Last year was challenging for Farfetch, but there was at least one bright spot for the company.

Farfetch’s app was its “most profitable and fastest-growing channel,” Stephanie Phair, group president, said on the company’s earnings call in February.

Companies such as Nike and Levi’s have also pointed to their apps as key drivers of digital sales. For fashion retailers, an app that gives them real estate on a consumer’s phone screen and a direct line of communication through push notifications is enticing. Consumers can check their devices more than 50 times a day. More and more often, they’re doing so to shop. The share of US retail sales happening via mobile is forecast to reach 8.7 percent in 2026, according to Insider Intelligence, up from just 4.1 percent in 2019.

So should every brand have an app?

“Oh gosh no,” said Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst focused on digital strategy at Forrester, a research and advisory firm. “For the most part, it’s not that necessary.”

For every Farfetch, Nike and Levi’s, there are countless brands with apps nobody uses. Consumers are selective about which ones to give space on their screen, and some brands have discovered a mobile-optimised e-commerce site accomplishes the same goals for far less expense. Patagonia notably shut down its app in 2016, saying its newly phone-friendly site would handle its mobile commerce.

Building an app can also require considerable money and effort.

“We found out quickly that application development comes with an entirely different set of demands than an e-commerce site,” Kate Ridley, chief brand and product officer at Allbirds, wrote in an email. They needed developers with Apple iOS experience, designers who knew mobile design, product managers who understood the intricacies of iOS and marketers who knew how to grow an app’s user base.

But when an app works, it can pay off. A 2019 study found customers who downloaded and used a retailer’s app tended to buy more frequently, purchase more items and spend greater amounts than non-app customers. (They also returned more items, but the researchers concluded there was still a net increase in value.)

“We often find that customers on our app have a higher repeat purchase rate and are some of our highest lifetime value customers of any of our channels,” Ridley said.

Downloads of e-commerce retail apps also grew 11 percent globally in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to Data.ai, a mobile analytics firm.

Apps are clearly worthwhile for some at least. Here are points to keep in mind when considering whether to launch one.

Which Fashion-Retail Apps Are Shoppers Using Most?

While brands with larger customer bases generally have more app users, the fast-fashion and athletic segments saw some of the highest numbers of monthly users in 2022, according to a Data.ai review of apps selected by BoF.

In addition to there being strong demand for their products, these categories lend themselves to app features that can draw users back. Activewear apps might offer fitness information; in Lululemon’s app, logged-in members get access to free classes, for example.

Fast-fashion brands, meanwhile, regularly release new products or lookbooks to browse and can employ the same addictive tricks as gaming and social apps. Shein — the clear winner in usage — is designed to feel more like a social app than pure retail, according to Lexi Sydow, head of insights at Data.ai, which estimates Android users alone collectively spent nearly 35 million hours in the app in 2022.

“You’re ‘hearting’ items versus adding to cart,” Sydow said. “There are all of these gamified exclusive discounts and they’re encouraging you to sign up for push notifications or SMS text messaging.”

Shein also has a comprehensive strategy to get users to download its app. It runs paid ads in the app store and frequently updates all the imagery on its page to promote sales pegged to special events like Black Friday or the Super Bowl.

While apps from luxury brands tend to offer innovative features, their low user numbers make sense “given the pool of folks in that bracket to purchase might be a bit smaller anyways,” Sydow said. They’re also not the sorts shoppers visit daily to see new items. Several luxury apps, including Saint Laurent’s and Valentino’s, didn’t have large enough user bases for Data.ai to provide usage metrics that met its standard of confidence.

When Does It Make Sense to Launch an App?

The larger a company, the larger the potential audience for an app, but other factors also influence downloads.

“We see two big drivers,” said Ben Nassler, vice president of consumer apps at NewStore, a platform for commerce services that has made apps for brands including Golden Goose, G-Star Raw and Scotch & Soda. “A brand that is really strong with a strong following, those customers are very likely to also demand an app. And then if a brand has some share of repeat purchasers, that’s the other part of it.”

Consumers are also more likely to use apps that offer additional capabilities beyond what a website provides. Users of Nike’s app can scan products in-store for more information or to save them to a wishlist. H&M’s app provides a similar in-store function to find colours and sizes available and a visual search where users take a picture or use one from their phone to find similar H&M products. Golden Goose made its app a key piece of its loyalty programme, Nasser said, sharing exclusive offers and first looks at new items.

Which Features Should an App Have?

Launching with every feature possible isn’t necessarily the best option, however, especially for young brands.

“If you’re a start-up … less is best,” said Ranji Persad, vice president of North American sales at Net Solutions, a custom software developer with large and small clients.

First, brands should be clear about what problems they’re trying to solve, what features they absolutely need and what demographics they’re aiming at, he said. Then they should get their app out quickly, ideally within five months. A common mistake is adding more and more features that extend the timeline.

