Ecommerce is more than a third of all apparel sales

The brand-new 2019 Online Apparel Report details the current state of online apparel, including data on the fastest growers, largest players, Amazon’s share of sales, investment funding rounds, store closures, the rental clothing market, how to combat returns and the surge in the lingerie category.

CHICAGO - Ecommerce now represents more than a third of all apparel sales—at 34.4% penetration in 2018, up from 30.6% in 2017, according to the All-New 2019 Online Apparel Report.

Apparel is the largest and one of the most competitive retail categories in ecommerce, with more than 250 apparel retailers and 20 subcategories in the Internet Retailer 2019 Top 1000. Overall, including apparel-focused retailers and mass merchants that sell clothing, U.S. online apparel sales grew 18.5% in 2018 over 2017, far faster than total apparel retail sales growth at 5.3%.

But growth only skims the surface of what is going on in apparel.

For example, of the 15 fastest-growing apparel merchants in the Top 1000 based on 2018 sales, only two are retail chains, five are web-only retailers, eight are consumer brand manufacturers and zero are catalog/call center merchants. The report digs into why there is such a disparity between these merchant types that are selling similar products.

The 75-page 2019 Online Apparel Report dives into what is happening now with online apparel merchants including the current state of opening stores, closing stores, investment funding rounds, the current trend of rental apparel, why there is a surge in undergarment retailers and what retailers are doing to combat the heavy volume of returns that plague online apparel sellers.

The report has 15+ charts quantifying the state of the online apparel industry, including data on the 15 fastest-growing and 15 largest online apparel retailers, including web sales, growth rates and how they rank among the Top 1000 based on 2018 online sales. Also included in this are estimates on Amazon’s share of the online apparel market and its growth in this area over the years. In addition, the report includes interviews with executives at leading and fastest-growing online apparel retailers and exclusive consumer survey results on how shoppers browse and buy apparel online.