Let’s say you live in a very summer-filled place. We’ll call it Florida. But you crave snow. So you log into the metaverse and immerse yourself in snow-related experiences. You go skiing with friends who live in Spain, but connect with you online. You cuddle with a loved one by the fireplace. Or maybe you have some “me time” in the virtual outdoors, looking around in wonder as snow falls over you.

Well, on your avatar, but hey, you’ll take it.

Then you realize your avatar needs warmer clothes, so you click a button and buy some, contributing to the $40 billion a year market of skin games, AKA clothes and other items that upgrade avatars’ looks.

But you feel like buying yourself some winter clothes too. So you click another button and get it delivered to your offline home. Or you order some hot cocoa or soup from a nearby, real life restaurant, turn on the air conditioner at home, and watch a Broadway musical or fashion show that’s happening in New York City in real time… on the snow.

The metaverse, said to be the next version of the internet, happens in parallel to real life, and continues changing even when you log off. It keeps gaining in popularity, with AR and VR headset sales increasing by 56% from 2017 to 2021, and smart retailers are already immersing themselves in it, creating innovative experiences for their customers.

Gucci Organizes a Virtual Exhibition and Proves Metaverse Profitability for Retail Brands

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Gucci created a virtual exhibition of art installations. Called Gucci Garden, it was based on a real life, multimedia experience in Italy.

As users entered the virtual exhibition, their metaverse avatars transformed into genderless mannequins to provide them with a blank canvas for creation. They wandered through a variety of themed rooms, whose design and virtual elements were inspired by past brand campaigns and collections. As they wandered through the rooms, they retained different aspects of the exhibit on their avatar bodies. In part, they did so by trying on and purchasing virtual products.

Since each visitor entered the exhibit from a different room, wandered through the rooms in a different order, and tried different products, each visitor left the exhibit looking unique, just as they are uniquely themselves in real life.

This is only one of the experiences Gucci has created in the metaverse. Among others, it has proven the metaverse profitability to retail brands by selling virtual products, including $12.99 sneakers and a $4,000 handbag. The virtual handbag was later resold for $25,000.

Burberry Designs a Game Heroine’s Outfits, Then Sells Them to Consumers

Product placement in the media has been going on at least since the 1920s. This strategy embeds products seamlessly in ongoing stories, such as a character that happens to drink Coca Cola while she’s already at a restaurant. According to a 2019 study, “prominent product placement activities – especially verbal placements – are associated with increases in both online conversations and web traffic for the brand.”

In 2021, Burberry took this strategy to the virtual world. It designed two outfits for the protagonist of the Honor of Kings game. The outfits included Burberry’s logo, so gamers were able to identify the brand. They could then search for these outfits online or in Burberry’s brick and mortar stores… and buy them for themselves.

Louis Vuitton Creates a Virtual Game that’s Basically a Brand History Course

Louis Vuitton also ventured into gaming, but it actually created its own game. To celebrate its 200th anniversary, it introduced Vivienne, the game’s protagonist, who travels across the virtual globe in an attempt to find 200 birthday NFT candles. Players who join her can collect NFT candles and unique accessories themselves, and even win some awards.

But what’s that got to do with the brand?

Each NFT candle Vivienne finds during the game unveils milestones of the Louis Vuitton story. Kinda like a gamified brand history course.

Introducing Louis The Game. Join Vivienne in collecting 200 birthday candles as she retraces #LouisVuitton’s story over two centuries and try to find one of the 30 precious NFTs. Discover the new game in honor of #LOUIS200 at https://t.co/5vpMF3AQDy pic.twitter.com/tpAM5rZhjR

— Louis Vuitton (@LouisVuitton) August 10, 2021

Dyson Lets Consumers Virtually Style Their Hair So They Can Find the Perfect Product Fit

Browsing the metaverse and feeling the need to style your hair? If you’re immersed in the Oculus environment created by Meta (AKA Facebook), you can do just that. When you log into Dyson’s virtual store, you can use its VR demo to virtually try out the company’s hair products on a variety of hair types, and see which one is best for you. You can also look inside the products and understand the technology that makes them work.

Looks like Dyson might be introducing a similar experience for its vacuum cleaners later on. If only virtual vacuuming got our actual houses clean, right?

