Apparel & Fashion

Apparel AOV just hit its highest indexed reading in the dataset, up 44 points from baseline in February

Apparel buyers have always been basket builders, but February's AOV reading of 1.44x is a different kind of signal. This isn't seasonal lift from a gifting moment or a promotional spike. It's the continuation of a trend that's been building since September. The AOV trajectory from Sep '24 through Feb '26 is now one of the most consistent upward runs across all six verticals we track.

What's driving it? Apparel's purchase logic has shifted. Buyers increasingly shop outfits, not items. They arrive having done the styling work on TikTok, on Pinterest, in brand editorial, and they're checking out with more units per session. The brands benefiting most are the ones whose checkout experience matches that intent: free shipping thresholds that stretch the basket, upsell logic that surfaces complementary pieces, and pricing architecture that makes adding a second item feel like the rational move.

What to do: If your AOV is climbing but your free shipping threshold hasn't moved in six months, you're leaving basket stretch on the table. Calculate what 10 to 15% above your current AOV would look like as a new threshold, then test a progress bar to close the gap. The buyer is already willing to spend more. The checkout just needs to show them why they should.

Conversion is flat, and has been for over a year. That's the real story

Apparel conversion came in at 0.99x baseline in February, roughly where it's been since late 2024. After a period of modest outperformance in mid-2024, peaking at 1.11x in October, the vertical has settled into a narrow band just at or fractionally below baseline.

This isn't a crisis, but it is a gap. AOV is at its highest recorded reading. ARPC is up sharply. The buyers entering Apparel checkouts are spending more per session than at any point in this dataset. If conversion had kept pace, the revenue impact would be substantial. Instead, the vertical is generating its best revenue numbers on a narrower base of completed transactions than it was a year ago.

The pattern points to a specific problem: checkout friction that's filtering out buyers who arrived with intent. In Apparel, that friction almost always lives at two steps: the shipping cost reveal and the returns policy. Buyers who were willing to spend $120 on an outfit will abandon over a $9 shipping fee they didn't expect, or over uncertainty about whether a size exchange will be painful.

What to do: Pull your checkout funnel by step for the last 90 days and identify where the drop-off is sharpest. If it's at shipping reveal, test either threshold repositioning or a clearly visible free shipping offer earlier in the flow. If it's post-shipping, the fix is returns clarity: a visible, plain-language returns policy at or before the payment step.

Coupon usage is elevated and rising, a signal that deserves more attention than it usually gets

Apparel coupon usage has been running above the all-industry baseline since mid-2024, and February's reading still represents meaningfully higher discount engagement than most other verticals. More notably, it's been trending back up since hitting a trough in January '26.

Elevated coupon usage in Apparel isn't automatically a problem. It often reflects the category's promotional culture, where seasonal discounting is structural, not a sign of demand weakness. But the pattern matters for margin. Brands that have conditioned their buyers to expect a code are running a discount dependency that's hard to unwind once AOV and ARPC growth masks the underlying margin erosion.

The brands managing this well are doing two things: making it harder for a buyer to feel like they're missing a code by removing a visible promo field from the default checkout state, and building checkout-native value like free shipping at threshold, free returns, and loyalty perks that substitutes for discount without eroding margin.

What to do: Audit how prominent your discount field is in your checkout flow. If it's front and center, you're training every buyer to look for a code before completing. Consider collapsing it behind a link, and run a 30-day test to see if conversion holds. If it does, you've recovered margin without losing volume.