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In our previous article, we already mentioned such new trends in fashion retail as blurring of market segments, disappearing of seasonality, growing eco trend and unpredictable consumer behavior. What are the rest important trends of the industry we should be ready for?
Attention concentration has been falling catastrophically – its average duration made 8.25 seconds in 2015 and in 2017 it will be reduced to 5 seconds. Customers are switching to online shopping and local brands. A new term - "time-saving" has been rooting. Consumers demand immediate service in non-working hours more and more often. For example, 85% of the customers using Twitter in the US wait for a response not more than an hour. How to seize attention of the customer on time? Perhaps, you may organize a work of your shop so that it helps to "save" time and promote this factor in an advertising campaign. One more option – is to inform the customers that the company is ready to be with them for 24 hours.
Buyers are hyper-informed now. They are torn between the need to be thrifty and the desire to enjoy more shopping. However, eventually, they inclined to the first. They run after sales, do shopping in outlets and online stores.
Customers respond well to geo tags. Net-a-Porter sends to its customers maps which show the items purchased by other customers nearby in real time. Rational customers like little-known brands; they are ready to support innovative start-ups. To keep customers and attract money these customers have to become part of something bigger and more important at the level of values – promote the traditions of family, respect for the individual and tolerance.
Athleisure – is the key word of 2016. Every woman today has sport clothes, leggings and T-shirts. And active lifestyle trend will only grow in future. Along with this trend, more attention is paid to sleep, that is considered as a part of healthy lifestyle and, of course, requires special accessories. Probably, this is the first signal to increase the proportion of pajamas collections. Eco trend has been gaining popularity too. Billionaires, multinational corporations, top models – everyone wants to participate in preservation of the environment. "Y" and "Z" generations are most active in this movement. "Z" generation demands radical honesty from brands and expects that it will become the industry standard, rather than a marketing move. Their main question is not "who I'll be when I grow up" but "what will be the world which I have to live in."
Stores carry out energy-saving initiatives; textile factories are engaged in water recycling, switch to new eco fabrics. But all these processes cannot be implemented without losses, if the wholesales and production chain is not renewed.
Trend watchers identify two new trends that change the consumption paradigm radically. The number of people who refuse to create a family has been growing. They have fewer obligations to others and more opportunities to spend on themselves. As a rule, such consumers are 35 years and under, they exactly know what they want, they take care of themselves, they ignore traditional jobs and earn good money. In addition to "freelancer" word they invented "solopreneur" term that means self-employed. Representatives of this type of customers prefer products on subscription, combine counterculture with luxury; they are well in podiums' backstages and value belonging to a private club. Their behavior can be characterized as conservative and cautious, similar to the "silent generation" of the 1930s.
Another trend – is the growth of the territorial identity of the major cities which become independent consumer societies with their own habits. Among the new centers are Tianjin, Delhi, Mexico City and Guadalajara, Kuwait. Fashion companies will have to move away from the decisions based on national markets to those taken in view of the economy and lifestyle of a certain city. Development of relations with local communities will help brands to be less dependent on the tourist market fluctuations – they will need to make capsule collections and special offers for the specific territories.
But how you can satisfy the client in this case? It is necessary to clearly define each position - in relation to the sex, age, environment, society, etc. And if this chain is logic and consistent, the brand will have all chances to become an integral part of the consumer's life.