Over the past few weeks, Clodagh Pickavance’s followers on Instagram have seen her posing in a classic Fred Perry polo shirt, a slinky top and skirt for a night out on the town, a red crocheted fringed top at a dance music festival and a demure dress and jacket at the Ascot races.
Her fashion sense may be fearless, but there is one thing the 23-year-old worries about: being seen wearing the same thing too many times in her online photographs. Having her look go stale on Instagram and other social media sites would be a crime against fashion too awful to bear.
“Since social media and taking pictures has become more popular, it’s definitely something you think about if you are going to wear something again,” says Miss Pickavance, who does publicity for beauty companies in London.
She is not alone. Retailers and analysts say thatmillennial females’ anxieties about appearing too many times in the same outfit in their internet photographs is driving fundamental changes in the way they shop.
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The Instagram effect on young women such as Ms Pickavance might seem to be a blessing for retailers. Already, they have seen a pickup in sales of separate skirts and tops that can be mixed and matched, plus accessories such as scarves — trends that point to a desire to freshen up their look on social media without spending a lot more.
But the risk is that retailers, already reeling from the shift away from bricks and mortar stores, could end up ceding more of their marketing and promotional roles — and possibly their sales — to sites such as Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook.
Tantalised by the extra income this could generate, social networks are installing “buy buttons” to make it easier for shoppers to buy from Twitter, a Pinterest post, or even an Instagram photo. These efforts are at an early stage, but if they took off, the relationship between retailers and their customers — already turned on its head by online shopping — could be further fractured, hitting sales and profits.
Topshop, the fashion retailer, is among the established retailers experimenting with social media, which they hope will boost sales.
“The real holy grail is being able to shop from Instagram,” says Sheena Sauvaire, global marketing and communications director at Topshop.
Many young women, particularly the millennial generation born between 1982 and 2000, have become their own online celebrity, documenting every aspect of their lives — and watching others do the same. “What we are seeing now with that younger millennial, is that she is peacocking on social media,” says Ms Sauvaire.
Jamie Merriman, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, believes the rise of the selfie is driving young women to buy something new more often. But as they have no more disposable income to spend on clothes, they are seeking value, from retailers such as Primark in the UK, or Forever 21 in the US. “So this girl will spend less on certain items, but she’ll still desire a great jacket, or a great top from Topshop. But she’s seeing that as the new luxury,” says Ms Sauvaire.
Although it is difficult to distinguish the effect of selfie culture from broader economic trends, such as price deflation, Euromonitor data suggest that it is playing a part in purchasing. Globally, sales growth in many clothing categories slowed between 2010 and 2013, but showed some recovery in 2014.
The actual products that young women buy is also being influenced by the selfie. “I have made a conscious effort to start buying more skirts and tops rather than dresses, because at least then I can mix and match them and it looks like a new outfit,” says Ms Pickavance.
Retailers are having to adapt to ensure that they have the products and price points that younger consumers want — and that their supply chains are swift enough to capture new trends as they emerge. The time from the designer’s sketchpad to store must be shortened to bring the latest looks to the market.
“Faster is absolutely better because part of the selfie phenomenon is that women want changing trends, and current trends, quicker,” says Ms Merriman.
This can mean bringing production for the hottest items — such as kimono jackets last summer — closer to end-markets. For British retailers, this means the edges of continental Europe or even the UK. US chains are also bringing manufacturing back onshore, or sourcing from Latin America.
Buying nail varnish from a tweet
Throwaway fashion sits uneasily with millennials’ environmental awareness. But many young women are recycling their clothes — perhaps by selling what they no longer want on eBay — to fund new purchases. Ms Merriman says this is being taken even further by businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, which rent clothes and handbags, also exploiting the willingness of millennials to participate in the sharing economy.
And social media is leading to other changes, even in physical stores.
At London Fashion Week, Topshop teamed up with Twitter to bring the latest looks from the catwalks and front rows to its customers. Using Twitter’s technology, it monitored tweets to identify emerging trends. It then matched these with Topshop products, which were immediately available to buy online and in stores. Topshop saw an 18 per cent boost in sales of products within the trends it identified, compared with the previous week.
