Does Social Media Affect Millennials’ Fashion Purchases?

by Sydney Sadick

Apparently, not so much. According to a study released by LIM College, less than 7 percent of millennials surveyed reported that they’re influenced by the opinions of bloggers and vloggers when deciding what clothes and accessories to buy. What really gets them shopping? The newness and unique-factor of a product, said 62 percent of those surveyed.

“The fashion industry is approaching millennials with old habits that won’t work. Fashion brands are offering much of the same products and too much of them. Then they use advertising and ‘influencers,’ — social media and paid bloggers and vloggers — to tell these increasingly discriminating millennials to buy what they are pushing,” said LIM’s Dr. Kambara. “To capture millennials’ fashion purchases, fashion brands must focus on the uniqueness of the products they offer. Not only must the offerings be new and different, there should not be a lot of them available. This is what Zara does so well. While customer satisfaction, perceived price-value ratio and the overall shopping experience drive choice, for millennials the fundamental differentiating factor is product uniqueness and innovation.”

Forty-five percent of survey respondents also said they “strongly agree” that online retailers encourage loyalty through frequent product introductions; this dropped to 30 percent for department and specialty stores. In other words, millennials want more, more, more!

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