IMRG/Cap Gemini report strong online sales growth for July.

"The Clothing, Footwear and Accessories sector saw month on month growth of 18% and annual growth of 17%. "This sector has been a driving force for the Index for the last six months and consumers still appear to be splashing the cash on new summer outfits online, perhaps due to heavy discounting and promotions," says IMRG Capgemini.
Improved conversion rates through more sophisticated targeting are the key reason for the clothing sector's growth, say the researchers. "Clothing retailers have also seen a marked success in turning more visits to their websites into final purchases. Their online conversion rates have seen an increase to one in fifteen people for July which is up from one in seventeen in June, and higher than the average across the sectors. This could be due to the more sophisticated targeting strategies that clothing e-retailers have employed to shift summer stock to make way for autumn fashion collections. Plus consumers are now more accustomed to browsing and confident when buying clothes online."
Accessories also saw a very strong jump in sales, up 22% on June and 73% on July 2008, whilst footwear fell 2% on June's figures but is still up 20% on the year. Lingerie also grew, with sales up 3% on June and 14% on a year ago.