Our previous research report, published on March 28th, showed that online fashion had so far been resilient in the face of covid-19, with year on year revenue growth of around 18 to 19% over the period of end of February to end of March.  

So, what has happened since then? 

We believe there are two main factors working to impact online fashion sales during the current situation:

1. Users are pushed towards online sales - which drives up online fashion sales.
2. The reduced focus on non-essential consumption, including fashion - which is reducing online fashion sales

The underlying trend this year, disregarding covid-19, compared to last year, has shown an increasing emphasis of shopping online. Our data indicates that online fashion sales would likely have grown in excess of 20% year on year in absence of the current covid-19 situation. It would likely have been a very strong year for online fashion. 

We still see resilience in online fashion sales but we can also observe a strong anxiety in the consumer market. 

While online fashion sales during this last month are still 10% higher compared to last year, public safety announcements declaring stricter shutdowns etc are causing consumers to respond by curtailing spending on fashion.  

■ Outline of the survey

Survey period (1) : From January 3, 2020 to April 23, 2020

Survey period (2) : From January 4, 2019 last year to April 25, 2019, including the same number of days as survey period  (1)

Survey data: Over 3 million online purchases from leading fashion e-commerce retailers in Japan

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