Shocking Statistics About Buying Clothing

Data and Research are so important in understanding what people need and want.

I have for several years now been banging on about clothes not fitting, the quality and make being poor and how depressing this makes the shopping experience. I have interviewed many women and the more I interviewed the more shocking and prolific I found the problems to be. 

Recently I was very fortunate to meet some very clever people from Kantar a big research organisation, who very generously shared some statistics to back up my findings. The big difference was that their data set was huge compared to mine, but we shared common themes. Their data is not mine to share, but there are a few glaring statistics that are out there and are common knowledge.

Confidence and body positivity is important to over 70% of the UK population. Buying clothing should create endorphins and serotonin and increase confidence. Sadly we found in our research that many women, particularly over the age of 40, find the whole experience an unhappy one.Clothing brands make them feel that there is something wrong with them, because things don't fit properly, don't feel nice and they look in the mirror and dislike what they see. So they walk out of the shop or send stuff back and grab a glass of wine instead!

Less than 10% of the UK population can actually find clothes easily that fit and meet their needs. This is a shocking statistic. I have my own views and theories on why this is the case. Here are a few. Clothes are intrinsically designed for younger people. And when targeting mature markets, I believe many things are over looked and there are many assumptions made. Now this may not be wrong but, I believe some key things are missed out  and need to be addressed up stream as opposed to too far down stream in the supply chain. I also believe the decision makers in those presenting the product are not thinking about what the real challenges are.

Less than 5% of the UK population think that mature shoppers are catered for and I am not talking about elasticated waists and flat shoes. I am talking about clothes that actually fit and are flattering, great quality and are stylish, not frumpy, or inappropriate  and age defining, either younger or older.

Kantar research indicates that if mature shoppers are overlooked by brands they stand to loose millions of pounds in lost revenues simply by not listening to customers and doing something about it. 

We at Rey House don't profess to have created a collection that fits every body shape, in a price range that they can afford and have solved these massive problems, but we have gone some way to identifying what the problems are and how to address them and as we grow and our customers tell us more and we can read the data, we can improve and hone what we are doing. we have lots of stories of women trying on styles that they would not normally try and being amazed and delighted. The challenge is getting women to try something they would not normally, without serving each individual customer face to face. This is even more difficult when many women are so disillusioned with shopping for clothing that they revert back to good old faithful styles and items.

Please sign up and join our Diamond Community and join the project of solving theses 1st world problems, which in return will result in less land fill, a reduced carbon footprint and a less is more kind of society. Above all we aim to give women a voice to challenge us, so that we can quite literally build clothing items that will last the test of time and will make women feel great.

Julia 

Rey House Founder