Fashion is the largest B2C eCommerce market segment, with a global size of an estimated US $525.1 billion in 2019. Despite this year’s shutdown negatively impacting merchants, many have pivoted hard, transforming into Shopify fashion and apparel stores to continue selling.
If you still haven’t set up an online store, are still selling on marketplaces, or planning to launch a new fashion brand, we’re here to help!
Let’s look at why you need to set up your fashion and apparel store online and the steps you need to take to successfully launch.
Why You Need to Take Your Shopify Fashion and Apparel Store Online
From lululemon to FashionNova, the fashion industry has been revolutionised. Shoppers have very specific needs and want faster and smoother experience. The vast number of apparel brands have made this easier, staying visible, keeping their products discoverable, and setting up easy shopping experiences.
As a fashion and apparel brand, if you aren't selling online, you're missing out on the opportunity to capture a huge percentage of online shoppers. This is especially true since the pandemic moved shopping online, taking shoppers of all ages digital.
95% of purchases will be made online by 2040.
Also read: Shopify Store Design Breakdown: Hirshleifers Builds Its Presence Online as a Luxury Fashion Brand
If you haven’t set up your Shopify fashion and apparel store yet, you can avail Shopify’s 14-day trial to set up your online storefront and get started without taking up any costs.
Step by Step Guide to Start an Online Store on Shopify For Your Fashion and Apparel Brand
If you're starting an online clothing store on Shopify, here are the steps we recommend following:
1. Pick your theme
The first thing you need to do when setting up your fashion store on Shopify is to design and set up your store design. The Shopify Theme Store has a range of themes to choose from, from free to paid themes. These themes let you customize how your brand looks.
Here are 3 of the best Shopify fashion themes you can explore:
1. Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a free theme that is built for modern apparel stores. It lets you set up a rich storefront and perfect if you want your branding to be obvious across the store. With customizable content sections, dynamic product grids, and an image-focused design, Brooklyn is the best free theme for fashion stores to start with.
2. Cascade
Cascade is $180 and perfect for brands with a funky and unique style. It lets you arrange your text between product images and features, making it easier for you to explain your brand better.
3. Prestige
Made for high-end brands, Prestige gives you all the features you need to sell luxury. It is priced at $180 and includes features like visual storytelling, enabling large and high-resolution image features, and even image hotspots.
These pre-built themes allow you to take your business online in no time. However, if you want a custom design for your Shopify fashion store, you can work with our team of design experts to set up your website with the design and branding of your choice.
Also read: How to Build a Custom Shopify Design for Your Shopify Store
Reach out to our team of Shopify experts at info@xgentech.net to set up a customized storefront. There are also free Shopify clothing themes that you can use and customize.
2. Add your products, including pictures and descriptions
Next, it's time to upload your products. You can manually add each one or bulk import your products to your Shopify dashboard. When setting up each product page, keep these details in mind:
- Add multiple angles of your products and even show it worn by a model for better visualisation.
- Add a description that shoppers would want to read. Keep it conversational and crisp
- Make the page title search friendly. For instance if you sell a denim jacket, you could name it "Lara Jean denim jacket"
- Add a meta description and optimize the URL for better discoverability.
- Add wash instructions and fabric type within the description.
3. Add a sizing chart
Shopify fashion and apparel stores must have a sizing chart to help shoppers understand the right size for them.
Oftentimes, shoppers end up not buying from a fashion store due to unclear sizing. By describing each size properly and giving exact measurements, you can make it easier for shoppers to buy.
4. Use brand colors
If you haven’t already defined your branding and visual identity, it’s best to do so before you launch. This can help you plan your product photos, website colors, and even social media branding. Once you’ve defined them, stay consistent to your brand colors and fonts so that you stay consistent to be recognizable to your shoppers.
5. Add videos of how to use the product
Many fashion shoppers want a peek at the different ways they can style the product or just want a look at how the brand functions.
Videos help you boost your conversion rate by up to 80% for fashion and apparel websites on Shopify.
Many fashion brands add product videos to their product pages or add a brand video within their header, showing their vibe and values.
You can create your videos with Shopify video apps like Typito. The drag-and-drop video maker lets you put your product footage together, add text, music, and effects, and publish these videos to your website in no time!
6. Add product labels to build urgency or credibility
You can nudge your shoppers to buy faster by adding products labels that help you validate your brand. Since many store visitors will be new to your brand, you need to show why you’re worth buying from. Here are 5 product labels you can use:
- Bestseller: Let shoppers know about products that are loved by your customers.
- Top-Rated: Inform shoppers that a particular product is highly-rated.
- Exclusive: Have limited edition products in stock? Add an “Exclusive” product label to it!
- Only 5 Left: Let shoppers know that you only have a few pieces of the clothing item left.
- Staff Picks: Inform store visitors which products are loved by your team.
You can set up product labels on your Shopify fashion store using ModeMagic.
