocketed in popularity, with footwear and casual clothing proving to be the platform’s most popular categories and ease of browsing its biggest draw.


Footwear and casual clothing were found to be the most popular apparel categories on Amazon Fashion - Amazon Fashion


The survey, which asked 1,699 US consumers about their shopping habits at the beginning of the year, found that only Walmart beat Amazon in terms of shopper numbers in 2017. When asked where they had purchased apparel or footwear from in the last twelve months, 41.8% of respondents mentioned Walmart, while Amazon scraped into second place (37.4%) just ahead of Target (37.3%).

Amazon Prime members were found to be particularly active apparel shoppers on the platform, with 65.5% having made a clothing purchase in 2017.

The most popular categories to shop on Amazon among those surveyed were men’s and women’s footwear and adult casualwear: 46.9% of respondents who had shopped for apparel on the site in the last year had bought footwear, while 36.6% and 33.5% stated that they had purchased women’s and men’s casual wear, respectively.

Nike (16.8%), Under Armor (13.8%) and Hanes (12.9%) were found to be the three most purchased brands on the site, revealing an interesting skew towards sportswear, but Amazon’s private labels also put in a good performance, with 11% of respondents who had used the site to purchase apparel having bought items from the platform’s own lines.

The main motivation for shopping on the site was found to be ease of browsing, cited by 65.4% of Amazon shoppers, coming in ahead of cheap delivery (62.2%) and product availability (52.4%).

Nonetheless, 48% of Amazon apparel consumers agreed that they expected to pay less than full price when shopping on the site, a fact that Coresight sees as evidence that “Amazon risks being viewed as an off-price retailer”. The study did, however, point out that the company is already taking steps to combat this perception by diversifying its private-label lines and bringing brands such as Nike on board to round out its apparel offering.

As apparel retailers test a variety of strategies in an attempt to corner the growing millennial market, Coresight’s report also gave some insight into this generation’s shopping habits. According to the survey, younger consumers are generally more receptive to Amazon’s apparel offer than their older counterparts: 35.4% of 18-29 year olds who had made apparel purchases on the platform stated that they would like to see more footwear and clothing brands on Amazon Fashion, while 38.1% expressed interest in trying the Amazon Prime Wardrobe service, which allows shoppers to try on clothing before paying for the items they want to keep. This age group also demonstrated the most willingness to try Amazon’s private-label brands.

All in all, Coresight’s report seems to suggest that the e-commerce titan is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the apparel sector. These results appear to echo predictions, made by Cowen and Company at the end of last year, that Amazon’s apparel sales would total $28.4 billion in 2017, increasing to $35.0 billion in 2018.

In January of this year, CPC Strategy also released a report highlighting Amazon’s gains in the apparel sector, citing the cross-platform integration of its services and the popularity of its mobile app as driving forces behind its success.

More detailed findings from the study can be consulted on Coresight Research’s website.
 

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