‘Fast Fashion’ Has Changed The Way We Shop Online

Stephen McCance March 3, 2017

We take a look at the fast fashion sector, how it has changed buyers behaviour and how it could ultimately lead to its own downfall.


Only 10 years ago, established fashion retailers around the world were about to have their online sales slashed by a sub-sector that would go on to dominate. ‘Fast fashion’ as it is now known, turned the market on its head by not only changing the prices customers expected to pay, but also how they purchased their clothes. However, the change in buyer’s behaviour that has worked well so far in fast fashion could ultimately be its downfall.

It is well known that businesses who fail to move with the times get left behind, and this was certainly the case for a good 5 years in fashion. The sector as a whole expected customers to just switch from buying clothes on the high street to buying them online for the same price, whilst paying additional money for delivery, therefore making it even more expensive to buy clothes online than to do so in a shop. Companies also didn’t expect any shifts in consumer behaviour within retail, customers in general now want things quicker, they want to dress like their favourite celebrity, the Instagram culture moved people towards ‘lookbooks’ and wanting to buy similar clothes but for an affordable price.

At this point, a certain high street retailer called Zara were making waves and growing at a phenomenal rate, they had spotted the gap in the market and were releasing regular collections with up to date trends that copied the styles celebrities were wearing and selling them at a lower price. This was when the likes of Boohoo then seized the initiative and saw a gap in the market for somebody to take the ‘Primark model’ and move it online. Their aim was to create great looking clothes that were bang on trend (in a similar way to Zara) but at a much lower quality so that the price point was low enough for people to purchase products on a whim (Primark). The clothing may well not survive a wash and still look the same, it might also only survive a few wears without threads starting to come out but it appealed because it looks great and is affordable for anyone.

Since then, fast fashion retailers have popped up regularly in every available niche, whether it be streetwear, fitness, swimwear, accessories or party wear. Boohoo, Missguided, ASOS and Pretty Little Thing are permanently battling it out in the extremely lucrative womenswear market, trying to assert their dominance over the others, which is great news for consumers as it means the prices are continuing to tumble with free delivery and returns being offered all round.

However, there is a potential issue on the horizon for these retailers, and ironically it is caused by the very reason that they have been so successful up to this point. Buyers behaviour now dictates that they will purchase multiple items, sometimes the same item in 2 or 3 different sizes, as the free delivery and returns mean that you might as well this to make sure you have bought the right size. The other items that aren’t needed are then returned and must be processed by the retailer.

Fast fashion retailers generally work with very low profit margins, they need to sell in bulk to make their money, so having to deal with vast amounts of returns is eating in to that profit all of the time. Not only do they need to pay for the postage, but they need to have a full team to deal with the processing of the items in terms of issuing a refund and repackaging the item to be sold on again. Iain Prince of KPMG recently said, “It can cost double the amount for a product to be returned into the supply chain as it does to deliver it. To pick and deliver an order costs between £3 and £10 — it could cost double or treble that to be processed on the way back.”

By the middle of December 2016, over £600m of the products sold over Black Friday and Cyber Monday were caught up in return loops, which is quite a staggering statistic. Of all ecommerce sectors, fashion is the worst for returns, 25% of items are sent back, with furniture and then health and beauty products in 2nd place at a 15% return rate. So, could this spark a reduction in the number of fast fashion retailers, with only the biggest surviving? And will we see another shift in consumer behaviour when it comes to the quality of the products they buy online? We will have to wait and see.

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