The fashion industry faced stormy skies in 2024. McKinsey’s State of Fashion Report reveals an almost stagnant 2024 growth for non-luxury fashion retailers across the US, Europe, and China. However, the skies are clearing, and a visible recovery trend in 2025 is revealing itself. The story is similar, though more pronounced for luxury fashion, given its much larger historical growth rate. All signs point to brighter days ahead, though fashion brands must also tread the path mindfully.

The World Economic Forum reports that 44% of economists predict strong growth in the US, up from the 15% who stated this in August 2024. Although China’s continued economic uncertainty bleeds into 2025, international brands selling into the Asian region may uncover more opportunities and partnerships throughout Japan, Korea, and the world’s fastest-growing major economy, as cited by World Bank—India.

Amongst economic shifts, fashion retailers must also remain mindful of consumers’ demographic and motivational shifts. While the fashion industry has generally leaned into targeting younger shoppers, the “silver generation” of consumers represents a growing portion of the overall population. The World Health Organization predicts those over 60 will grow from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion by 2030. Could this offer extend trans-generational targeting for many fashion brands? 

Additionally, segments such as sportswear hold incredible potential. Business of Fashion shows that in 2025, sportswear is expected to continue growing faster than overall fashion across the US, Europe, and China.

Economic and consumer trends already give retailers much to consider when developing their strategy. However, a carefully crafted strategy can still fall flat if the ideal customers either don’t arrive at your site or don’t convert once there.

Conversion is arguably the biggest challenge yet—though one that is well within your control.

Understanding the Omnichannel Shopper

When was the last time you only visited a store or a retailer’s website once before making a purchase? The buyer journey is now a complex web of online discovery, in-store tactility, social influence, digital community, and much more. However, simply selling everywhere may not drive the critical connection with consumers that leads to conversion.

In what Shopify President Harley Finkelstein recently coined as the “Post-Omnichannel” reality, he suggests that “The old world was about being everywhere for the sake of selling everywhere; the new world is about being exactly where your customer needs you, exactly when they need you, in a way that feels completely organic.”

So, how can fashion retailers connect with (and convert) more customers? It starts by shaping the experience—before those shoppers even land on your site. 

Bringing More of Your Ideal Customers On-Site

There’s no denying that Google Shopping now represents a significant channel for connecting with shoppers. eMarketer reports that 42% of shoppers’ product search queries start on a search engine such as Google. Search ad spend is also heavily weighted towards Google, with a massive 69.3% of traditional ad spending in the US designated to the tech giant’s services.

The real win, however, comes from creating off-site experiences (organic search, Google Shopping, Meta, marketplaces, and more) that connect the right customers with the right products—seamlessly and effectively. How can retailers create those connections?

Google Shopping has over 50 product data attributes, so going beyond size and color into granular detail like material, pattern, or even sizing system can get complex. Nevertheless, shoppers rely on this data to know if your items meet their needs.

Everything boils down to how you frame products to encourage clicks while aligning with the on-site experience to drive conversion. Whether your data feeds go to Google Shopping, Meta, marketplaces, or other digital channels, they must contain clear, appealing, and relevant information. Think about how your words and images help put your best foot forward. Remove any duplicate, unused, irrelevant, or inconsistent product attributes. Also, look for opportunities to include useful differentiators, such as material make-up and percentages (e.g., 100% cotton), form and fit, length (e.g., 18 in), or more descriptive terms like “above the knee” or “micro mini.” From there, focus on making updates to your product feed by lining up keywords and attributes under a specific trend, personality, or style.

Intelligent Reach—a division of Athos Commerce is one solution that helps customers increase impressions, clicks, and conversions from Google Shopping, Meta, marketplaces, and more. The platform helps fashion retailers continually optimize data feeds through advanced A/B and multivariate testing and automated product feed updates. As a result of implementing Intelligent Reach, PrettyLittleThing saw an increase in Google Shopping campaign clicks ranging from 50% in the UK, 204% in the US, and 1,139% in France.

Driving Brand Affinity by Building Trust

Your product display page (PDP) is your make-or-break moment. When shoppers arrive from an ad, it’s your one chance to prove your authenticity, build trust, and convert them from curious browsers to loyal buyers. Miss the mark, and you’ve not only lost a sale but potentially a lifelong customer. So, what does the ideal fashion PDP include?