Nike Connects the Real and Virtual World with Physical Activity

Nike acquired RTFKT, a company that sells digital collectibles in the metaverse, including digital sneakers that cost $70,000 a pair. Behind the scenes, Nike has been filing trademark applications as it advances toward selling a variety of digital products in the metaverse.

Meanwhile, it created its own metaverse studio and launched Nikeland on the Roblox platform. Nikeland, which was designed based on the brand’s offline headquarters, allows visitors to choose their avatars, then dress them in Nike clothes and shoes. Visitors can play multiple existing sports games together, or create their own using interactive sports elements. But Nike doesn’t want you to solely exercise virtually, so when you exercise in real life – say, run or jump – you add a layer of movement to the game on the screen, and could get rewarded for it, too.

To blend the two worlds further, visitors to Nike’s New York store can enjoy augmented reality that gives them a sense that they’re actually in Nikeland.

Taking Baby Steps into the Metaverse

If your team isn’t immersed in the metaverse and doesn’t know what great virtual experiences feel like, the best place to get started is by exploration. Have them explore both retail experiences and environments from different industries, so they can gain inspiration from a variety of sources instead of trying to recreate the brick and mortar feel.

In addition, check in with your audience members:

=> Have they heard of the metaverse?

=> What do they love most about it?

=> What do they least enjoy?

=> What would they want from a metaverse retail experience?

That said, don’t dismiss the metaverse if your audience isn’t that into it yet. This is still a growing space, and there’s bound to be some resistance, as with any new technological advancement. You can still take steps forward to make sure you won’t be left behind in a few years. For example, you could create immersive experiences for them in your stores, using AR, VR and smart mirrors (click here for some examples of interactive in-store experiences [link to the article once it gets published]). This way, when your customers are ready for the next step, they’ll want to experience it with you, not with your competitors.

We’ve all heard that online is here to stay. The pandemic has indeed accelerated ecommerce growth and established new buying habits. But according to a 2021 study by Raydiant, approximately half of consumers have enjoyed going back to brick and mortar stores. They “spent more than 51% of their shopping budget in physical locations,” and prefer to buy in-person when they can.

It looks like in-store shopping is here to stay, too. But with changing habits and expectations, retailers need to think outside the box and create a more interactive, immersive store experience. Here are examples of five retailers with impressive customer experiences.

Source: Raydiant

Chanel Blends Two Worlds

Too often, consumers feel like they’ve seen it all, as brand after brand repeats the same marketing strategy. Sometimes these repetitive experiences are enjoyable, other times they grow tired with time… until someone comes up with a new trend, which, once again, everyone follows.

To navigate the challenge of coming up with new ideas for experiences that truly surprise and immerse customers in interactive retail experiences, Chanel decided to borrow from a very, very different world.

So what happens when a luxury fashion retailer and makeup brand mixes up some arcade elements?

A pink pop-up shop with “game stations named after popular products from Chanel, such as Rogue Coco, Chance and Hydra Beauty,” where visitors could win free products and participate in pre-launches of new products, reports Female Magazine.

In addition, the pop up shop presented retail displays with an Instagrammable background, which likely encouraged shoppers to create their own content around the shop, and thus connect further with the brand and help spread the word.

Farfetch Provides Technology-Empowered Human to Human Interactions

When Farfetch decided to take its ecommerce platform, which curates luxury brands, to the brick and mortar world, it decided to go big, calling it the Store of the Future.

In an interview with Business of Fashion, Farfetch founder and CEO Jose Neves said that the Store of the Future will revolve around humanizing and personalizing the shopping experience, as well as connecting it with online channels.

Machines will replace the store staff’s focus on supply chain logistics, like looking up an item in the database, so that the staff can “focus on the human side of the interaction” and become “in-store influencers,” Neves said in the interview.

However, there will be no one size fits all, or one experience fits all. Farfetch developed the initial apps for the brick and mortar platform, including customer recognition at store entrance, RFID-enabled and automatic population of wishlists based on products the customer browses through in retail store, yet is opening the platform for additional companies to develop complementary apps. It’s also letting each partner brand customize the features and experiences it wants to provide customers, Business of Fashion reported.

