Member Article

How Fast Fashion Has Captivated the Millennial Market

Millennials are one of the most powerful consumer groups in the retail market, this we all know. These 18-34 are opting for life experiences over savings or spending money on costly attire. Millennials started their shopping journey spending their pocket money on Primark quick-fixes and getting the latest look for £10 - and that was the whole outfit. While they were at university they continued to look for high impact low-cost fashion and as they stepped into adulthood, they and their younger siblings have been the driver to the internet shopping boom.

Online Labels Dominate the Fashion Market

The high-street fashion industry once dominated by brick and mortar labels such as River Island, Topshop, H&M and Zara, has seen a shift in consumer fashion purchases. 2017 has become the year for online fashion retailers to captivate the millennial market through cheap fashion, online social influence and consumer convenience, resulting in phenomenal growth and financial rewards.

Fast fashion? You mean even ‘even faster fashion’. There is a new generation in fashion labels leaving behind the high street giants. The ever-rising prices over the last few years has led to an opening in the market for fashion newcomers to enter.

The quick fashion business strategies are some of the savviest around and have earned great rewards. The models are modern and more dynamic than traditional models used by high-street brands and instead focus on cheaper prices, quick stock turnarounds and new pieces hitting the sales almost instantaneously. These businesses have pushed fast fashion to step up a gear and seen labels such as Boohoo, MissGuided, and PrettyLittleThing revolutionise the fashion industry.

Dynamic Strategy

Considered as ‘fast fashion’, the digital fashion brands interpret the looks of TV celebrities on the red carpet over catwalk focused seasonal wear. Unlike Zara who can take a design from the catwalk to the sales floor in just 25 days, research by Goldman Sachs identified that the changes in celebrity trends on the red carpet can be quickly turned around and hit the online fashion scene in a matter weeks, if not days, from ‘even faster fashion’ labels like Boohoo.

The choice to differentiate themselves from the catwalk sees fast fashion companies focuses less on ‘investment purchases’ and more on what’s a hot trend right now – specifically targeting the millennial market who don’t have £40 to spend on a dress but have £15-20 instead.

The millennial wallet has its limitations and the availability of cheaper clothes with dresses costing £15 and t-shirts a mere £4, have powered the rapid expansion of online quick fashion retailers. Industry analysts state that Boohoo is ‘the most successful online fashion retailer to apply and deliver the model’, making it one the biggest online clothing retailers.

The astute strategy known as “Test and Repeat”, involves making smaller quantities of a design, no more than 300 at a time and to then quickly increase production volumes of the ones that sell best.

Social Media and the Social Influence

Social media plays a huge role in our lives today, prior to it fashion purchases were based on reading magazines and figuring out what the next investment purchase was going to be. Today social media feeds the social influence in the discovery of latest trends, making it arguably the most powerful psychological trigger that leads to purchases in marketing.

For most, high-end fashion is simply out of their price range, however cheap fast fashion is ideal for the world of Instagram and Snapchat where most fashion influencers post numerous times a day and wear outfits only once.

So, for fast fashion labels whose shopfronts are Instagram and Facebook, the psychology created around not wearing an item too often by social influencers attracts the millennial market in. Additionally, instead of opting for 5ft 10inch models with a size 0 waist like most high-street fashion labels, they choose alternative fashion influencers like Lionel Richie’s 18 year-old daughter Sofia for Boohoo and Missguided’s 5ft 1in mixed-race model.

The social influence trend has created a fashion movement amongst young girls who can relate to the size or height of these influencers with the desire to mirror and look like them. The online fast fashion labels have managed to connect with a younger audience via the use of social media alone.

Will the Success be Sustainable?

Fast fashion has become a minority in the retail industry to reap huge financial benefits and growth during a time when brick and mortar brands are suffering closures and reining in store expansions to shift their focus online. Yet the benefits rely on the social media’s short lived trend cycles which see millennials seeking out their moment of inspiration from social influencers to purchase an item.

The question however remains will the leaders in ‘even faster fashion’ like Boohoo be able to sustain its growth and success? Whilst brick and mortar brands seek to entice consumers back in by creating a customer experience that communicates its brand image online and offline. Conversely, the fast fashion business strategy differentiates itself by basing stock levels on the best-selling items purchased online, minimising the financial risk of an item not selling well and would simply not work outside the online only fashion business model.

But for now, until new technology trends appear and stores develop unique customer experiences that really draws the consumers away from the convenience of online shopping and online social influence, it seems the ‘even faster fashion’ trend won’t be slowing down just yet.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Laura Garner .