you could find and buy fashion alternatives to dress like your favourite star. A commercial idea for a celebrity-adoring population. It was one of the savviest ideas in the history of fashion.
Kate Moss (Steve Azzara/Corbis via Getty Images)
No other retailer had capitalised on the celebrity-outfit-dupes concept and culture in such an easy and affordable way. And by doing so, ASOS built up a loyal audience who would stick with them when they adapted their strategy to a dynamic fashion retail space.
That was in the year 2000. Sixteen years later, after a number of changes to their strategy, ASOS made £1,403.7 million in retail sales. In 2017, they were the biggest online-only (pure-play) retailer by sales in the world. ASOS were pioneers in an open marketplace, driving new ideas and pushing the boundaries when it came to customer service and shopping experiences. They were forward thinking with their delivery and returns processes (they’re the only fashion retailer to offer a year’s unlimited next-day delivery for £9.95 regardless of how much you spend), inspirational with their editorial, blog and social content and ingenious with their product-display techniques. I remember when I first stumbled onto ASOS back at university and ten years later, I’m still just as obsessed. I used to have asos.com as my browser’s homepage, just so that I could check the ‘new in’ section every single day before I even went to Google. The concierge in my building knew me personally because I would check for new parcels every day, and my flatmates almost had to hold an intervention. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but I was definitely mocked repeatedly for how many times a week I would place an order.
Nick Robertson (Andisheh Eslamboli/REX/Shutterstock)
(REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett)
Free deliveries and returns, catwalks for every product, style advice, sizing help and one of the biggest catalogues of products on the Internet. There are 4,000 new styles per week! But unlike many online retailers who stock alternative brands, ASOS stocks 44 per cent of its own product too, with 66 per cent of styles being unique to the company. They sell 850 brands and have warehouses in the UK, US and Europe, meaning they can ship to you wherever you are in the world – and that’s within a matter of days.
Not charging for returns or delivery was fundamental to the increase in customer acceptance. More people started to use and trust ASOS and this led to more trust in online shopping, encouraging more shoppers to become online purchasers. So the online selling space has a lot to thank ASOS for. It has thrived in its wake and the fashion retail space has never been the same since its launch. Thus, ASOS is definitely one of the biggest retail game-changers of the 21st century.
Reasons I love to shop online
1. Free returns – buy both sizes just in case and send back the one that doesn’t fit.
2. You never need to leave your house – pyjamas and a coffee in bed, scrolling through a website, is far more relaxing for me than pushing my way through Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon.
3. Everything is under one roof – if you physically shopped through the rails of every store you can find on ASOS, Net-A-Porter or even Selfridges online, it would take you hours to walk from door to door and shop to shop. Don’t get me wrong, I do love to physically shop too, when I’m in the mood, but I’m a converted online shopper through and through.
4. Style advice and ideas – that shirt that you love in the store, it doesn’t come with any style advice unless you saw it on a mannequin. Online, the retailer’s stylist and merchandisers will have styled it up for you, and hopefully provided links to every other product you can see the model wearing.
June 2000
Net-A-Porter rides the dotcom boom
Natalie Massenet hit the launch button on her revolutionary new idea. What if the population would like to buy luxury fashion online, from a curated selection of the best premium items in the market? Everyone in the industry had advised her against it. After all, it was only six years since the first item ever was sold online, and for Natalie, everything was riding on this idea being a success. What if no one wanted to spend thousands of pounds on handbags they had never seen in person? And what if the consumer wanted to go into the store to spend their hard-earned salary, rather than trusting an online website? Those questions among hundreds more could have halted Natalie in her tracks and stopped her from publishing the magazine-style shopping website for designer fashion, Net-A-Porter. She could have lost everything from investing in an idea that may have immediately flopped. But who knew that this venture would lead to 9.5 million orders made in 2017? Without a physical store to show off the products, or a changing room for customers to try them on, selling luxury fashion to an online consumer was risky business. But her gut instinct paid off, and Net-A-Porter is now one of the top 50 online-only retailers in the world. Luxury fashion was online and here to stay.
Natalie Massenet (Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Net-A-Porter started a trend. It showed the luxury world what could be done and how it could be a success. In its wake, the majority of luxury brands around the world began developing their own online stores. And it wasn’t just brands that followed – many companies were also looking to follow in Natalie’s footsteps. Mytheresa went online in 2006, Matches Fashion and Farfetch in 2007, Selfridges developed their e-commerce site in 2010 and Monnier Frères in 2011.
Luckily for other entrepreneurs with big ideas, there have been a number of success stories similar to Net-A-Porter. Pure-play retailers have a great advantage in terms of reduced costs on logistics and physical-store overheads, but they also benefit from their exclusivity. Miss it once and it’s gone forever. Thus, there are now a multitude of hugely successful, online-only retailers.
My favourite online success stories
Black Milk Clothing
Black Milk Clothing launched in 2009 selling colourful, unique leggings to the Australian consumer, swiftly becoming global and building a cult-like following. What started in the founders’ kitchen turned into a multi-million-dollar brand with millions of followers and a tribe of loyal customers. And they did it all with zero advertising budget. Word of mouth was all they needed; that, and a global distribution network, a product that was unique in the market and a cool social-media strategy.
Boohoo and Missguided
Boohoo and Missguided are further success stories from the North of England, both developing into huge online retailers with 2.5 million-plus Instagram followers and a foot firmly placed in the high-street retail market. It’s not surprising that in 2016 Missguided made £206 million in profits, while Boohoo made £294 million. And luckily for Boohoo, with such staggering profits they were also able to acquire the huge, yet recently bankrupt, American fashion brand Nasty Gal for £20 million.
Revolve Clothing
Revolve Clothing launched in 2003 in the hope of inspiring women with their youthful,