Audi Lets You Try Equipment Virtually Before it Customizes Your Car

While some products are easy to buy without extensively trying them out first, some are big purchases, that include many aspects of decision making, like a car.

Therefore, when Audi customers want to buy a car, they go to a private customer lounge at an audi dealership, put on a VR headset, and take a deeper look at all the equipment options, including “the smallest details,” with “an extremely realistic perspective,” Audi explained when it launched this experience. Customers can choose their favorite options “from several hundred million possible models and equipment variants,” Audi announced.

But that’s not all. Customers can fully immerse themselves in the interactive retail experience before they make a purchase decision, “in three dimensions and 360 degrees, with all light and sound effects. Various environments, times of day, and light conditions,” it added.

Check it out in this one minute video:

Rebecca Minkoff Makes Shopping Seamless and Smart

Today’s consumer, especially the millennial one, is looking for greater control over her shopping experience, and less dependency on sales assistants, Rebecca Minkoff CEO Uri Minkoff explained to Footwear News. Therefore, the fashion retailer decided to find “ways to make her feel like she can have multiple experiences,” he said.

In an interview with Fast Company (see video below), Minkoff said the store welcomes you with a smart screen, where you can choose a beverage – including water, coffee, green tea or champagne – and some favorite looks. You can choose items to try on, and get a text when the items arrive at your dressing room.

When you reach the dressing room yourself, you’re welcomed by a smart interactive mirror that already knows all the items you chose to try on. If an item doesn’t fit, you can use the mirror to send a notification to a salesperson, and the sales associate will deliver the item to your dressing room.

Meanwhile, the interactive displays allow you to adjust your dressing room’s lighting – from sunny to sunset – so “you can get some confidence around what it might look like in your end use case,” Minkoff told Fast Company.

Then, customers can use self checkout and the retailer gains valuable data about its customers’ preferences.

Nike Simultaneously Offers Connected Experiences and Shopping Independence

With more Nike shoes than anywhere and an emphasis on immersive experiences, Nike’s flagship New York City store is designed to make you feel like you’ve entered a high-tech museum, not just another shop. According to Nike’s website, the store layout can be easily reconfigured, so the brand can customize and reshape experiences at all times.

The store lets you scan codes that have been placed on mannequins and request a store athlete to deliver its outfit in your size to your dressing room, adds Nike.

That’s right – a store athlete, not a sales associate.

You can also talk to an expert and get advice on styling your look or choosing the best “laces, fabrics [and] decals to customize your products.

If you prefer to do your shopping on your own, no worries. Scan your purchases using the Nike app and check out without waiting in line.

That said, Nike’s in-store experience is vastly about connection – connection to the brand, connection to the community, connection to the world. In its Seoul, South Korea, location, for example, it helps in-store shoppers find sporting events designated for the Nike community. It also accepts gently worn sneakers and apparel from customers, which it either recycles or donates, in an effort to become more and more eco-friendly, reports Input.

Mostly, though, Nike is all about unique experiences that keep customers coming back. As Nike Direct VP Daniel Heaf told Input, the intention “is to never have the shopping experience be the same if people come in on separate days.”

Create Interactive In-Store Experiences to Thrive Long Term

Even though eCommerce might be getting most of the headlines right now, customers don’t want to stop shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. They want the human connection, the ability to touch products before they buy them, and the fun of having the product with them as soon as they buy it.

But as online channels offer more and more personalization and convenience, including faster shipping, in-person stores that want to thrive long-term must provide immersive, interactive experiences that make the visit especially worthwhile.

It’s been two years since the pandemic transformed the retail market, and it feels like we’re still adjusting, as nothing remains certain. But the retail industry isn’t letting it stop its efforts to create the best shopping experiences or tap into the most innovative technologies.

 Today, we bring you six exciting retail trends to watch, and include some practical advice to help you turn these trends into competitive advantages for your company.

Expand into China as its Youngest Generation Devours the Luxury Retail Market

We’re seeing a large number of companies heading for Chinese expansion, and with good reason. “China was the only country with positive luxury growth in 2020,” reports Fashion Discounts. “By 2025, China will be the world’s largest luxury market,” predicts The Luxury Conversation.

