• The New York Times, Monday, May 14, 2007 10:30 AM

Conventional wisdom held that fashion--which is hard enough to buy with the aid of sales clerks and fitting rooms--would be difficult to translate onto the Internet. But online revenue from skirts, suits and shoes reached $18.3 billion last year, surpassing PCs, printers and word-processing programs, which totaled $17.2 billion, according to a report by Forrester Research.

Still, consumers made only 8% of all clothing purchases on the Web, compared with 41% of computers, 21% of books and 15% of baby supplies, according to the report. But the clothing market is far larger than the others, which explains why apparel retailers are eager to refine their Web sites and win over new buyers.

Online retail executives said liberal return policies and better navigation tools on their Web sites--like the ability to zoom in on and rotate the images of a $500 handbag--have bridged the once-wide gap between online and offline clothes-shopping experiences. The downside is that return rates for clothing bought online are about twice as high (14%) as other products bought on the Web.

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