Online deals offer perks that stores sometimes cannot. With the convenience of shopping from your home, office or even mobile device comes other costs, such as those for shipping, but to draw consumers in, companies frequently offer online sales and special deals, including minimal or free shipping costs, and buyer friendly policies, like free returns, and satisfaction guarantee policies.
Another reason online shopping may be so popular is that online versions of stores are known to target their consumer audience on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. People who have accounts on these sites are likely to be the ones shopping at certain retail stores, like American Apparel who, according to comScore report is said to have had 483 million online advertisement views in April, by 49 million Internet users, roughly 9.9 times during the month.
Perhaps this is the reason, according to Business Wire, that American Apparel’s online consumer sales increased 72% from last year’s third quarter profits to this year’s third quarter profits, from $6.4 million in 2007 to $11.0 million in 2008. American Apparel is popular for many reasons, for example, there are no visible logos on their clothes, virtually all pieces are comfortable and stretchy, any style comes in a multitude of colors, and it is becoming increasingly trendy worldwide. American Apparel is also well known for their racy, soft-core campaign advertisements that attract people of all ages, but the age group of those in the ads, and those targeted by the ads are the same, and this connection could be another point of success.
The Internet’s early wild success is largely attributed to online porn availability, and so perhaps it is not too far fetched to attribute American Apparel’s online success to the concept that ‘sex sells’. After all, it worked for Abercrombie & Fitch. Though the company is appreciated for the lack of sweatshops, and their environmentally friendly stance, their selling point appears to be appealing advertisements thrown in the faces of receptive consumers.
Internet targeting really does work, but the secret seems to be the connection between retail and social networking site demographics.
-Eliza Goodman
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