The time to expand is now, as its youngest generation – born in 1990-2000 – is “now 50% of the luxury market,” according to Jing Daily.

The timing is especially critical, as Chinese consumers tend to celebrate national pride and buy from local brands, especially following the pandemic, explains The Luxury Conversation. To engage them, we recommend localizing at a deep level – from the software you use to the influencers you partner with – to create a shopping experience that feels immersed in the local culture.

Prioritize Gen Z

One of the biggest retail trends to watch is the growing emphasis retailers put on Gen Z – rightfully so, since “70% of luxury sales will be made by Gen Z and millennials by 2025,” reports Luxe Digital. And their shopping preferences are different from what we’ve known so far.

Source: Luxe Digital

According to eMarketer, Gen Z consumers educate themselves on social media, which is the best place to target them, whether organically, via advertising or with the help of influencers. According to the Instagram 2022 Trend Report, over 1 in 4 intends to shop directly through their social media feeds.

When you do target them, eMarketer points out they care a lot more about a brand’s proactive action toward social justice than they do about product prices, even though they don’t make as much money as older generations. Instagram emphasizes that Gen Zers cares about sustainability, including reusing, repurposing and reselling their clothes.

Leverage Influencers in a Way that Actually Matters to Your Audience

Using influencers to engage with consumers has been one of the retail trends to watch for a while, but it’s growing in significance, especially as Gen Z gets prioritized. According to Ogilvy’s 2022 report, “influencer marketing is 277% more emotionally intense and 87% more memorable” than TV ads, as it gets integrated into content consumers already enjoy.

In addition, influencer marketing is a great opportunity for the retail markets to put their money where their brand promises to this generation are.

The report indicates that “38% of consumers are more likely to trust brands that cast diverse people in their ads,” but points out that this alone won’t solve the inequality found in the industry. It explains that “black female influencers are paid up to 10 times less for the same work as their white counterparts. In addition to the steep racial pay gap, female influencers are paid 33% less than male influencers – even though female influencers make up 84% of the entire industry. On top of that, LGBTQ+ influencers, as well as influencers with disabilities, are more often compensated with ‘exposure’ in lieu of the standard rates brands usually pay.”

Design Omnichannel Clienteling

After getting hit during the first COVID year, “the personal luxury goods market grew by 29%” in 2021, reaching 283 billion Euros, reports Bain & Company, which expects this retail market to keep experiencing a 6-8% annual growth by 2025.

Source: Luxe Digital

However, the pandemic managed to change this market nonetheless. Alongside other sectors, clienteling turned to virtual platforms to keep operating, and it is expected to keep combining in-store and virtual channels as we head into 2022.

Sales associates will need to be empowered by omnichannel data, so they can predict customers’ needs based on their history with the company, make personalized recommendations, and keep track of customers’ desired products when they get back to stock, no matter how they interact with customers.

Provide Same Day Delivery (Although Most Consumers Still Accept a Slightly Larger Delivery Window)

The last mile continues to be a critical aspect of the shopping experience. Expect an increase in the amount of retailers offering same day delivery, some as fast as two hours, predicts Forbes. One of the ways they’ll make it happen is by establishing micro fulfillment and distribution centers across the country, it explains. Another way is by partnering with third party delivery services, such as DoorDash.

But in case offering same day delivery feels like too big of a leap from where your company is right now, McKinsey research found that “more than 90% of US online shoppers expect free two to three day shipping.” Longer than that, half of them will shop elsewhere.

Bring RFID to Your Stores

According to the Global RFID Market Research 2021-2026, Logistik Unicorp was able to reduce shipping time by 35% using RFID technology, while ensuring “strict quality requirements.”

RFID stands for radio-frequency identification. When you have an RFID reader, it can read tags or smart labels, then capture the data on your system. This technology is growing in popularity in retail markets, because it automates and simplifies transaction and inventory management.

For example, one of the trends we’re seeing is letting RFID automatically scan items in shopping baskets and populate customers’ carts, so they and your cashiers won’t need to do it automatically. That’s a much better shopping experience, as it removes the need for tedious tasks, and keeps the focus on the fun. Then, when customers walk out of the store, it scans the items again, to verify they actually paid for them. If they didn’t, an alarm is set off.

