A strong vertical in U.S. e-commerce
Businesses engaged in fashion e-commerce typically operate an official website for online shopping, where consumers can buy clothing, footwear, and accessories directly from brands or on platforms that combine different manufacturers, like Amazon. As of 2021, the e-commerce giant was estimated to hold an over ten percent share of all apparel sold in the United States, and nearly 35 percent of all apparel sold online. Macy's, Gap, and Walmart are also among the best-selling online fashion stores in the U.S.Online shoppers spent an average of 3.5 U.S. dollars per visit to luxury apparel properties and 2.7 U.S. dollars per online shopper per visit to general apparel properties, making fashion the highest revenue-generating vertical for e-commerce websites. The value of e-commerce retail sales for clothing and accessories stores amounted to about 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. The combined compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for revenue from fashion retail e-commerce in the United States is expected to reach 14 percent between 2017 and 2025.
The lion's share of fashion e-commerce traffic is due to young women visiting online apparel stores. A recent study shows almost half of fashion retail website visitors in the United States are younger than 35, and almost two-thirds of the online traffic is generated by female users. The higher rate of women shopping for fashion items online is also evident on resale websites such as Poshmark and thredUP, where users can resell and buy second-hand clothing and accessories.
