Online Apparel Sales on the Upswing
Online shoppers spent more than $500 million on apparel in July, advancing 44 percent over last year’s figures, according to research group Media Metrix Inc., a division of Comscore Networks in Reston, Va.
More than 34 million shoppers visited apparel Web sites in July, according to the group. July’s growth was an acceleration of the growth that occurred at apparel sites during the first six months of 2003, when online apparel sales increased 36 percent over the year-ago period.
“Unlike other retail categories such as books and computer hardware, in which a small number of sites draw the majority of category traffic, visitation to the apparel category is distributed among a relatively large number of properties,” the report said. “In fact, 28 properties were visited by more than 500,000 Internet users in July.”
Otto Gruppe sites, which include Speigel’s www.spiegel.com and Eddie Bauer’s www.eddiebauer.com, were the leading apparel properties in July, with 4.3 million unique visitors.
The ranking excludes mass-merchant sites that also sell apparel. Following up were the sites for Limited Brands Inc., Old Navy Inc., Alloy Inc., Gap Inc., Foot Locker Inc., Nike Inc., L.L.Bean Inc., American Eagle Outfitters Inc., Frederick’s of Hollywood Inc., Nordstrom Inc., Chadwick’s of Boston Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Zappos.com Inc. and Lands’ End Inc. —R.M.
