UK fashionistas still far more likely to buy clothes on desktop than on mobile

Online shopping

Analysed data from small to large merchants in Europe found that British consumers spend less on mobile for fashion, but more than most Europeans.

The average order value of clothing from UK fashion consumers was £116 on desktop for the first half of 2016 per purchase. Yet, the average mobile purchase for fashion items was much lower, at £89, even less than the average tablet spend of £107 amongst UK consumers.

However, online fashion retailers in the UK can point to some very positive trends emerging amongst consumers in regards to mobile. For example, the UK’s AOV for mobile fashion purchases at £89, came third overall when compared against other countries in Europe, only behind the Nordics at £101 and France at £96 yet ahead of Germany at £88 and Spain at £81.

Meanwhile, mobile accounts for nearly a third of all web traffic in the UK for fashion retailers in the first half of 2016, up from 22 per cent in H1 of 2015. Overall, UK retailers saw the biggest increase of traffic across all devices this year, reporting a 28% rise, ahead of all other European countries, including Spain with a 25 per cent rise and France at 20 per cent.

Most encouragingly of all for Britain’s online clothing retailers, the data also discovered across all devices, UK fashion consumers were the second biggest spenders in Europe at £111 per purchase, only behind the Nordics at £123, yet well ahead of Spain  at £95, Germany at £93 and France  at £86.

Juha Valvanne, Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Founder at Nosto said: “It’s clear that consumers in Europe love fashion, spending over £314 billion on clothing items, both online and offline.”

“British consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable at looking for clothes through their smartphone, the next challenge to be tackled will be in converting these interested customers, into paying ones and increasing their average order value.”

Matti Rönkkö, CEO of Nosto adds: “UK online fashion retailers can make some simple changes to their mobile sites to really build further trust with their customers. With Google’s new mobile-friendly rules implemented last year, a retailer’s website must now be fully optimised for smartphone users. Fashion fans typically have less patience than other shoppers: mobile bounce rate is the highest of any device and time on site is also the lowest, so retailers really need to make it easy for them to find the items they are looking for – speak to their customers as individuals and delivering them inspiring, engaging shopping experiences.”