Farfetch’s second annual conscious luxury report shows the company is serious about stepping up its conscious offerings.
By Farfetch’s definition, a conscious product includes goods that are independently vetted and either contain certified materials (organic, recycled, upcycled), are produced by certified production methods, are pre-owned, or come from a brand that scores well on ethical rating platform Good on You.
Searches for conscious products — and all of their attributes — grew 93 percent year-over-year on Farfetch. Report data comes from the company’s 3.5 million-strong active customer base and a recent customer survey of nearly 400 respondents from April 2022.
As of December 2021, 220 brands on Farfetch’s platform (out of a cohort of 1,009 brands) were rated highly by Good on You, up 13 percent year-over-year. Typically, a small brand needs to score three out of five and a large brand needs to score four out of five for recognition. As with last year, small brands like Veja, All Blues, Chopova Lowena, Bode and Alighieri led the charge when it came to consumer favor.
With New Guards Group (and its stable of brands like Off-White, Palm Angels, Heron Preston and Unravel Project) firmly under its wing, Farfetch also clocked continued growth for brands like Heron Preston (and its range of recycled collections).
Indie boutiques are also increasing their devotion to the category, with the amount of “conscious” products on Farfetch from boutiques growing 40 percent year-over-year. All the combined momentum matters if the e-tailer is to meet its goal to increase its conscious offering to 100 percent by 2030.
Farfetch’s global director of sustainable business Tom Berry, said the report showed a “consolidation of trends from last year,” meaning Farfetch customers are increasingly prioritizing uniqueness, affordability, quality and durability in their purchases with keywords like “organic,” “vegan” and “recycled” still driving a lot of searches.
Per the report, “The most popular behavior, cited by 79 percent of customers, is that they are now buying a higher proportion of luxury fashion because they believe it is more sustainable than fast fashion, being of higher quality and longer lasting.”
Farfetch Second Life is seeing new customer acquisition with more than 70 percent of Farfetch Donate customers being new to the retailer. According to the survey, over the past 12 months, 22 percent of customers have started selling fashion items they no longer use, 20 percent have donated a used fashion item in the last year, and 13 percent have repaired something.
Berry said the customer base still carries a global outlook. Mexico, Germany and China are among the fast-growing conscious shopper cohorts, according to the report. “I don’t see the growth in pre-owned slowing,” he said. “If there’s [an economic] squeeze then that would only be accelerated.”