Back in their warehouses, a key trend that came up in the report is that retailers use RFID technology to track and manage inventory more accurately, plus make smarter purchase decisions, which lead to higher profit margins.

In addition, we’ve seen retailers use a wand to scan boxes. It records which orders have been processed and which items are leaving the warehouse. After all, if you’re looking for retail trends to watch, you might as well explore trends that make your team’s life easier while giving customers a better experience. It’s kinda like having your own magic wand.

2022 Retail Trends to Watch… and Implement

Now that you’ve got a list of the most exciting retail trends to watch, it’s time to start implementing them and lead your retail markets. But the good news is you don’t have to implement all of them, certainly not right away.

It’s much better to choose one or two that holistically align with your goals for 2022, and master them before expanding further. It will help you focus on creating the kind of shopping experiences that drive customer joy. Test these trends out, get feedback from your customers, check your profit margins, then adjust as you go. Over time, you’ll drive loyalty and advocacy, too, leading to a compound interest in your bottom line.

Ai-based video analytics are opening the door to exciting advancements in business intelligence…and they can now integrate into almost any location.

As retail continues to adapt to the new normal of life with COVID, there is still much consideration regarding how to better manage both retail operations and customer expectations. Retailers need to be agile, adaptive, and dynamic, both now and in the future. This is particularly true regarding the store, as labor shortages, distribution challenges, changing customer expectations and frenetic pricing continue to impact the bottom line. Thankfully, there are new technology developments that can help.

Insite is a new, turnkey, Ai-enabled “smart” video solution that delivers real-time insights to retail store operators, marketing, merchandising and design teams. With it, they are able to understand and manage what’s happening (and, in some cases, not happening) on the store floor to ensure bettercustomer experiences and more revenue­–without requiring additional headcount. It works by integrating video surveillance, data analytics, POS and artificial intelligence (Ai) together with both new and traditional CCTV systems. This allows teams to dramatically improve service times and gain insight into their unique business and customer challenges so that they can do something about it.

Here are some real-world, applied examples.

• Better understand wait times and throughput to design a plan that schedules the perfect number of employees based on customer counts and traffic patterns
• Take advantage of peak hours by understanding how customers shop the store
• Turn shopper behavior into “KPI dashboards” that report on traffic, dwell, engagement and, if using Insite’s POS API, conversion, for either the entire store or zones of interest
• View the daily or weekly trends and traffic patterns of each store zone, display or service point
• Enhance the effectiveness of displays and increase impulse purchases by knowing stock levels, what customers are engaging with and when they appear to be waiting for help
• Using Ai in conjunction with POS data, manage shrink or theft based on exception-based reporting, such as a “refund to cash with no customer standing in front of POS”
• Tags suspect transactions and presents them every morning with video, receipt, and risk types for management’s quick, proactive review–which can be done by region, store, and specific associate to quickly identify potential personnel or location risks
• Maximize the use of high-traffic areas to test new merchandise, move products quickly or drive more high-margin impulse buys
• Detect repeat customers to so that staff or apps can better interact with them
• Detect potential security threats before they happen
• Increase profitability and revenue by generating real-time reports and alerts that for any of these features

When it comes down to it, what Insite and its smart video capabilities does is enable managers and staff to know what’s happening and take action with the information it makes available. Because it does it with technology, stores save time and money and can protect the business and bottom line. Working in sync with a secure cloud, operators and businesses keep their environment safe, operationally streamlined and optimized for customer experience with real-time actionable data. This capability has historically only been available at a premium per-location cost. The Insite platform offers the same capabilities and data options at a price point all retailers–both large and small–can afford.

If you’d like more information, please contact our partner All Point Retail at sales@allpointretail.com.

As 2020-2021 was hit by COVID-19, shopping behaviors weren’t left unchanged. All markets and sectors that were behind in the development of online shopping platforms were forced to accelerate their digital transformation. Consumers of 2021 are demanding that retail companies bring new customer experiences to maintain an accelerated pace of digital evolution.

Having an eCommerce business is no longer a luxury, it is an essential requirement that a retailer must have to bring in sales in the post-pandemic years. In this pandemic year alone, global eCommerce retail sales grew by more than 25%, emphasizing the importance of having a retail eCommerce business. In this blog, we are going to analyze some of the top eCommerce trends that will define the retail industry in 2022.