Detailed size guides or “find my fit” functionality can give shoppers confidence that you know their shapes and sizes. Let them know you can offer a perfect match by helping them find their fit—quickly and easily.

Real-time stock availability so shoppers know they won’t have to wait for their items. If you have physical stores, offering “find in store” gives shoppers the option to seamlessly switch between digital and physical channels and complete their purchase journey however they like.

Prominent shipping and returns policies set the right expectations with shoppers about what happens post-purchase. The best online experience can be quickly deflated by post-sale surprises, so be upfront about your policies.

In-depth product detail can bring more tangibility to the online experience. Include design aspects, materials used, item care, and other information to build that real-world vision of your items. Also, take note of how to use your customers’ language. Is your ideal shopper refined or fun-loving? How would they describe your products? Subtle language differences can add impact to your connection with shoppers.

Familiar payment methods let shoppers know (even before they reach the checkout) that they can pay the way they want. Consider displaying logos of the most desired methods to build trust from a payments perspective.

User-generated content (UGC) adds more to the story. Think about including customer reviews, ratings, and social feeds to build social proof, extend your product detail, and help shoppers know they’re making the right purchase decision.

High-quality imagery and video content are crucial. For fashion brands, the display of products on models is particularly important to give shoppers a real-world sense of size, style, how garments fit and fall, shades and tones in real lighting conditions, and more.

Giving Customers a Reason to Convert

It’s a familiar situation—you start searching online for that little black dress or new pair of dress shoes you need. You click through to a retailer’s website, excited by the promise of options. As you scroll through mismatched suggestions, frustration builds. Nothing matches your vision. Your excitement fades as your mind begins to wander and you ask yourself: “Do I really need another dress or pair of shoes right now?”

It’s often a long and winding road to build trust with shoppers and help them understand that your items are what they’ve been looking for. A poorly personalized on-site experience, however, can cut that journey short.

Fashion retailers have a significant opportunity to tap into. Research from Bazaarvoice shows that 19% of shoppers discover new products through personalized product recommendations. A further 26% say that personalized recommendations increase the chance of making unplanned purchases online.

However, 38% of shoppers receive irrelevant recommendations that add no value, according to Netcore’s 2024 North American Consumer Benchmark Report.

While there are many recommendation solutions offering to support everything from “recently viewed” to “you might also like,” the right tech drives the right results. AI is now giving retailers superpowers when it comes to understanding shopper intent and recommending the right products. Searchspring’s own survey findings, available in the Thrive in ‘25 eBook, shows that 30% of online retailers plan to leverage AI-powered personalization as a core strategy in 2025.

Searchspring’s AI-powered Generative Discovery combines natural language processing and machine learning to anticipate shoppers’ needs, serve more accurate predictive search results, and connect shoppers with items they’re sure to love—and buy. St Frock is just one of the many fashion retail success stories using this technology. After implementing Searchspring, the brand saw an impressive 18% increase in total conversion rate.

With Searchspring in the tech stack, shoppers can search for items using everyday language, like “a blue dress for a fancy dinner next week.” Generative Discovery knows the context, such as formality and season, and serves individually tailored results and recommendations. At the same time, AI-powered product recommendations understand each shopper’s behaviors, preferences, purchase decisions, and more. Those shoppers see hyper-relevant, personally tailored recommendations that help them discover—rather than letting them wander.

Transforming the Browse-to-Buy Experience

The fashion shopper’s journey is an often complex path paved by discovery, trust, and connection. Shifting economic conditions, demographics, and the rise of technologies like AI all influence how brands engage with (and convert) their ideal customers.

From understanding the omnichannel journey to trust-building elements on your product display pages, there are many ways to meet customers where they are and guide them toward conversion. Fashion brands have powerful tools available to help them reimagine how they attract, engage, convert, and retain their customers.

Although 2024 threw challenges at fashion retailers, those with the right strategy and tech stack can hit a home run in 2025 and beyond. If you’re ready to transform the browse-to-buy experience and sell with style, start with your no-obligation Searchspring demo to learn how.