Online Clothing Retail Strategy

Among the challenges facing online clothing retailers, effective inventory management can go a long way toward providing a pleasant shopping experience for customers, retail experts said at the eTail 2005 Conference in Palm Desert, California last week.

One of the issues online apparel retailers constantly face is when, or whether, to remove product listings as inventory levels decline. While some retailers will automatically remove listings once inventory falls below a certain threshold, others take a more flexible approach based on the product and customer demand, and whether customers are likely to be willing to wait for a delayed delivery.

Jessica Weilland, senior vice president of marketing for Neiman Marcus Direct, the web and catalogue unit of Neiman Marcus Group, said the most important thing is to let customers know when they can expect to receive an item not currently in stock. "If the product will be in soon, tell them it will be in soon," she said, adding that back-orders can work "as long as you can give good information and manage expectations."

David Towers, vice president of e-commerce at Liz Claiborne Inc., said apparel retailers face the extra challenge of managing inventory information for several SKUs for each product shown online. If a book retailer is out of a particular title, it's a relatively simple matter to have a message appear regarding expected deliveries for back-ordered books. But with apparel, where each product can have several sizes and colours, the ideal system would show inventory status and, if appropriate, back-order delivery schedules for each SKU.

Retailers were also offered advice as how to choose keywords that are specific enough to the brand and products a merchant wants to sell: focus on a brand name and be descriptive: 'wool blazer,' for example, would do better than 'blazer'."

When choosing images to illustrate garments online, presenting the best photography for each of multiple illustrations isn't necessarily the best strategy, whereas consistency in apparel presentations denotes quality.