Building an online fashion store – 4 things you must know

Affiliate marketing contributes about 20% traffic of most online fashion brands and retailers.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that it has a guaranteed return on investment after the initial set up costs. This is the reason why many people want to build their on online fashion store. Most people think it is difficult but you can actually set up your own online fashion store by using data from other websites easily.

Many fashion bloggers contact us asking help for building an online fashion store. I thought it would be easy if I write that down and share the link the next time when someone asks. So here is what you need to know if you want to build an online fashion store.

1. Get data

You need to get data for displaying in your website. Primarily it is extracted using a technology called web scraping. A good data extraction partner can get you the data in a ready to use form. Home run solutions are extremely costly and partnering with the experts is the best way to move forward.

2. Curate content

There are millions of fashion items online and you don’t need to show them all in your website. Having too many choices leads to decision fatigue less conversions. We recently worked with a company which sells fashion items from over 50 websites. Even though they crawl millions of products, they curate the data and sells only luxury items. They show less than 5% of the total crawled products but the conversions and margins are so high. Curation of the content is very important so that you can be the king in your own niche. Given some criteria, a data extraction partner can do this.

3. Select an Ecommerce platform

You need to select an e-commerce platform setup your store. There are plenty of e-commerce platforms to choose from. Find one that fits your budget and priorities. Some of the most popular ones are Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento and WooCommerce. I’d suggest using a hosted service rather than a self hosted solution. Your website should look good. It is better using a  professionally designed theme.

4. Security

 A lot of sensitive information like credit card details billing addresses, and other personal details flows through your website. You need to kept it secure because bad boys are everywhere. Here is a nice blog post explaining the essential security measures an E-commerce website should take.

Refer to the following blog post – Security.

I hope this is a good starting point for those who are looking to build an online fashion store.

We’ll be publishing more content to help build amazing things. If you have any question, ask in the comments – we will answer as early as we can.

FAQ SECTION

1. What are the essential elements needed to launch a successful online fashion store?

To build a strong online fashion store, you need a clear niche, high-quality product images, accurate product data, a smooth website experience, and a strong supply chain backed by reliable data.

2. How important is product data accuracy in online fashion retail?

Product data accuracy is crucial because shoppers heavily rely on size charts, fabric details, color accuracy, and fit information. Clean and consistent product data directly impacts conversions and returns.

3. What role does competitor analysis play when building a fashion store?

Competitor analysis helps you understand pricing gaps, product trends, customer expectations, and marketing opportunities. Insights from competitor catalogs help you position your products strategically.

4. How can I improve customer trust for a new fashion brand?

You can build trust through transparent product descriptions, authentic reviews, fast delivery, hassle-free returns, consistent branding, and data-driven sizing information.

5. Why is website user experience (UX) critical in fashion eCommerce?

Fashion shoppers expect fast load times, clean layouts, easy navigation, and smart filtering. A great UX reduces bounce rates, increases session duration, and improves overall purchase likelihood.