But Nasser also warned about doing too little. He’s seen apps flop when brands release the minimum viable product. In his view, options like product recommendations and attractive lookbooks are table stakes. Brands can add features like in-store options or virtual try-on later.

Ultimately, the priority should be nailing the commerce functionalities. Sydow said apps should inherently streamline the user interface and customer experience, “which helps to speed up and encourage that transaction process.”

How Much Does It Cost to Build an App — and Maintain It?

The experts BoF spoke to said the cost of an app can range from tens of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million.

Fashion companies often need to hire outside agencies to do the technical work. If a brand uses a software-as-a-service application with tools to create a storefront and there’s minimal custom work involved, the price for a barebones app could be $20,000 or even less, according to Persad.

But what makes apps expensive is their features: the greater the number and the more complexity, the more development is required and the higher the price. Loyalty options and product recommendation are expensive. There are additional costs to consider, too, such as the content management system and backend infrastructure needed for sending push notifications and updating content regularly.

Nasser, who worked on the relaunch of Hugo Boss’s app several years ago when he was at the brand, said if a company is building everything from scratch, a minimal investment for an iOS app would be $300,000 to $400,000. An Android app would be an additional amount. (NewStore markets itself as a way to help mitigate these costs with its platform.)

The expenses don’t end when the app launches. Developers are constantly fixing bugs and making updates. When the iPhone 10 introduced a full-screen display, for example, it meant each screen in an iOS app had to be redesigned, Nasser said.

When an app connects with shoppers, though, the rewards are worthwhile. Since G-Star Raw released its app in 2018, it has used it to offer loyalty benefits like early access to sales. Customers with the app use it about three times as much as its desktop or mobile site, according to NewStore, and as of 2022, it accounted for nearly a third of the brand’s total e-commerce revenue.

When Pangaia launched in 2019, it aimed to be more than just another direct-to-consumer brand selling brightly coloured sweatsuits.

The company pitched itself as a materials science business focused on tackling fashion’s environmental footprint through next-generation textiles and technologies. Its direct-to-consumer label was meant to be a showcase for a more disruptive and lucrative business, selling material innovations to the rest of the industry.

The company attracted early buzz for two reasons: first, its loungewear proved wildly successful, generating $76 million in sales and achieving profitability in its first year of operations. Second, in a market awash in glossy eco-marketing, Pangaia seemed to offer a template for a more transformative model: one that focused on science-based solutions to the fashion industry’s environmental impact and made money along the way.

But over the last two years Pangaia’s trajectory has hit turbulence and the company’s ambitions to establish itself as a materials innovation powerhouse remain nascent.

Growth Trajectory Hits Turbulence

The company swung from an operating profit of $16.6 million in 2020 to a loss of $41.5 million in 2021 amid slowing sales and rising investment, according to accounts filed to UK business register Companies House in February.

Sales fell nearly 16 percent in 2021 to $64.1 million as growth in the company’s wholesale business failed to fully offset a pull back in online spending and the brand refocused on core markets in the US, UK and Europe. Business in the rest of the world dropped by 45 percent, the accounts showed.

Meanwhile, hefty investments in support of the company’s growth weighed on earnings. Over the course of 2021, Pangaia grew from 43 employees to 151. It increased investment in research and development, expanded into new categories and products and ramped up spending on infrastructure and marketing.

The company’s adjusted EBITDA, a measure of profitability, fell from $20.8 million in 2020 to a loss of $26.2 million in 2021. Accounting provisions, including a $3.1 million writedown on excess inventory also weighed on the company’s profitability, the accounts showed. (Pangaia said the inventory provision was based on a conservative accounting estimate and did not reflect its true position).

The company described the year as a “period of transition, as well as one of heavy investments” in its filings.

Former McKinsey partner and Ssense CMO Krishna Nikhil joined Pangaia as its first group chief executive in April 2022 with a mission to deliver on the company’s expansion plans and ambitions to discover, develop and commercialise next-generation materials. In October, Pangaia raised $50 million in financing via a convertible loan note, shoring up its ability to cover the operating losses and operate amid increased uncertainty.

Efforts to optimise its digital platform and expand its physical footprint with concessions in Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette and La Rinascente helped return the direct-to-consumer business to profitability in December, the company said. It expects that part of the business to be profitable this year.

But some of its expansion efforts have stalled (a push into superfood bars is on hold, with the next offering in the space expected to launch late this year or early next year, the company said). Meanwhile ambitions to open up new revenue streams by marketing material innovations to other companies have yet to deliver significant returns.

A Disruptive Model, Still Unproven

The company was founded in 2019 by a group of influential industry insiders, including influencer-turned-venture-capitalist Miroslava Duma and alumni of her sustainable materials incubator Future Tech Lab. Though pandemic-friendly sweats are what propelled Pangaia’s early growth, the ambition was to establish the company as an eco-innovation hub, selling patented and trademarked textiles and technologies to other fashion companies.

But in 2021, the company still appeared to be laying the groundwork to support this mission.

