Window shopping in a digital world

When it comes to shopping, the Internet is Amber Nunnery's favorite mall. The 21-year-old Cape Girardeau college student is one of a growing number of people who prefer shopping for apparel online.

"It's more convenient than going to the mall. I just pay for it online and it's there," she said. "Plus, there's more variety."

Maybe we like the virtual dressing room. Or, maybe we like trying on clothes in the privacy of our own homes, where the lighting is flattering and salespeople aren't on your heels trying to convince you that a scarf or new shoes would "make the outfit."

No matter what it is we like about online shopping, the bottom line is we like it, and we particularly like buying apparel and accessories.

Conventional wisdom had been that consumers bought mostly electronics and entertainment online, but a poll of 603 affluent adults commissioned by Time Style & Design magazine found that clothing and accessories are more popular Web purchases, right up there with books. Of those surveyed, 95 percent reported buying something online in the past year; 68 percent bought clothes, 68 percent bought books, and 54 percent bought music. Electronics were purchased by 50 percent, and only 25 percent bought either food or drugstore products.

And while some people surely look for bargains, these particular Time shoppers -- with household incomes of $150,000 or more -- will shell out full price for luxury items, especially if there's an opportunity to preorder an item just to be sure they'll have it before their equally style-conscious pals.

The Web might prove the best chance to get the hot Chloe bag, which you might find is already sold out at Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorf Goodman after you've schlepped over there, says Brendan Hoffman, president and CEO of Neiman Marcus Direct, which oversees the retailer's Web and catalog businesses.

Time Design & Style hosted a panel discussion about the future of shopping when it released the survey results. Other speakers included designer Vera Wang; Mary Baglivo, CEO of ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi; Jaye Hersh, owner of Los Angeles boutique Intuition and shopintuition.com; and Dan Nissanoff, author of "FutureShop," a book about the effects of online auctions on retail buying habits.

Neiman Marcus Direct fully expected to sell mostly basic items and some accessories online but changed course when it became clear that customers were looking for "fashion" and clicking on luxury brands such as Manolo Blahnik, Hoffman says. "It's not what we expected."

Part of what's fueling the high-end e-commerce fashion frenzy could be the amount of information about designer collections available online. Hours after a runway show, hundreds of images that preview next season's styles are on the Internet.

Creating buzz

The immediacy helps create buzz, which is good, says Wang, but then comes the realization the garments aren't even made yet -- this in an era when people are used to immediate gratification from the Web. There's now incredible pressure on the designers and their manufacturers to ship products before public interest moves on to something else, Wang says.

"Fashion is moving at such a fast pace ... faster than ever before. There's a chance of outdating three to five months later," she says. This is something designers are grappling with at this very moment, she notes.

There's also a double-edged sword to the publicity that comes with dressing celebrities.

Wang, who did well in this year's Oscar sweepstakes with both Keira Knightly and Michelle Wililams in her gowns, says that celebrities are "an obvious billboard." And while most shoppers aren't in the market for expensive custom-made gowns, those dresses fuel the image of the Vera Wang brand, and she hopes that images will influence decisions when it comes to ready-to-wear clothes, dishes, perfume and other wares that carry her name.

"The halo of luxury is that hopefully we'll sell other things," she says.

Yet Wang is concerned that celebrities wield too much power over the marketplace, especially since it seems stars are on their way of replacing designers as the arbiters of style.

Panelist Hersh reports that a customer called asking for the paint-splattered sweatsuit that Jessica Simpson was photographed in. When Hersh asked about size, the caller responded, "What size was Jessica Simpson's?"

Women -- and the Time survey confirmed that women do the bulk of shopping, both online and in stores -- are making celebrity-driven choices after being bombarded with images of Simpson and Lindsay Lohan. "It's a way of saying, 'I can buy a piece of Hollywood wherever I live,"' Hersh says.

Many of the Neiman Marcus Web customers are indeed people who don't live in areas where the company has stores. Once these shoppers test the online experience and make sure the fit, quality and, maybe most importantly, the return policy work for them, they become repeat customers who'll drive business in the future.

That's not to say brick-and-mortar stores are dead.

"Service is a prerequisite for anything relating to luxury," says Wang, and it doesn't hurt if retailers also offer food or drink within their walls. That makes shopping "sensual and pleasurable."

To compete with the Web, traditional stores need to think of shopping as an experience and not simply something on a to-do list. Shopping can be a form of entertainment if retailers deliver the right combination of attractive merchandise, service, sustenance and excitement.

~ Staff writer Callie Clark Miller contributed to this report.