E-Commerce Companies Capitalize on West Coast Fashion

The strong West Coast retail scene is extending beyond the storefront and heading deep into cyberspace. As demand for West Coast fashion comes from other areas of the country and the world, e-tailers stand a good chance of answering that need. A number of clicks-and-mortar boutiques have made in-roads by providing access to hot West Coast brands for hungry shoppers across the globe.

One of the latest to make a move is amorefashion.com, based in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Amore, launched last July, focuses on better contemporary womenswear featuring sportswear, premium denim, tops and accessories from designers such as Walter, Lotta Stensson, Robert Rodriguez, Poleci, Blujeanious, Streets Ahead and others.

“Many parts of the country don’t have the chic boutiques like you see here. The women in the Midwest or wherever like to see labels from Los Angeles. We want to be their one-stop shop,” said Steve Oprian, Amore’s president.

Dealing with local brands helps the company fill orders quickly and easily and minimizes the company’s shelf space. The formula has helped Amore achieve 10 to 15 percent monthly growth since launching last summer. Oprian spent more than two years of research before investing in an online storefront.

“We chose to focus on the upper end. Women are not afraid to spend monthly at that level,” he said.

Online shopping in general has achieved significant growth with sales expected to surge at a 14 percent compounded growth rate over the next five years, according to Cambridge, Mass.–based think tank Forrester Research. That’s going from $172 billion in 2005 to $329 billion in 2010. The profile of online shoppers corroborates Oprian’s business model. Online shoppers earn more money ($68,000 per year versus $52,000) than the average consumer and is more likely to have a college degree, said a Forrester report.

But with more companies building clicks-andmortar businesses, it pays to have a niche, and focusing on West Coast fashion appears to be paying off for Amore. The company is planning to move into men’s and kids’ businesses and is considering expanding into catalogs or a physical store.

Despite the advancements in technology, keeping online shopping simple with easy navigation tools has helped provide an edge, Oprian said. “We had a ’shopping assistant’ using Flash technology but it took too much time for a lot of our dial-up users, so we did away with it.” —Robert McAllister