Retail surgery: How can online clothing retailers overcome buyer hesitation?

Overcoming buyer hesitation is about giving customers confidence in their own purchasing decisions. How can online clothing retailers do this? Heikki Haldre, chief executive of virtual changing room supplier Fits.me, says it’s all about product information – making it accurate and providing more of it.

But product information has a wide variety of forms including appearance, availability, cost, quality, colour, texture and size. Shoppers then make a personal decision based on these attributes and additional, perceived attributes such as affordability and fit of an item.

In store, this is straightforward. Clothes may be touched, felt or rubbed – assessed using the shopper’s own eyes and fingers. In store, Haldre says 80% of all clothing purchases pass through a fitting room.

Haldre says: “Online, brand and consumer reviews must vouch for attributes such as quality and value-for-money. Good photography will, in most cases, provide reassurance regarding an item’s appearance and colour.

Offering free returns also helps: by making it easier for customers to return garments, retailers can persuade individuals to buy clothes despite their uncertainty.” However, free returns for shoppers come at significant cost to retailers.

For tricky attributes such as fit and texture, technology can help. Virtual fitting rooms provide consumers with an accurate visualisation of fit.

Emerging technology businesses such as Senseg, meanwhile, are developing responsive tactile surfaces for tablets and smartphones that help to communicate texture.

Haldre says: “Together, the combination of brand, accurate product information and new technologies are producing an etail experience that is ever closer to the in-store experience, which can only help to overcome buyer hesitation.”