Federated Direct uses boutiques to find out how to sell apparel online

Dawn Robertson, president of Federated Direct, says that promoting manufacturer brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger in online boutiques is helping ease customers into online apparel shopping. “We’re finding that customers are moving to buy fashion online. By promoting the boutique brands we hope we are making it easier for customers to buy fashion apparel online,” she says. Federated’s Bloomingdales.com and Macys.com both have introduced boutiques on their sites along with shopping tools such as My Macy’s Closet, which allows customers to put entire outfits into the closet to hold and/or purchase. “One reason we added these shopping tools was because we wanted to learn how to sell apparel online and make customers comfortable doing so,” says Robertson.

Identifying brand shopping was an integral part of improving online sales efforts. “We believe it’s important for Federated to know that customers look to us to buy certain brands. We’ve worked hard to strengthen those relationships within our stores and now we’re migrating them onto the web with our online boutiques,” she says. Robertson says customers also migrate to those popular brands online because they are familiar with their fit, which makes them comfortable buying clothes online. And customers expect the online stores to reflect the best merchandise Federated puts in its offline stores, she says.

Designer boutiques featured on the Macys.com site include Calvin Klein, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne, Kenneth Cole, Jones New York and Lancome. On Bloomingdales.com, the boutique collection has expanded to include Carolee, DKNY, Ralph Lauren and Lacome.