Incentergy is working a lot together with fashion retailers and fashion brands. Therefore we have some good insights into customer behavior. This blog post will explain some behavior that we can observe when we do a deep dive into our analytical data. So some prejudices will be confirmed and for some male brand managers some new insights will pop up.
Women are searching for designers
When analysing search logs you will see that brands and designers are common search terms. So it makes a lot of sense to have some prominent placement for your own brands and designers on your homepage. You should also feature products from the same designer together. If you want to see which designers are currently trending try Google Trends.
Women watch products multiple times
Visitors are not always buying the first time they arrive. They are coming again and again checking out the same product, thinking about their decision and returning again. It might be the case that they are waiting for a discount or that they currently do not have enough money.
Women are hunting for discounts
Discounts are the salt for good online sales. Everybody loves to have the feeling that he or she made a great deal and that everybody else paid more. Use the discount behavior of persons to optimize your stock level and be more likely to give discounts to high margin products compared to low margin products.
Women love free shipping
The most successful online stores like amazon, zappos and zalando are all offering free shipping. This drives sales a lot. This will also increase your return rate. Try to optimize your sizing charts, punish people by not offering invoice payment if they return too much and advertise with your shipping policy.
Women are returning products
Any fashion shop has the same problem that a lot of products are returned because they do not fit or because the people do not like the items. Today I was just told by a girl that when she is in bad mood she is buying fashion and afterwards returning them. Make sure that you track the return reasons. Track who returns a lot and replace payment and shipping methods.
Women buy for their men
This is my personal favorite. Women buy fashion for their men. So it is likely that you will have some orders where you see women and men clothes in the same basket. You should use this behavior to segment your customers and offer special couple coupons. So that if she buys something new for herself she gets a discount to buy something for him. Also buying something for somebody else makes you happier than buying something for you. [1]
Women are likely to buy the same product again
If a woman bought a skirt in your store last year she is likely to buy another skirt this year again. So make sure that you use past buying history to optimize your promotions to send the same kind of a product but from a different collection to your customers.
Women scan hundreds of products
That’s important. If a woman goes shopping she wants to see a lot of products and the products have to be shown fast. So category pages should load in a fast way and infinite scrolling helps to explore the selections. Product details page are not used a lot because it is too complicated to always go there.
Women only buy one item
Most of the orders will only contain one item. If a woman searches a pant she only wants a pant. If a woman searches a scarf she only wants a scarf. So make sure that you do not try to sell a whole outfit but only one kind of a product at the same time. Especially recommendations on the products page should always show products of the same kind. Best way would be to use our item-to-item personalization and recommendation technology.