ASOS Is the World's Most Popular E-Commerce Fashion Site

We’re in the midst of a retailpocalypse. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores are struggling (if not dying). It’s not that people aren’t shopping — they’re just doing it online. E-tailers are experiencing an unprecedented spike in traffic, partially due to convenience. Why navigate a store when typing in a keyword is so much easier? Why battle with hangers when clicking on a dropdown menu takes literally no effort?

But which fashion sites are drawing in the most e-customers? Digital marketing firm SEMRush crunched the numbers and came up with a list of the 25 most popular fashion e-shops based on direct, referral, search and social traffic. You’re probably familiar with most of the names.

According to SEMRush’s data (as reported by WWD), ASOS is the most trafficked fashion site in the world, followed by H&M. Macy’s came in third, Zara fourth. Forever 21, Gap, Urban Outfitters, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret, Boohoo and Mango also placed.

This pink, ruffled dream gives us serious beach cravings. #HM

A post shared by H&M (@hm) on May 17, 2017 at 3:06am PDT

The authors of the report emphasize that, while quality product and the ease, comfort and privacy of online shopping certainly draw in customers, fashion brands shouldn’t underestimate the power of a well-placed bit.ly link or stylized #sponcon. Fashion e-commerce sites get about 4.3 percent of their traffic from Instagram, Twitter and the like. For non-fashion sites, that number is closer to 3.2 percent.

The experts’ research “shows that social media channels can be useful for [fashion apparel] retailers. In fashion marketing, using different channels allows brands to connect with niche audiences and diverse demographics.” No doubt some of ASOS’ success can be traced back to its clever Instagram marketing push. The e-tailer pays a horde of cool kids (among them Paloma Elsesser, Lotte Williams and Hannah Anderson) to maintain their own ASOS-branded handles, post ASOS-sourced #OOTDs and curate product roundups hosted on asos.com. Genius.