Consumer behaviors have changed drastically. Lower in-store traffic coupled with an increasing preference for powerful digital experience, customers are pivoting their demands of brands.

According to a study carried out by Statista on eCommerce platforms, this is the future of retail:

Due to the notorious changes in the consumer shopping behaviors, top ecommerce trends have emerged and will be the ones to set the new digital standards in the upcoming year.

1. Retail Is Now Omnichannel.

We all know that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated what would have been several years of e-commerce growth into a few months, and now the line between offline and online shopping has been blurred. A consumer may start choosing their products in digital commerce and checkout in the physical store. A Harvard Business Review report disclosed that 73% of shoppers used multiple channels and eCommerce sites for research, allowing customers to discover and buy new products.

Experts assure that in the coming years the physical retail store will continue to have its importance in the purchasing process for many consumers, but it must be complemented with many technological advances like augmented and virtual reality, drone delivery, new payment methods, among others that complete and improve the customer experience. A consumer survey showed that 61% of consumers rely on physical stores being open for them to purchase the goods they and their families need.

Omnichannel customers spent an average of 4% more in the physical store and 10% more online than single-channel customers. This suggests that deliberate searching beforehand led customers to greater in-store purchases. For example, customers who used 4+ channels spent 9% more in the store, compared to those who used just one channel.

Omnichannel is a plus for customer loyalty as well. Online shoppers attend 23% more to physical stores and are also more likely to recommend the brand to family and friends.

2. Augmented reality to improve the shopping experience.

Using augmented reality in your eCommerce store can give your business the edge over your competition. Gartner points out that in 2020, 100 million consumers used AR technology to buy online and suggests that 35% of buyers would buy more online if eCommerce had that virtual solution to test a product. Also, 71% of consumers would buy more in that store if they were allowed to experience the products through this technology.

With this technology, shoppers can better visualize the product they want to buy, providing them with more of an in-store experience. The retail industry is an example of the sectors that benefit from this technology. Zara has started to implement it through reality mannequins and a new eCommerce platform that shows life-size models wearing the brand’s latest clothes. This enables retailers to generate online sales since it is possible to buy the clothes through the app.

3. User experience will be extended to voice assistants.

Voice assistants in smart devices continue to improve their technology and are becoming more and more accessible to consumers. In the US, adult ownership of smart speakers has reached 55.6% in 2020 target=”_blank”.

The main focus of a smart speaker is for customers to search for stores and products, as well as writing notes, getting news, and more. According to Google, 42% of Europeans use voice search on a daily basis and voice shopping will reach $40 billion in the US by 2022. And there is a reason for that, a person can only type 40 per minute, while they can speak an average of 150 words in that same amount of time.

Devices specialized in voice assistance, such as Alexa, the Amazon Dot, or Google Home, are all gaining ground. And while Amazon continues to control the market with Alexa, with 75% of the market share, personal voice assistants will be a fundamental pillar in the future of digital trends.

Let’s not forget that having a voice assistant requires online store retailers to pay more attention to three fields: Content, SEO strategy, and UX, since voice assistants still crawl Google to make customer suggestions.

4. From eCommerce business to marketplace.

Ecommerce companies who are looking to take the next step in the game should look in the direction of a marketplace. A marketplace is a website or app where you can find different brands and people working as sellers, sharing the same online commerce platform. The best way to understand it is with well-known examples: Amazon, Mercadolibre, Linio, among others. These types of platforms help diversify the offer of your retail eCommerce business and improve profitability: today 41% of online sales happen in a marketplace.

The marketplace revolutionizing the internet is Amazon. Amazon has not only changed the way we shop but also the way we live. What began as a home delivery book distributor in 1994 called cadabra.com, has now become the second company in history to exceed a stock market value of more than a billion dollars.

Amazon.com consumers are extremely loyal, which has allowed the platform to have a monthly traffic average of almost 3.68 billion visitors in 2020. Also, a 2020 survey reported that 89% of consumers were more likely to buy products from Amazon than another eCommerce company. According to Convey study, these are the three main benefits that consumers find in Amazon:

5. Social commerce — Shopping on social media

Purchases via social media are gaining popularity as well. Facebook and Instagram are the most common social media platforms consumers use for purchasing online. According to an eMarketer study, the number of social buyers in the US is expected to rise from 60.6 million in 2019 to 108 million in 2025— that’s more than a 75% increase in mobile shopping over just a few years.

