American Express Business Insights Data Reveals London Shoppers are Going Online for Their Fashion Fix

LONDON, September 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

As London Fashion Week comes to a close, online fashion spend shows double-digit growth; shoppers embracing online as a means to purchase luxury

Business Insights, the data analytics arm of American Express, released new figures showing that online fashion spend by Londoners is growing steadily. The new findings, which include analyses of online spending for luxury and mainstream fashion in the first half of 2012, are based on actual aggregated spending data.

Londoners increased their online fashion spending by 11% in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period last year. Online shopping accounts for 8% of all Londoners' fashion shopping and over 30% of all consumers have made an online fashion purchase in the first half of 2012. The growth in online fashion spend is driven by Londoners buying more often (the number of times people purchased is up 8%) and spending more (spend per customer is up 7%).

Increased consumer comfort with the online channel has led more shoppers to venture online for luxury fashion, resulting in a 28% increase in the number of consumers purchasing in this category compared to the first half of 2011. In fact, a small but growing number of luxury online shoppers, 14%, who had never purchased luxury goods previously, went online to experience luxury shopping for the first time during this period.

Londoners boosted spending on high-end fashion by 18% in the first half of 2012 compared with the same period last year. As a result, over 25% of all online fashion spending by Londoners during this period was in the luxury category. This trend is led by Gen X and Y (18 to 45 years old) who made up 74% of luxury online purchases in the first half of the year.

"E-commerce has not only become the norm, but has changed the way Londoners shop and engage with fashion brands," said Sujata Bhatia, Vice President, International Merchant Marketing and Business Insights, American Express. "We're seeing more consumers embrace online shopping with increased spending on luxury purchases. The deepening of luxury online spend is driven by Gen Y and Gen X consumers who have increased spending power. With these insights, American Express is able to help retailers maintain the momentum and continue engaging consumers online."

About American Express Business Insights

As part of the Global Merchant Services organisation within American Express Company, American Express Business Insights provides in-depth, actionable insights into consumer and business spending at the business, industry and geographic levels, leveraging proprietary transaction data from the American Express network of approximately 97 million cards in force across over 130 markets.

About Research from American Express Business Insights

The data shown in American Express Business Insights research are derived from transactions on the American Express payment network projected to reflect the general population in the consumer segments shown. The data does not represent American Express's own performance in the industry segments shown and do not represent the spending behaviour of American Express Cardmembers overall or in any particular Cardmember segment.