“The whole thing is blurring,” says John Smith, chief operating officer of Burberry, the luxury retailer. “Electronic commerce sites are going to start having social platforms, and social networks will introduce commerce.”
Burberry led the way, launching its own social networking site, Art of the Trench, which allows consumers to post pictures of themselves in Burberry products, in 2009. Shoppers can click on to the pictures to buy the products. Net-a-Porter, the online luxury retailer, recently created the Net Set, a fashion social network, where everything can be bought from within the app.
Burberry was also one of the first companies to sell through Twitter: in one trial, shoppers could buy nail varnish via a tweet. The initiative was so successful it repeated it with its My Burberry fragrance last Christmas.
This is all a far cry from the stand-off between retailers and social networks that characterised the early days of social commerce. It is the smartphone that has brought hostilities to an end.
Entering payment details and addresses on a tiny keyboard while travelling on a bus or waiting at the school gates is tricky. Space on the mobile screen is tight so only the most loyal shoppers download an app. But most have Facebook and many have one or two of the other large social apps.
Debra Aho-Williamson, principal analyst at research firm eMarketer, says retailers need to offer mobile commerce on social networks because that is where consumers spend much of their time. One in five minutes on a smartphone is spent on Facebook in the US, according to the company.
“I think there is something to say about catching people in the moment and we all know they spend a ton of time in social,” she says.
The customer relationship
But Dan Goldman, retail and private equity strategist at consultancy Kurt Salmon, says the social networks’ ability to serve shoppers at the moment they realise they need a new outfit could
pose a new challenge for traditional retailers.
Already, they face competition from Amazon, online shopping club Jet and China’s Alibaba. But, he says, this could be exacerbated by the likes of Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram taking a larger role as a retail medium. And depending on how they structure their social commerce models, this could eat into not only retailers’s sales, but their profits too — unless they figure out how to use social media to deepen their own connection with customers.
“If social commerce really took off, and retailers failed to respond, it could be a threat in terms of sales, profit and the customer relationship,” says Mr Goldman.
At the moment, the social networks do not take a cut of each transaction. Instead, they expect to make money by charging retailers to promote their posts from which customers can buy.
“The real question is who owns the customer experience, and what that experience is,” says Nick Beighton, chief operating officer of Asos, the online retailer. But he is optimistic, partly because customers look for different experiences from social media channels and retail platforms. Retail websites are about transactions, but social media can act more like a friend — one who may inspire you to wear “double denim”.
Lara Persell, a 19-year-old student at Loughborough University, follows Victoria Beckham and British reality television stars on Instagram for fashion inspiration. But she also follows retailers such as Zara. “I like to emulate the luxury fashion brands. Seeing what new styles have come into the high street shops, via Instagram, helps me decide what I may want to buy,” she says.
It is clear that tech companies want to make it easier for users to buy from their platforms. Facebook is testing shops within its social networking app and building mini ecommerce sites on companies’ pages. Twitter has focused on selling products around events.
But it is Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo app that boasts more than 300m users, that is capturing the imagination of fashionistas. Instagram does not yet store payment details that would enable shopping directly from the app, but analysts believe it will soon.
Fox & Fawn, a Brooklyn-based vintage clothing store, developed its own way of selling via Instagram, after it began posting photos three years ago.
“The third item that we posted a picture of, someone called to buy it,” says Beverly Ragon, co owner of the store. “It was an old Kurt Cobain T-shirt. It was the first thing we sold on Instagram.”
The first time a customer sees an item they would like to buy, they must ring the store to be put on file. Once this is done, they can buy the product by leaving a comment on the Instagram photograph with the words “Ring Me” along with their surname — as in “ring me up” on a cash register.
Today, Ms Ragon estimates that about 40 per cent of Fox & Fawn’s sales come through Instagram. While retailers worry about social media stealing their sales, Ms Ragon believes Fox & Fawn’s method works so well precisely because it has two bricks and mortar stores. “We have a lot of accountability towards our customers,” she says. “People feel really comfortable shopping with us.”
Date: July 26, 2015