Intro
Whether you’re someone who gets dressed up to the nines, or you keep it more casual, we all invest in the fashion retail market.
Since the whole world has to buy clothes, the fashion industry needs to cater for a wide variety of needs and budgets. From always having something new for the shopaholics, to keeping a solid range of basics for the capsule-wardrobers; and from having an online presence for those who prefer to browse in their pyjamas, to curating beautiful window displays for those wandering down Oxford Street.
According to PRNewswire, the UK clothing market is set to grow by 16.6% over the coming 5 years, totalling £51.2 billion by 2022.
Menswear is estimated to be the fastest growing sub-sector (outperforming womenswear by 5.8%). We see this reflected in successful women’s brands extending their offerings to men. Missguided (a Manchester-based online retailer whose revenues topped £206 million last year) launched their menswear line, Mennace, in September. The CEO, Nitin Passi, stated that it was in part to capitalise on this growing new audience of young, fashion-conscious men.
Other retailers are branching into beauty to inspire more purchases. Since the beauty industry is also growing, it seems natural for clothing shops to experiment with including makeup and skincare products in their range. Topshop launched their own makeup range back in 2010, and last year brought Kylie Jenner’s incredibly popular make-up range (it’s only been around since 2016 and has already made $420 million) into their stores. ASOS, meanwhile, has partnered with M.A.C. this month to launch their make-up range online.
It’s not just new products. The manner in which we shop is also on the move. Online shopping is now firmly entrenched in consumer habits: while online-only Boohoo’s sales grew by almost 40% in the last four months of 2017, footfall in high street shops fell by 7% on Boxing day and 6% in the two days leading up to Christmas. And increasingly, online shopping isn’t necessarily taking place on a computer.
In fact, 70% of Boohoo’s sales in 2017 were made on a mobile device. Even amongst those of us who still frequent brick-and-mortar shops, chances are that our phones still have a part to play. While OC&C estimate that by 2020 £43bn of online purchases will be made on a smartphone, they add that a further £14bn of online retail spend is estimated to involve a smartphone in some way (browsing and price comparison), before any actual shopping takes place.
And to move with these trends in consumer habits, it’s important that UK retailers optimise the online shopping experience. With Google estimating that a 1 second faster load time increases conversion rates by 27%, an intuitive and fast-moving interface will be crucial to ensure sales are made. Especially when you consider that leading retail sites in the UK load on average 10-25% slower than their US equivalents.
With so much change, it’s set to be a time of turbulence for some but one of opportunity for others. If fashion retailers can get it right, it’s a lucrative market to be winning in. Which brands are already winning a share of it, and what else can we learn about the Fashion industry from Attest’s first Fashion Brand Index?
Highly Varied Market
In our ‘Fashion’ brand index, we found that a total of 181 individual brands were named when testing unprompted recall. This is high number of different brands, demonstrating that within the fashion world, there’s a huge amount of consumer choice.
Even within our top 20 most-recalled brands, the spread of recall is relatively even. Although Next have the highest percent of recall (7.8%), they are swiftly followed by Nike (6.3%), Primark (5.7%), ASOS (4.7%) and New Look (4.5%). It’s a gradual decrease in percentage: no one brand running away with the market. It seems that there is a certain flexibility at the top, and consumers seem to have more than one brand occupying their mind when they think of fashion.
Additionally, there is a diversity in the offerings of these top five brands. Nike is predominantly a premium sports brand. They won our Sports Brand Indexby a significant margin, partly because they had branched into fashion via their trainers and their capitalisation on the athleisure trend, interesting consumers who may not otherwise have aligned themselves with sport. Their appearance in this brand index cements them as a giant in consumers’ awareness when asked to think about clothing. Be it sportswear, or fashion: Nike are successfully making themselves a leading player.
Elsewhere in the top 5, Primark is a budget destination, Next has a more family feel, and ASOS is purely an online retailer.
Looking at the top 20 brands as a whole, there is also the inclusion of shops like Marks & Spencer, who are arguably as well known for their food, and designer labels (Armani, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Versace, Chanel) offering much bigger-ticket items than the usual high-street shops. Gucci performed best in this niche in terms of recall (coming in 6th place on recall alone), but no other designer brands made it into the top 10.
Very Strong Purchase Intent
Purchase Intent is incredibly strong across the board, with an average of 58.9% of people classing themselves as ‘very likely’ to buy from our top 20 brands.
