Asos rules in 'virtual' high street model - study

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 7, 2020

It can sometimes be hard to work out which names dominate the UK fashion retail sector given the mix of online and offline locations, but a new study has reimagined how the British high street would look if online retailers competed with physical stores.

European technology firm and savings marketplace Raisin used mobile and desktop search visibility versus revenue figures, to come up with a ‘virtual high street’ of fashion sellers and it found that Asos is in pole position on the fashion front.

Asos would command a massive 32.5% of fashion’s virtual high street. But despite its well-publicised problems, Debenhams is holding on to its place as a staple among fashion stores, taking up 24.8%.

Although Asos is the go-to fashion destination for web shoppers, seeking multiple brands, if it wanted to, it “could take over the high street too,” Raisin said.

The rise of e-tailers generally is also made clear by the fact that they’d cover more than 55% of this virtual high street.

The company also found that Boohoo has overtaken New Look, and other online labels such as PrettyLittleThing and Missguided are strong too. But big, primarily physical, names such as Topshop and Primark take only 2.9% of the virtual high street between them.