Why This Is The Right Time To Start Your Fashion Ecommerce Store

Are you thinking of starting your fashion ecommerce store but waiting for the right time or pandemic to get over?

Then let us tell you that there is no right time as of now!

India has set new benchmarks in the ecommerce industry amid the pandemic. Fashion was the biggest contributor to the e-commerce industry.

• 51 percent growth was seen across online fashion stores in FY21

• 66 percent of sales growth was visible on various brand websites

• 192 percent volume sales growth was observed in online stores in Tier 3 cities

Purchasing power, internet connectivity, social media, technical know-how, and flair for fashion are enough reasons to bring in customers to shop online.

If you own a fashion brand or a designer store, you should grasp this fantastic opportunity to grow your business.

1. Boom in internet usage and ecommerce

India has become the second-largest online market in the world, with over 560 million internet users. It is predicted that by 2023, there would be over 650 million internet users. Keeping in with the trend of being digital, retailers and shoppers have both transitioned from offline to online.

Most online consumers are now using search engines before they decide to buy. This means that if your brand does not show up in search engines, you are losing customers.

When you build an online store , it is the first step to results. Creating a fashion ecommerce store opens up a whole new opportunity to reach new users, creating brand visibility and generating revenue.

2. Changing customer behavior 

Recent trends in changed consumer behavior while shopping online for fashion:

• Consumers are buying cheap clothes frequently

• The consumer is spending higher at brand stores and websites than at multi-brand stores

• When consumers purchase online, they tend to buy more

Based on these trends, fashion brands are investing heavily in ecommerce stores and mobile apps to provide the consumer with a personalized experience, generous returns policies, and 360-degree images to convert visitors into customers.

3. Convenience 

In 2021, convenience continues to be the top priority of consumers. Consumers are favored online shopping for ease alone. At the comfort of your home, you can replicate your favorite celebrity style. Just browse a product from an ecommerce store, order it, confirm the payment, and track the order status.

As a fashion brand, your focus can't be on the sales alone. You also need to focus on customer preferences, and an ecommerce store will do wonders for your customer experience.

4. Fewer expenses to maintain physical stores

Fashion retailers do not always offer the same deals in their bricks-and-mortar stores as their online counterparts.

Why? Because the cost of running a physical store is higher than an online store.

Due to the pandemic, many stores could not open shops, but their fixed charges remained the same. When you build an online store , you reduce the factors such as rent, payroll, electricity, fixtures, and shrinkage loss-all which contribute to the overhead of doing business in a store.

Apart from reducing your overhead costs, you also gain an advantage over your competitors by offering attractive sales and discounts on your products.

In addition, creating an online store is relatively cheaper than physical stores. You can take the help of easy third-party integration to build an online fashion store at a fraction of the cost.

5. Control the customer experience 

As an upcoming fashion brand, it is important that you have an ecommerce store that represents you well. The online store will tell your brand story and history to your customers. The story will add a personal touch and connect you with customers on a personal level.

When you build an online store, you can display your catalog and products on your website. Your online will be the primary host of your entire portfolio. You will be the one who decides the overall look and feel of the online store.

Any new announcements about your fashion brand can be made on your online store. The customers will receive first-hand information from you, preventing any miscommunication. Enhanced credibility and trustworthiness will bring in more potential clients. 

6. Expand into new markets

Many people can view your website at any time, anywhere, thanks to the internet and smartphones. As millennials join in on the digital shopping spree with m-commerce , you can take advantage of reaching a large audience.

Think of the number of people you can reach through a website or mobile apps compared to your physical store.

By offering products 24/7 on a mobile app, live chat support , blogs, and social media promotions, you no longer remain in a singular store. Instead, your ecommerce fashion store or mobile app becomes your brand identity where you can fully expand your product ranges without having to worry about moving locations.

7. Increase your margins and profits

Your fashion ecommerce store carries far lower costs than your brick-and-mortar setups. Digital advertising is inexpensive compared to traditional channels. You can also save money on staff if you integrate a chat-bot feature into your social media and customer service activities. These can help you lower operational costs and increase your margins and profits.

With the right business solution provider, you can easily build an online store at a fraction of the cost. The ecommerce platforms have battle-tested solutions where you don't have to create additional financial outlays for managing the online store. With their inbuilt technology , you can easily set up your store with customized themes and take your store to market in record time.