Social commerce is mostly driven by influencer marketing. From micro to macro, brands hire influencers to create friendly content that does not look like an ad – this is called user-generated content (UGC). UGC has been proven to be more effective in brand advertising, as 71% of US consumers said that the product recommendations from friends on social media were influential in their online purchasing decisions.

Retailers can reach these online shoppers by setting up a Facebook Shop and using it to create a shoppable Instagram page. These platforms also provide many tools for listing products and creating ads to help drive more sales. According to the 2021 Shopper Experience Index from Bazaarvoice, almost 1/3 of consumers in the US rely on social media to learn about new products, and 39% of 18- to 34-year-olds have already purchased at least once through social media.

These digital trends will continue to evolve, and it is most likely that such evolution will continue in the direction that omnichannel is pointing.

The fashion industry and the textile sector have made great progress in recent years, betting on sustainable fashion and a more circular economy. Much is said about that, but do you actually know what ethical fashion is?

Sustainable fashion and ethical clothing consists of making clothes and accessories from materials that come from nature and even waste materials – as long as they can be recycled – such as plastic bottles or paper. These sustainable materials are used to manufacture new fabrics that allow making garments.

In addition, sustainable fashion is beneficial for our health. Ecological garments, or “eco-garments”, are made with natural materials such as organic cotton, bamboo, algae, tencel (cellulosic fiber), nettles, fish skin (used for shoes and bags) and natural dyes that give color to the sustainable fabrics. All these materials are free of toxic and dangerous chemicals, which prevents allergies and skin irritations, in addition to the low environmental impact.

The fashion industry has an important role to play in approaching global sustainability challenges, both because of its impact and its influence, but it is notoriously under-regulated on ethical practices and is the second most polluting industry.

Luckily that is starting to change. In Europe and the US, governments are considering new policies and regulations that could add sustainable practices, improve the wages and working conditions of garment workers and transform the fast fashion industry. Pressure to change is coming from investors, consumers and even brands themselves. Companies are responding with social and environmental commitments to do better.

But are they actually making a difference?

One way for fashion to reduce its environmental impact is by scaling circular business models, through which companies employ a range of strategies to reduce deadstock fabrics and recycled materials to make more efficient use of resources. Measures such as the EU’s carbon border tax will promote circular fashion by making the economics of onshore recycling and other sustainable practices more attractive.

How to Impulse the Future of Circularity?

A more circular fashion industry requires collective efforts in which fashion companies, customers and all participants in the value chain collaborate. The priority must be to set circular strategies, low environmental impacts and tackle scalability challenges.

One company that has embraced ethical fashion design is Dai Wear, a London-based company which employs recycled materials and sustainable fabrics to produce performance wear. The company uses biodegradable yarns for seams and air-dried fabrics to reduce washing needs.

Another American brand that is committed to sustainability is Christy Dawn, a fashion brand that creates vintage pieces with a big 70s influence. All clothes are manufactured in a very limited quantity, the brand uploads about 2-3 new pieces a week and are ethically made by artisans in Los Angeles. The creator Christy Dawn is highly committed to low environmental impact, so in addition to using deadstock fabrics, she makes sure to have fair trade conditions through long-term commitments with the manufacturers, suppliers and artisans who create the clothes.

How can you engage consumers to overcome stigmas and embrace sustainable practices?

As consumers become more engaged with sustainable fashion and ethical practices, circularity will be the key that unlocks the door to more sustainable fashion brands. While circularity is winning fans among some consumer groups, recycled materials still have some negative connotations. Nevertheless, consumers are willing to return recent purchases with the incentive of a refund.

Although social and environmental commitment of sustainable fashion is quite clear, by taking advantage of deadstock fabrics, plastic bottles,organic cottons and other natural resources, as well as fair trade conditions, these are the positive impacts of sustainable fashion brands:

Resources:

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Clean Clothes Campaign

Ethical Time

Business Of Fashion