Business-to-business sales amounted to only $670,000, significant growth from the year before, but still a fraction of the overall revenue mix.

The company acknowledged its B2B offering remains behind its ambitions. But it said the division continued to grow in 2022 in line with expectations, pointing to progress it has made in the space of three years to build out a suite of services to road test and support other brands in adopting new material innovations.

While the company’s patented materials are limited to a down alternative known as Flwrdwn, it has trademarked several material blends and treatments. And though the bulk of its products are made from organic or recycled cotton (with an ambition to shift to regenerative by 2026), it has worked with and invested in other materials science startups to build a portfolio of more than 200 innovations – the backbone of a concierge offering designed to help other brands select and access lower impact textiles, dyeing and finishing processes. It has also launched an innovation atelier for brands looking to test or prototype new materials or techniques, as well as an end-to-end product development and production service.

The company said it is actively engaged with more than 200 brands to deliver B2B services, with clients including top tier luxury houses. It’s also looking to invest in and power emerging labels through its business-to-business platform, with the first of these partnerships set to launch this autumn, it said.

But as Pangaia aims to deliver on its growth ambitions, the company faces an increasingly challenging environment. A gloomier economic outlook has made investors much more cautious about the prospects of fast-growing, but unprofitable businesses. Meanwhile, the fashion brands Pangaia is hoping to bring on as clients are tightening their belts.

Pangaia, however, remains bullish about its prospects.

“We understand that the level of industry transformation required means that while progress will be slow in the initial stages it will soon rapidly accelerate,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Our overall ambition is to grow B2B to be much larger than our DTC business.”

The company has emerged as a top player in digital fashion since its launch in 2020.

Greenfield Capital, a Berlin-based fund focused primarily on early-stage crypto start-ups, led the round, with participation from Slow Ventures, Warner Music, The Artemis Fund, Red DAO and others.

”Digital fashion is something we have become extremely excited about as a firm,” Jascha Samadi, founding partner at Greenfield, said in a release. “We are very excited to see how this space will evolve over the next 5-10 years and we believe DRESSX will be at the forefront of shaping and driving change.”

DressX releases its own products and items by other designers as augmented-reality filters, skins within video games and NFTs. It has collaborated with fashion brands including American Eagle, Dundas and Bershka and sells products on its own site as well as external marketplaces such as those run by Meta and Zepeto.

The company said it will use the funds to improve the performance of its app and NFT marketplace, ensure its products work across the digital environments in which they appear and to help it keep growing.

”We are eager to continue building and scaling the DRESSX vision for the future and implementing new features and use-cases for digital fashion with the support of Greenfield,” Daria Shapovalova, co-founder and chief executive of DressX, said in a statement.

While digital assets currently represent a niche market, spending on digital items could grow as consumers become more familiar with them, a 2021 report by BoF Insights concluded. Approximately 70 percent of US consumers surveyed considered their digital identity important and roughly 50 percent were interested in purchasing a digital asset in the next 12 months. Many had purchased skins or items in video games to feel more immersed or to express themselves.

Learn more:

The Opportunity in Digital Fashion and Avatars Report | BoF Insights

Read the latest BoF Insights report to get BoF’s perspective on the rise of the metaverse and the future of digital assets, plus a playbook for how to develop a data-driven strategy.

Spanish fashion retailer Mango is focusing on US expansion after turning its back on China, chief executive officer Toni Ruiz said.

Mango is returning to the United States — after two previous attempts failed — offering higher-priced clothes meant for special occasions and parties. It will target states where online sales are already strong.

The brand is already gaining more recognition in the US and dressed actress Amber Valletta for the Oscars after-party on Sunday, Ruiz told Reuters.

“Something has changed,” he said in an interview at the company’s headquarters near Barcelona. “They now have a different and better perception of European brands.”

Mango’s US relaunch began with the opening of a flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue in May 2022. That was followed by expansion in Florida. This year, it will open stores in Texas, Georgia and California.

The company hopes to have 40 stores in the US by 2024, compared with 10 at present. That would place the US in its top five global markets.

Growth will be supported by the extension of a logistics centre in Catalonia, allowing it to shift 160 million items a year to serve shops and online customers globally, the company said.

In contrast, Mango closed its remaining two stores in China last year. It maintains four franchise outlets and online sales through Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform.

“We are divesting in China,” said Ruiz. “We find it unattractive and have decided that it is not the priority for the next three years.”

Mango reported record sales last year, helped by selling more items at higher prices. Its biggest rival, Inditex-owned label Zara, is expected to report record sales on Wednesday, partly due to its aggressive U.S. expansion.

The recent aggressive entry of Chinese fast-fashion brands Shein and Temu into the same market is not a concern for Mango, said Ruiz.

“It’s not our war,” he said. “If you were fighting with these brands you would be constantly lowering prices.”

By Corina Pons and Charlie Devereux; Editors: Matt Scuffham and Alison Williams