Superdry had a particularly high score with 84.2%. Since its birth in 2003, the Japanese retailer has outperformed competition. It is perhaps its unique position as not quite sports brand, but certainly practical and not quite designer, but certainly high-quality, that makes it so popular. Its low-key, unisex look has proved incredibly popular in the UK to the confusion of experts. Encroaching not only on the territory of high-street brands, but also precision sportswear, and designer labels, it has wide appeal.
ASOS, who have the next highest Purchase Intent epitomise ease in shopping. With innovative features, like the catwalk videos that accompany each item, an easy save-for-later system, free delivery and returns, they are the Amazon of the fashion retail world. In the same way as Amazon, they feature a large range of brands (as well as their own line) so that just by shopping on ASOS, you’re already doing some price comparison work.
Their high purchase intent may also have something to do with the ASOS Premier system whereby you pay £9.95 for a whole year of unlimited next-day or nominated-day delivery. If people have already bought this (in the same way as Amazon Prime) they will be more incentivised to make it their go-to shopping destination to save on extra costs.
Interestingly, in light of the recent news, New Look performed well on the Purchase Intent metric coming in at 3rd place with 68.9%. It paints a heartening picture for executives who, despite the store closures, are determined to return the chain to profitability across its remaining 393 outlets.
At the other end of the Purchase Intent scale were many of the higher-budget shops. Gucci—having performed well in recall—was 20th with only a third of people who named them claiming that they would also be likely to purchase from them. Chanel came just above, in 19th. Clearly, though these brands are well-recognised (both are heritage labels dating back into the early 20th century), they’re not appealing as realistically-priced purchases for the majority of consumers.
Net Promoter Scores
In a sector that is largely associated with buying nice things, the NPS is understandably high. The positive connotations generally attached to having new clothes, and the brands that provide this service, is reflected in the stability of the NPS across the industry as a whole. Both the industry-wide average (40%) and the average of the top 20 brands (43.22%) are very healthy.
It’s significant that this average increases when we look only at the top 20 brands. It could perhaps be explained by the fact that all our top 20 brands are big names in the retail world and therefore probably have more shops, choice and stock, as well as cheaper delivery prices, promoting an easier shopping experience.
Marks & Spencer performed best in this metric with a stunning 73.3%. On one hand, this is unsurprising: M&S is a national favourite, known for its high quality and commitment to the customer. That said, the clothing side of its business has been known to struggle. However Steve Rowe (CEO) said of their results in November of last year that the performance of the clothing department was “encouraging,” having seen a 5.3% lift in full-price sales.
Rowe’s recovery plan includes trying to attract younger shoppers, and stopping its promotions.
This move away from continuous discounting and sales is something we’re seeing industry wide. Kantar World panel say that heavy discounting has “created an atmosphere of mistrust. Consumers felt clothing wasn’t worth its full price.”
This means we’re seeing a shift away from heavily seasonal stock control (as March’s snow aptly illustrated, fashion season trends have almost no bearing on the reality of the British weather) and a concerted effort to price items more fairly from the outset, rather than having frequent sales.
Following behind M&S, River Island, Zara and ASOS all scored highly. All three of these brands offer catwalk styles at a fraction of the price, which perhaps accounts for consumers’ favourable views.
Again, designer brands nestled at the bottom of the table: Gucci came in 19th with 5.56%, and Chanel (who had the only negative NPS of all the brands) scored a miserable -9.1%.
The absence of these high-price brands on fashion marketplaces like ASOS (neither Gucci nor Chanel allow their stock to be sold via ASOS, although Versace do have a selection of goods on the website) demonstrate a prioritisation of brand-exclusivity over consumer ease. If these brands want to appeal to the mass markets more, they will have to work harder for general consumers to view them favourably.
Key Findings
What do consumers look for in retail brands?
Looking at our wordcloud, there’s a variety of priorities driving the consumer perceptions of fashion brands but there is clearly one winner.
Overall, consumers are most concerned with buying quality goods. With Savilles estimating that 44% of people visit a shopping centre less than twice a year, and a rising trend of environmental awareness, some people are keen for the things they buy to last them a significant amount of time.
That said, when we look at some of the other words chosen (‘fashionable’, ‘stylish’, ‘trendy’, ‘modern’ for example), it’s clear that other consumers are more concerned with clothes being on-trend.
The Great British Wardrobe Report interviewed 2500 people and found that 79% of women say they feel happiest in new clothes, with 52% claiming that wearing old clothes negatively impacts their confidence levels. And with the findings concluding that women spend a monthly average of £74 on clothes, with men spending £100, there’s clearly a proportion of the population who are less bothered about quality as long as they can sport the latest trends.
