49% of online shoppers feel positively about having their own AI personal shopping assistant that is able to find fashion items based on their preferences such as budget or size.
Technology is developing rapidly and there are opportunities for the latest sizing tools from AI-powered virtual fitting rooms to 3D avatars to address help customers find the correct size and fit when online shopping. However, getting consumers to become accustomed to using the tools during their shopping journey is crucial and this will depend on how accurate customers find them and if the items actually fit when they physically try them on, leading to reduced returns.
Shein has become the most popular place for young women aged 16-34 to buy new fashion items online. The Chinese etailer has achieved incredible scale in a relatively short period of time, grabbing market share from other pureplays as well as young fashion retailers. This has been fuelled by its distinctive business model that combines fast fashion principles with AI-powered decision-making, global supply chain agility, and aggressive digital marketing to respond with speed and ultra-low prices to the latest fashion trends.
The latest technology is transforming the way consumers shop, so retailers must invest in innovative solutions to address consumer pain points and stay competitive.
Tamara Sender Ceron, Associate Director, Fashion Retail
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- What you need to know
- Opportunities
- AI personal shopping assistants can help overwhelmed men shop for fashion
- Virtual try-on to deal with challenge of finding fashion that fits
- The future of fashion search is more visual and entertaining
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THE MARKET
- Market predictions
- Snapshot – market size and forecast
- Online fashion sales grow in H1 2025
- Graph 1: online retail sales of clothing and footwear, value non-seasonally adjusted, year-on-year performance, 2024-25
- De Minimis review could be a silver lining
- Impact of tariffs on fashion
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THE CONSUMER
- Fashion items bought online
- Footwear most popular fashion category bought online
- Graph 2: fashion items bought online, 2024 and 2025
- Footwear is a key area for tech innovation
- The future of footwear try-on
- New vs second-hand shopping for fashion online
- Gen Zs opting to buy second-hand instead of new fashion
- Pinterest taps into demand for pre-loved fashion
- Childrenswear is most popular pre-loved category bought online
- Peer-to-peer platforms dominate resale, led by Vinted
- Graph 3: where second-hand fashion items are purchased online, 2025
- Growing popularity of Vinted among women
- Vinted’s growth outpacing eBay
- Graph 4: selected fashion marketplaces by year-on-year growth in customer numbers and spend within cohort, 2025
- Where they shop for fashion online
- Retailers with physical stores most used when buying online
- Graph 5: type of online fashion retailer used, 2025
- Amazon is the most popular place to buy online
- Graph 6: retailers with physical stores used for buying new fashion items online, 2025
- Graph 7: retailers without physical stores used for buying new fashion items online, 2025
- M&S cyber attack will have impacted its market share
- Almost half of young women buy from Shein
- Young men favour Amazon, while Shein grabs share among young women
- Graph 8: most popular retailers for buying new fashion items online, female 16-34s, 2025
- Graph 9: most popular retailers for buying new fashion items online, male 16-34s, 2025
- Rise of Shein
- Graph 10: selected fashion retailers by year-on-year growth in customer numbers and spend within cohort, 2025
- Online disruptors
- Graph 11: leading online fashion retailers, by growth in customers and growth in spend within the Snoop SpendMapper cohort , 2024-25
- Barriers to buying fashion online
- Size and fit is the main challenge when buying online
- Graph 12: main challenges of buying online during the fashion shopping journey, 2025
- Majority of women see size and fit as a barrier to online shopping
- Female under-45s interested in digital avatars
- AI-powered sizing innovations
- Virtual avatars for try-on can also reduce returns
- Receiving orders is main post-purchase challenge for 16-34s
- Graph 13: factors that would help Gen Zs return fewer items bought online, 2025
- Expanding use of lockers
- Interest in online fashion shopping innovations
- Men more positive about innovative new technology than women
- Finding the right items is a big challenge for men
- AI personal shopping assistants can help men shop for fashion
- Mango launches AI-powered fashion assistant
- Conversational commerce drives sales opportunities
- Attitudes to shopping online for fashion
- Young are keen on visual search to make fashion shopping easier
- The future is visual
- Using livestream to make shopping more entertaining
- Instagram helps emerging brands via livestreaming
- Snapchat users keen on livestream shopping
- Livestreaming can be used to help with fit
- Gen Zs open to new ways to shop
- Tariffs make people more interested in origin of fashion items
- Investing in tech to modernise supply chains
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PRODUCT, INNOVATION AND MARKETING
- Advertising and marketing activity
- Vinted enters TV space
- Rise of AI-driven marketing content creation
- Innovations
- Superdrug adds fashion brands to its  marketplace
- Agentic AI
- Google adapts AI for shopping
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APPENDIX
- Report scope and definitions
- Report scope
- Abbreviations and terms
- Consumer research methodology – EMEA
- Infegy Starscape coverage
- Snoop SpendMapper methodology
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