• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 4, 2013

With tech giants like Google and Amazon nipping at their Christian Louboutin high heels, fashion brands need to step up their technology game. Yet few are keeping up with the latest ecommerce services and trends.
 
For example, just 6% of fashion brands are offering in-store pickup options, this holiday season -- far below the retail sector’s average of 14%, according to L2.
 
In fashion terms, this would be like sending models down the runway in 2013 with hoop skirts and ruffled neckwear -- a faux pas that brands can’t afford to make, according to Scott Galloway, founder of the L2 think tank and a professor of marketing NYU Stern.
 
"The … profits registered by the fashion industry [are] attracting nontraditional players, ranging from Apple to Amazon, to the sector,” said Galloway. “The most powerful -- if only -- defense is increased product and digital innovation.”
 
In its defense, the style industry is investing in digital and ecommerce efforts. Over the past year, for instance, nearly one-fifth of fashion brands relaunched their Web sites -- focusing on improved navigation, upgraded image collateral, increased mobile optimization and expanding e-commerce support, per L2.
 
A full 84% of fashion brands are now e-commerce-enabled, while a search for fashion brand terms on Amazon yields relevant first-page results more than half of the time. (A third of these results include items that qualify for Amazon Prime, and nearly a sixth of brands have set up a “store” on the omnipresent retail portal, according to L2.)
 
More than two thirds of fashion brands now support a mobile site, and over half support m-commerce without relying on their desktop site. Yet while email frequency continues to ramp up -- 1.3 email per week on average -- only 15% of fashion brands now demonstrate an ability to send abandoned cart notifications, and only 7% are experimenting with responsive design templates for mobile mail clients.
 
As for social skills, L2 recently reported mixed results among fashion brands. After ranking 250 prestige brands across 15 social media platforms, the think tank found that social standouts included Swarovski and Uniqlo, while Rolex had only recently established a Facebook presence.