Most of the world has moved online in recent months, and it is greatly challenging the clothing retail and fashion industry. But as stores move online, they run the risk of blending into one another. How can you make your store stand out? 

1. Invest in your website

You’d be surprised at how important that first glimpse of your website is. Imagine yourself as the consumer. If you entered an online fashion store and found it hard to find what you needed, with the photos all taking ages to load, would you stay? Most likely, no.

Invest in the home page. If you’ll notice, some websites even put everything on the homepage. As you click on the menu item, the entire page just shifts up or down to the requested section. For carefully designed websites, this keeps the website fast and gives you everything you need in one scroll-down. 

Invest in the maintenance. A website cannot just be made and then left to fend for itself. Without proper maintenance, different updates or world wide web changes will hurt your current website design.. 

2. Remind your shoppers about their shopping carts

Unlike in a grocery, no one will notice if you abandon your shopping cart in an ecommerce site. You might be excited that potential customers are adding so many items to their carts, but then wonder why it’s not reflecting in your sales. The main reason: the carts are left or forgotten.

Send an email chain. Odds are, your customer got distracted by a notification or a family member. A follow-up email in an hour should encourage those who just forgot. Another email, sent within 24 hours if they haven’t bought yet, can help the customer consider the purchase.

Don’t be too formal about it. With the amount of sponsored posts around today, hard sells are no longer as frowned upon as they used to be. However, no one wants to be treated as “just” a customer. Use humor, maybe a bit of teasing. Give them a way out so they don’t feel pressured.

3. Focus on your best sellers

Depending on your brand, diversity and range of products might be your selling point. It’s good if your consumers can find anything they need on your site related to a specific need. But when it comes to promotion, focus on your best sellers.

Your top 20% best sellers are what you should focus on. For example, if your ecommerce site is lingerie, look for your best-selling bras, underclothing, and boudoir pieces. Pay attention to customer reviews and what they love about your products, and promote those details. Do they prefer the comfort of the material, or the prices you are offering them?

4. Create style guides

How dedicated were you to branding when you started? Too much? Not enough? Here’s a good way to help you stay flexible and on-brand at the same time: style guides.

Color palette. If you haven’t yet, choose the foundational colors for your brand. These usually make up the logo and the large color blocks or themes of your website. From there, figure out a range of secondary colors you can use to back up your foundational colors when needed. You will need these especially if the fashion article you are promoting does not fit your brand color.

Logo versions. Imagine and reimagine your logo multiple ways. Think of it in a circle, in a square, transparent, without the subtitle, as a rectangular header, in black and white. Especially when you do partnerships, you might be asked to submit a black and white version to match their branding. Figure out what logo version you want to maintain.

Fonts. This is more important than you might think. You need to settle for one main font and one secondary font, usually one serif and another sans serif. Otherwise, your branding will look cluttered and messy. 

5. Use video whenever possible

Even the catwalks are moving to online video, so there’s a lot to keep up with! But you don’t need to be catwalk ready to shine. Here are some tips to help you add video to your brand and digital strategy.

Tell a story that shares your brand culture. How did you even get into fashion and fashion marketing? Remember that story, remember the people you want to help with your store. Tell stories that run along that theme. Show how your brand meets needs and cares for people.

Share information. Even with something as simple as how to pick your orders and check out of the site, you can turn it into a video. Once your customers see how easy it is to navigate your website and check out, they will be more willing to shop with you.

6. Create a YouTube channel

But where should you post those videos? YouTube, of course? It’s easy to set up a channel, and information videos are great in a playlist that your customers can watch in a row. Your customers can also subscribe to your channel so they get notifications whenever one of your videos pops up on the channel. 

If all you can produce is one video every week or so, just keep posting regularly. Expectation is an emotion that only increases with consistency. When your customers are looking forward to something, they will click on it, even if it only shows up on their feeds once a week. 

7. Run a consistent and quality blog

Long form content adds points to your search rankings and helps your customers stay updated and informed about what you have for them. Fashion tips are wonderful in long form, or even fashion fails if your brand focuses on humor. 

Most importantly, however, create content consistently, and make sure it is quality. If the bounce rate is high, meaning customers click the link then click straight out again, then search engines won’t consider your blog worth bumping up in the page rankings. Make sure the content is presented well, it looks informative and exciting, and that it adds value to its readers. 

Final Say

The world is online. It’s time to take your store to the next level.