There's been a convergence of standard features and engaging customer components that are now expected on fashion eCommerce websites and there's one current trend that is very important in the fashion eCommerce world today - personalisation. From flexible mannequinns which give specific visualisations of a garment on a particular body shape to "digital personal shoppers" in the form of chat window engagements for customers to be able to ask about products in real-time.
Retailers who use their customer data effectively and target customers to provide a personal experience in products, journey and promotions, are leveraging the most out of their digital assets and capitalising on their digital growth opportunity.
Those who want to "blaze a trail" are looking to leverage more external data about their customers, rather than only relying on the data that is being captured when a customer is browsing on site.
As people "share" and "like" on Social Media sites, this data is being made available as part of the "Open Graph"; a standard used to allow the sharing of information and functionality via social networks in a common way.
It will go beyond just data related to those who explicitly opt-in, but instead from other external sources. For example, your payment transaction history will tell a lot about what you buy and where you buy it.
Furthermore, the advent of mobile tracking - with Apple's release of iBeacon (where the Bluetooth signal on your phone can tell other devices placed in any location where you are), means this data will be used to drive prediction models of shopping behaviour where retailers can maximise their budget spend based on targeted and segmented marketing campaigns.
It is now that fashion retailers with eCommerce sites need to be laying the foundations and doing the easy things well so that when the more challenging growth opportunities need to be realised via eCommerce technology, they are geared up and ready to achieve the next stage of revenue growth.
