Sir Philip Green is famously reluctant to follow slavishly the latest fashionable idea unless it makes good business sense. Asked for his opinion on a social-networking proposal called Mint by fashion students, a site that had won plaudits from hard-nosed types such as Terry Green, Tesco’s fashion supremo, Sir Philip curtly renamed it Skint. It was his shorthand for dismissing it as an extravagance.
So when Arcadia — the group, owned by Sir Philip, that includes Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Burtons — invited fashion bloggers to its headquarters for a preview of its autumn/winter lines and a photoshoot two weeks ago, the rag trade took note.
The charm offensive signalled to the industry that Arcadia, considered by some a laggard in the online stakes, had decided to sharpen how it competed on the internet. The move was seen as all the more significant in the light of Sir Philip’s ambitions to partner Simon Cowell, the television and music impresario, in a multichannel fashion and entertainment project.
Arcadia’s marketing drive is part of a broader pattern in which retailers have been forced to find new ways of influencing key opinion-formers on the internet, which is the sector’s fastest-growing sales channel.
Leon Bailey-Green, the founder of The Online Fashion Agency, said: “This is part of Arcadia opening itself up to new forms of media. Look at Sir Philip’s media entertainment ambitions,” “Arcadia knows media consumption is fragmented, and right now bloggers are ruling the online fashion space.”
The move is significant because Arcadia’s brands have been thought to be punching below their weight online. Asos, the fashion retailer that trades entirely online, receives more visitors than any of Sir Philip’s brands.
River Island recently overtook Topshop, Arcadia’s biggest business online, in traffic volumes. The two are similarly sized businesses overall. Meanwhile, New Look is within touching distance of Topshop despite having launched online only in December, according to data from IMRG, the trade body for internet retailers.
As frivolous as the bloggers’ fashion preview sounds, fashion experts are unanimous on their increased importance. Recognition of the bloggers began at the high end of the market.
Two years ago Chanel invited 12 bloggers to Paris for a VIP tour of Coco Chanel’s apartment. It is now commonplace for bedroom bloggers to have their own section at fashion shows, elbow-to-elbow with the conventional fashion media.
The Arcadia event seems to have been a success. One blogger, Magazine Machine, wrote: “It was the first time a retailer had put on an event like this specifically for bloggers ... it has taken a while for PRs to adjust to the various forms of online fashion sites.”
About 15 per cent of fashion sales are online, a figure that is rising quickly. Perhaps more important, IMRG estimates that more than 40 per cent of fashion sales are in some way influenced by the internet, so retailers increasingly see the need to win hearts and minds online.
This is problematic because consumers are notoriously fickle and disloyal on the internet. About 63 per cent of customers have increased their use of price comparison websites in the past year, and 45 per cent said that they would leave a website immediately if it failed to show them what they wanted on the first page, according to Avail Intelligence’s Trust Index.
The vexed question of trust and brand-building on the internet means that a company that has organically developed an affinity with a loyal base of customers can be an attractive acquisition target. Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, announced that it was to buy Zappos, a quirky, niche footwear and clothes online retailer, for nearly $847 million (£517 million), the biggest acquisition in its history.
Mr Bailey-Green said that Zappos had built up an appeal to customers that would prove difficult or impossible to replicate. It has been known to send flowers to customers on special occasions and its telephone sales representatives are told to direct customers to rivals if necessary.
“Retailers who fail to take fashion bloggers seriously now will find it difficult to get their attention when they become mainstream”, Mr Bailey-Green said. “It will affect sales.”