How StoreHippo helps your fashion online store 

With consumer behavior changing considerably, now is the right time to re-evaluate and realign your business priorities. You can start by building your ecommerce store by adapting to this uncharted climate.

Here are some of the features that can benefit your fashion online store

• Ease of accessibility

StoreHippo is built using the mobile-first approach. That means that the customer can browse your website from any device or screen. All StoreHippo's stores are Progressive Web App (PWA). It means that you can create super-fast, easily discoverable and zero-install web pages. You can easily install it on your system or device and give an app-like user experience. For an uninterrupted browsing experience, PWAs even work offline by leveraging the cached data. StoreHippo's quick and mobile-responsive web pages give your customers a seamless experience while shopping on your fashion online store. Do your business wherever you go with our full-featured admin mobile app.

• Reduced cost

StoreHippo offers you an inbuilt mobile apps builder that creates Android n iOS apps for your fashion store at no additional cost. You can also save costs as the ecommerce platform comes with pre-designed themes and multiple free templates for you to choose from. When you avail StoreHippo's turnkey solutions, you get battle-tested solutions and a host of inbuilt tools to grow your business. At StoreHippo, updates are automatically offered as per the requirements in technology and market demand. Thus, you save costs that are involved in updating and maintaining the software.

• Enhance engagement

With their easy-to-leverage m-commerce with PWA stores that work as mobile apps, you can increase your customer engagement and conversions with an improved mobile experience. You can integrate a chat support system, sync with automated email marketing platforms and even send personalized notifications for increased customer interactions. For better customer engagement, you can gather data and feedback from your customers by adding forms to your ecommerce website. You can even promote or keep your customers engaged with our unified notifications.

• Improved customer experience

StoreHippo also provides you the opportunity to create your omnichannel retail fashion store to provide a unified and consistent experience to your customers. The headless commerce features allow you to add multiple customer touchpoints without the need to change backend features. Using the dynamic page functionality enables you to update fast convertible and responsive pages for various uses. With the help of easy social logins, you can get more insight into your customer persona, which could help you target your audience better.

• Personalized offerings

If you are worried, how you will manage the presentation of your website, then worry not! Because StoreHippo allows you to create a trendy fashion store with drag and drop design tools . You can select from the rich theme's library optimized for multiple devices and customize your store according to your requirements. The business solution provider also helps in user segmentation for targeted campaigns and sync it with your favorite marketing tool to maximize ROI.

• Marketing

When you build an online store with StoreHippo, it offers you a host of inbuilt marketing tools to boost conversions. The best ecommerce software platform is designed using the latest tools and technologies to help promote your business. Some of these tools, such as catalog promotional pricing, bundled products, flexible coupons, landing page tools for campaigns, etc., can help drive sales. With our inbuilt SEO features , you can rank higher on Google with SEO optimized themes, blog features, automatic sitemap, meta fields, URLs, and more. Our feature-rich platform allows you to develop and manage your content strategies such as e-books, blogs, articles, webinars, how-to videos, graphics, etc.

• Easy logistics

With StoreHippo, you can also integrate your online fashion store with its partner shipping aggregator platforms. With a wide range of multiple logistics partners , you can choose the best-fit shipping solution . You can ship your products to customers, keep a real-time track of orders and even arrange scheduled pick-up of returns. You can take your fashion brand global with international shipping solutions. Save shipping costs by comparing various e-commerce logistics partners' delivery charges and choose the most economical one.

• Secured payment

StoreHippo also offers you the best and secure payment gateways for your online store. This allows your customers to pay through multiple channels, including, Credit Card, Net Banking, Debit Card, or COD. The ecommerce software platform also offers full support for COD with timely COD remittance and automated COD payments cycles.

And if you think that we have exhausted our list of features and offerings, then you are mistaken. Our host of extraordinary, easy-to-use, and a gamut of economical features, can help set up your successful fashion ecommerce store.

Conclusion

Rising awareness, increased media exposure, broadening internet users, heavy discounts and promotions, availability of exclusive products, and customized experience - all have resulted in the migration of most consumers from offline to online channels.

StoreHippo's ecommerce platform provides you with the ultimate tools and solutions to manage your ecommerce store successfully. With an aim to grow your business, the advanced ecommerce platform is an ideal choice to build an online store.

So, let's not waste any more time. Start your fashion ecommerce store now by opting for a 14-day free trial from StoreHippo.