Also read: How to Add Credibility to Your Shopify Store.
7. Set up a pop-up at exit intent
One of the best ways to re-engage store visitors who are about to leave or capture them before they drop-off is with a pop-up. Add a pop-up at the exit intent to show an offer and get shoppers to stay on your Shopify fashion store or just collect their email to later market to them.
Set up a pop-up with Privy. You can customize the pop-up design and copy to match your branding and even add discounts and spin wheels to make it even more exciting for shoppers.
8. Set up specific pages about your Shopify fashion store
You must give your customers enough information to help them learn more about your brand and build a rapport with your brand. You can do this by adding a few essential pages to define your processes and give a background to who you are.
Here are 4 pages you need to set up to ensure customers have all the details they need about your Shopify fashion and apparel store:
- Our Story: Share how your Shopify fashion store originated, including how it started, why you set it up, and the team behind the brand.
- Hygiene Standards: Inform consumers about the safety measures taken when manufacturing, packaging, and delivering your products.
- Refund Policy: Inform customers about your refund policy, what reasons they will be eligible for refunds, and the procedure they need to follow.
- Factories: Give shoppers a look at how your products are brought to life, from design to the manufacturing process. This can give you a chance to show your sustainable practices.
Best Practices for Shopify Fashion and Apparel Stores
While setting up the pages of your online clothing store on Shopify is fairly easy to do, we recommend paying attention to the following best practices:
1. Build loyalty with a well-designed customer account
Shoppers want a simpler time buying from you. One of the best ways to cater to your customers and deliver a personalized experience is with a well-designed and branded customer account page. Set up a customer account page that is robust with features like wishlisting, rewards, one-click reorder, etc.
You can set up such a personalized customer account page with Flits. The Shopify app lets you customize the look of your customer account page and set up features like wishlisting and rewards. You can even simplify customer registration with social login.
2. Enable better search with search filters and smart autosuggest
Better search experiences can influence your sales, helping you sell more quicker. You don’t need to be as big as Amazon to enable smarter search experiences like autosuggest and typo correction!
Shopify search apps like Searchly will do this for you! Set up the app to allow auto suggest on the search bar, search filters to easily narrow down searches, and typo correction to provide a frictionless experience.
3. Provide visual shopping with lookbooks
You can provide a more unique shopping experience by creating a lookbook that shoppers can browse through. These lookbooks can show shoppers different ways to wear a product and make it more enjoyable to just browse through different product images.
The Lookbooks app lets you set up this visual shopping experience. You can arrange your lookbook in different galleries, connect your catalog, and allow direct add-to-carts.
4. Gain traction on visual social apps like Instagram and Pinterest
Shoppers love to see what they are buying. 87% of e-commerce shoppers believe social media helps them make a shopping decision. As a fashion brand, you need to actively share your brand on social to gain a following and build your brand.
Using visual social media apps like Instagram and Pinterest, you can share your product pictures and videos and build an organic following, without taking on any costs!
Both Instagram and Pinterest let you set up your Shop on the platforms so that users can browse through your products without having to open your website. Seamless integration between your social presence and your product catalog!
5. Display personalized recommendations
By placing product recommendations at strategic touchpoints, you can keep the shopper on your Shopify store for longer and nudge them to a purchase. In fact, product recommendations account for up to 31% of eCommerce revenues.
What’s more, making these recommendations personalized to each shopper can help your store improve conversions. Marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalized experiences.
You can set up personalized recommendations on your Shopify fashion store with Wiser. The app lets you set up recommendations like ‘Recently Viewed Products’ and ‘Inspired By Your Browsing History’, helping the shopper find items they would be interested in.
A sure way to sell more!
6. Tap into user-generated content to show how much consumers love your brand
Research shows that companies that incorporate UGC into their websites see an 18% increase in revenue. User-generated content can help you show how well-loved your products are, reassuring new store visitors that your products are worth a purchase.
You can collect UGC through product reviews on your Shopify store as well as through hashtags on social media. Once collected, share these pictures on your Instagram feed and other social media platforms.
It’s best to display these user-generated images on your Shopify storefront to build credibility among new store visitors. You can do this by embedding your Instagram feed on your storefront with Instafeed. You can even make this feed shoppable with the Cameo app.
Set up your Shopify fashion and apparel store on Shopify now!
Going online is the priority for any brand right now. Once online, it’s crucial to set up social media strategy and start gaining traction.
We hope this guide helps you set up your fashion and apparel brand on Shopify. If you are still figuring out how to set up your online presence for your business, our team of design experts is here to help!
With our years of expertise in setting up Shopify stores, we will work with you to set up an online fashion and apparel brand to make it easier to receive orders and retain your customers.
Looking for Shopify clothing store examples? Email us and we'll send across the ones that match your style the best.
Reach out to us at info@xgentech.net to set up your Shopify fashion and apparel store!
