PayPal says the waist-up fashion trend is real as people do remote videos while working from home due to Covid-19.
PayPal surveyed 1,000 fashion retailers and found they were seeing an increase in sales of “waist-up” apparel, with a 27 percent increase in sales of fashion tops, while sales of pants and skirts are down nearly the same proportion (30 percent).
PayPal also found almost half (47 percent) of respondents have not adjusted their ecommerce approach since the start of COVID-19, despite a massive consumer shift toward online shopping.
However, many retailers are getting creative as they seek to differentiate themselves from competitors during COVID-19 by selling face masks, offering decreased shipping fees, creating virtual dressing rooms, and more, according to PayPal’s General Manager of Global Pay Later Products Greg Lisiewski.
Over half of fashion retailers (52 percent) say they are unsure whether in-person shoppers will use fitting rooms, so many are creating online alternatives, such as virtual fit or sizing tools (26 percent), virtual showrooms (23 percent), and virtual stylists (23 percent). And 42 percent of fashion retailers said “buy now, pay later” options can help combat shopping cart abandonment and increase sales.
Embrace ecommerce and adjust to meet COVID-19 fashion trends was among the advice PayPal offered to merchants in its press release about the survey.
