California Apparel News

In the current economic climate, this Holiday season is presenting its share of challenges for retailers, but for those with bricksand- mortar stores and an online presence, the forecast appears bright. It’s a safe bet that e-commerce records will again be shattered as escalating gas prices make shopping from one’s desktop more appealing than ever.

Online Holiday shopping this year is expected to set another record, reaching $26.2 billion, up 22 percent from the fourth quarter a year ago, projects New York research firm eMarketer Inc.

“We expect to see strong sales gains this year, driven largely by shoppers shifting their purchases online,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report “Online Holiday Shopping Preview.”

“Several factors are behind this growth—a longer shopping season on the Internet; improved order fulfillment, which allows shoppers to make purchases nearly until Christmas; and intense competition among online retailers, which leads to aggressive promotions—all benefiting the deal-seeking consumer,” Grau said.

Online shopping growth will continue to outstrip offline, which Columbus, Ohio–based retail consultants Retail Forward Inc. project to be 5.5 percent, about the same average fourth-quarter growth since 1990. Key sectors of retail—including apparel—will experience 5 percent growth, Retail Forward predicts.

With these projections in mind, e-tailers are not only investing in vast inventories of product but also gearing up to promote themselves as never before.

New York’s Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)—the primary industry watchdog and standards setter—says we are coming up on the 10th straight quarter of recordbreaking online ad expenditures, with 2005 expected to top $10 billion. Research firm eMarketer predicts that more than $12 billion will be spent this year on advertising, double 2004 levels.

Google dominates search placements, leading the pack with about 40 percent of the ad dollar volume. The rich-media ad format— including webcasts utilizing sound and motion graphics—is also a fast-growing segment, having jumped 27 percent over last year.

In the meantime, the IAB is finalizing guidelines for rich-media and broadband advertising to help foster the growth of TVstyle video ads, to be released by year’s end. Analysts are saying these TV-style video commercials are almost certain to proliferate on the Web as it becomes one of the most important advertising venues available to marketers and users continue to embrace broadband connections (via satellite, optical fiber, cable and hard-wired telephone) that have the capacity to access these larger digital files dramatically faster than dial-up modem connections.

Retailers, look into these innovative targeted marketing options in the year ahead.

Site review: Filling the Gap

The Gap’s new site is up and ready just in time for the holidays. As reported last month in this column, www.gap.com and www.oldnavy.com were offline while their new sites were being fine-tuned and quietly relaunched.

Bearing little resemblance to the old site, Gap’s new online presence is snappy and graphically slick, without a preponderance of Web gimmicks. Product presentation and site navigation are the strongest features of this pleasantly functional shopping experience. A feature called “Quick Look” is a handy way of getting details on specific garments. Your mouse does most of the work by rolling over fabric swatches, launching alternative fabrications on a model that is vividly represented at several scales of the user’s choosing.

A user can shop by department, garment category, seasonal “Top Picks” and/or “Sale” items. And the Shopping Bag—that crucial make-or-break point-of-purchase—is pretty nifty, too. If you get to the Shopping Bag page and decide you are not ready to purchase all of the items shown, you can use a “Save for Later” feature until your next visit. When you return and then decide you want to move an item back into your bag, you can easily do so by clicking on the “Move Back” link. Typography throughout the site is generally well presented, except for a variety of pages where text is so teeny that it becomes a challenge to read.

Sister site OldNavy.com has been similarly remodeled with a younger, more teen-focused appeal. It offers much information on garment styling tips, latest trends and a new easy-to-use “Outfit Idea” page that does a nice job of upgrading a single-item purchase to a complete ensemble of five or six items.