From waterproof trousers and hoodies to women’s dresses and men’s coats, UK consumers made a total of 7.1m searches online in just one month looking for the latest men’s and women’s clothing styles and fashion collections, according to the latest edition of Greenlight’s Fashion Retail Sector Report.
Greenlight’s research, conducted during November 2009, found that:
- Women’s fashion terms accounted for 51% of the overall search volume.
- The term ‘dresses’ accounted for 31% of fashion-related searches, an increase of 49% from 1.5m in October to 2.2m in November.
- Searches for non-branded generic fashion terms such as ‘celebrity fashion’ and ‘designer clothing’ accounted for more than 170,000 searches. Within this grouping, male-oriented terms were more searched for than female ones which, Greenlight suggests, means that female consumers tended to search Google using product or brand-specific terms rather than generic fashion keywords.
In paid search, Very was the most visible advertiser in November attaining 52% visibility, followed by USC with 40% and Littlewoods with 39%. In integrated search, Asos achieved the top spot and House of Fraser came second, followed by Very.
Monthly searches specifically for generic fashion products which were not brand related accounted for 2.1m searches in November 2009. In this category, Marks and Spencer was the most visible advertiser in paid search, achieving 56% share of voice, an increase of 33% when compared to that in July 2009.
“No site or advertiser succeeded in achieving considerable visibility across both mediums,” says Greenlight. “Fashion brands appeared to focus on either natural or paid search, not on both.”
Readers can download the full report from Greenlight’s website.
