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The value equation in fashion e-commerce is being redefined. In a landscape shaped by economic volatility and heightened customer expectations, brands can no longer rely on price or product alone to win customer attention.
According to a proprietary, nationally representative survey conducted by BoF Insights in April 2025, EU5 customers — those in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain — are now shopping online with greater intention and the era of more-is-more consumption has ceded ground to a new focus on trust and convenience.* The pressure is on for brands to compete more fiercely at every stage of the purchase journey.
Reshaping the Top of the Funnel
Multi-brand retailers are now the leading source of inspiration for fashion shoppers online, with 39 percent of EU5 customers surveyed citing them as their top choice to discover new fashion. Online marketplaces have evolved into discovery hubs, where shoppers can explore a wide selection of products, uncover new brands and find what resonates with their tastes and needs.
This preference is partly driven by increased economic uncertainty. When asked how their shopping behaviour has changed in light of the current macroeconomic environment, 23 percent of frequent fashion shoppers surveyed in the EU5 — those who have purchased fashion online more than five times in the last year — say they now choose to shop with large, well-known retailers for their dependability and convenience. Yet the entire customer journey remains somewhat fluid, particularly for digitally fluent younger shoppers, making it imperative that brands show up wherever customers are across channels. Brands should not fear this wide visibility — 71 percent of EU5 consumers surveyed agree that seeing a brand across multiple channels makes them more likely to trust it.
“Today’s fashion customer moves fluidly across diverse channels, which is why we focus on creating exciting experiences that meet them where they are, wherever and however they want to shop. [...] We know that when brands create multiple touchpoints, customer engagement increases dramatically,” said Ruth Diaz, VP of Amazon Fashion and Sports Europe.
The Value Equation in Flux
In times of economic uncertainty, the idea of value often becomes top of mind. But value can mean different things to different people, often spanning well beyond price.
Today’s shoppers are gravitating further away from trends and towards durability and quality. “Pre-pandemic, there was less of an emphasis on quality, certainly more of an emphasis on ephemeral fashion trends. There was less of a concern on durability … more perhaps of a bend towards disposability,” said Doug Stephens, founder and chief executive of Retail Prophet, in an interview with BoF Insights. To be sure, only 12 percent of EU5 customers in our survey cite trendiness as a top priority when shopping for fashion online.
Instead, what matters most to customers is practical benefits like confidence in the size and fit of products and reliable delivery times. Shoppers are looking for brands and retailers to solve for pain points inherent in shopping online, such as being unable to find the right products, visualise them on their body or predict the right size — over 40 percent of EU5 customers surveyed cite personalised size recommendations as one of the top factors most likely to influence their online fashion purchasing behaviour. Nascent technologies like immersive, 3D product views and AI-powered personalisation are making headway in addressing these challenges, leading customers to start perceiving them as must-haves, rather than nice-to-haves in the shopping journey. For example, Amazon Fashion & Sports’ AI-powered size and fit recommendations help customers choose the right size — and over 90 percent of Amazon customers who buy the recommended size report satisfaction with their purchase.
In a business where customer loyalty is hard-won and easily lost, consistency across channels will be key. Whether shoppers encounter a brand on social media, its own site or a retailer, they expect the same level of service and experience. What happens behind the scenes matters just as much as the online customer experience. From fulfilment accuracy to logistics speed, operational excellence is fast-becoming a point of brand differentiation, enabling brands to deliver on their promises of reliability and convenience.
Brands that meet these rising expectations will not only convert more customers, but they will also build long-term loyalty and unlock incremental growth in a business where every sale counts.
BoF Insights is The Business of Fashion’s data and advisory team, partnering with leading brands to help them grow their brands and businesses for the long-term through bespoke advisory, thought leadership and proprietary AI-powered research tools.
*Figures in this article reflect insights from the proprietary, nationally representative customer survey conducted by BoF Insights in collaboration with Amazon Fashion & Sports across the EU5 in April 2025, unless otherwise specified. This is a sponsored report commissioned by Amazon Fashion & Sports.
