Most of the world remained occupied by ‘what not to do’ during COVID-19 times. In hindsight, it taught the world including fashion industry ‘what to do’ as well – the major learning being ‘keep evolving’. Indeed, pandemic emboldened fashion’s digital aspiration and fuelled its e-commerce growth. The pertinent question, however, is how sustainable this shift is in 2022 and beyond.

For e-commerce, COVID-19 thrust five years of growth into a single year, overturning traditional loyalties towards offline channel and giving new birth to waves of Direct-to- Consumer and Omni-channel. With a global market value of $760 billion in 2021, fashion comprising apparel, accessories and footwear together emerged the number one e-commerce segment in the world. Over the next five years, online fashion is projected to grow at CAGR of 7.18 per cent, which will put the industry at more than $1 trillion by 2025. While total e-commerce fashion growth in 2020 remained 26.5 per cent, the e-commerce apparel growth was higher at 29.6 per cent, as per a report. The growth to $1 trillion will be fuelled by two factors – penetration rates i.e., share of active paying customers, and e-commerce’s share of retail fashion. Estimates project an overall increase in e-commerce penetration from 46.6 per cent in 2021 to 60.32 per cent by 2024, in apparel segment 12.7 per cent, in footwear segment around 12 per cent, and in bags & accessories segment it is estimated to exceed 8 per cent.

Another major development is the rise of multi-channel. While multi-channel connects digital experiences, omni-channel bridges the online-offline divide through a ‘single view’ of customers i.e., data with three points-of-purchase – e-commerce website, owned retail locations and wholesale marketplaces or partnerships. In addition to creating a cohesive customer journey, omni-channel operations allow fashion brands to create tangible customer experience. If true, this trend must be reflected by global fashion companies. To know that, let us investigate into e-commerce updates in relation to offline status of few such companies.

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