‘Expensive’ and ‘Cheap’ both rank, reflecting the diversity of the brands listed (even in the top 20, we saw Primark and Chanel both appearing).
Fashion Brand Leaders
The overall leaders of our first Fashion Brand Index were as follows:
| Brand name | Recall | Purchase Intent | NPS | Brand Strength | Total Brand Equity |
| Next | 7.80% | 56.41% | 39.74% | 96.15 | 750.00 |
| Nike | 6.30% | 66.67% | 42.86% | 109.52 | 690.00 |
| Primark | 5.70% | 66.67% | 54.39% | 121.05 | 690.00 |
| ASOS | 4.70% | 70.21% | 63.83% | 134.04 | 630.00 |
| New Look | 4.50% | 68.89% | 48.89% | 117.78 | 530.00 |
| Adidas | 3.50% | 68.57% | 60.00% | 128.57 | 450.00 |
| Zara | 3.10% | 67.74% | 64.52% | 132.26 | 410.00 |
| H&M | 2.60% | 61.54% | 57.69% | 119.23 | 310.00 |
| River Island | 2.30% | 56.52% | 69.57% | 126.09 | 290.00 |
| Superdry | 1.90% | 84.21% | 63.16% | 147.37 | 280.00 |
| Armani | 2.00% | 55.00% | 55.00% | 110.00 | 220.00 |
| Marks & Spencer | 1.50% | 60.00% | 73.33% | 133.33 | 200.00 |
| Ralph Lauren | 1.50% | 53.33% | 60.00% | 113.33 | 170.00 |
| Gucci | 3.60% | 33.33% | 5.56% | 38.89 | 140.00 |
| Levi’s | 1.20% | 66.67% | 41.67% | 108.33 | 130.00 |
| Topshop | 2.10% | 52.38% | 9.52% | 61.90 | 130.00 |
| Boohoo | 1.20% | 58.33% | 33.33% | 91.67 | 110.00 |
| Ted Baker | 1.40% | 50.00% | 21.43% | 71.43 | 100.00 |
| Versace | 1.10% | 45.45% | 9.09% | 54.55 | 60.00 |
| Chanel | 1.10% | 36.36% | -9.09% | 27.27 | 30.00 |
| Average | 2.96% | 58.91% | 43.22% | 102.14 | 316.00 |
| Median | 2.20% | 59.00% | 52.00% | 111.50 | 250.00 |
You can see how this looks plotted as both Total Brand Equity (TBE) and against the matrix of ‘well known and well liked.’
Takeaways
The fashion industry is wide-ranging, encompassing online platforms, designer brands, and high-street chains. There seems to be a great deal of spend to play with, but also, a great deal of variety within consumer profiles to play for. The wide range of brands named, and the high number of brands claiming a healthy percentage of recall tells of a multiplicitous space, with several market leaders.
Notably, the contentment of shoppers also varied based on geographical location. While NPS shot up in the North West (54.8%), North East (53.7%), and the South West (56%), it fell drastically in London (29.6%) and the midlands (24.6%).
This variance is perhaps due to how people access retail based on where they live. Driving to a multi-story shopping centre to shop, is a very different experience to shopping in a city centre, for instance. With the growth of online shopping, we should start to see an evening-out of the shopping experience.
On the whole though, the NPS and PI scores were healthy across the board, even for shops like New Look, who are struggling economically. If they can sort out their finances and streamline their operations, there’s a consumer base ready to try their new strategy.
Conclusions
The fashion industry houses a range of options for consumers. It seems there’s room for a wide variety of brands within the sector, and the market is large enough for multiple brands (offering quite different services) to have a large slice of the pie.
With a wide range of offerings, there is something to suit every budget, although it seems that brands need to promise either high-quality, or very on-trend clothing to maintain appeal.
With a shift towards buying clothes on mobile devices, it will be key for brands to optimise their mobile presence and their sales platform to ensure they are, not only visible enough to attract initial consumer attention, but efficient and capable enough to convert those mobile browsers into proper consumers.
If you see your brand’s name included in this report, and you’d like to more targeted data on which aspects of your strategy need work, get in touch to find out more about how we can help. Measuring these key metrics is crucial to maintaining a healthy brand that will remain in the upper echelons of the industry.
And if your brand wasn’t featured, we can help you run a more tailored brand equity matrix specific to your category niche (e.g. online shopping, or luxury goods) or target consumer.