For fashion brands, the product is the angle. You can't use persuasive copywriting to convince a woman who hates kitten heels that she suddenly loves them. That's why best selling styles are essential.
Fashion brands that use Meta and Google as their primary source of new customer acquisition live and die by their best sellers.
When you feature best sellers in your ad creative, click and conversion rates get an automatic lift. When these styles sell out, ROAS inevitably drops, usually within 48 hours.
I've worked in fashion eCommerce for almost 15 years, and in that time I've spotted some patterns in what makes a best seller.
In this issue I'm going to explain what the three main patterns are, so you can build these into your product assortment.
Before we get into it, I want to thank this week's sponsor: Layers. Layers is the AI search, visual discovery, and merchandising platform built only for Shopify Plus.
Fashion brands like Rainbow Shops, Gorjana, and Negative Underwear use it to turn their search bar and collection pages into revenue, without synonym spreadsheets or manual merchandising.
Click here to book a demo–my readers get 15% off their first 3 months.
Pattern 1: Optimized Classics
These are "classics with a twist"–staple items reimagined with thoughtful details that make them more functional, more versatile, or simply more attractive.
Stuart Weitzman's Nudist sandal was one of two styles that essentially built the business. It's a minimalist open toe, ankle strap sandal with a slim but sturdy heel.
The proposition: an evening shoe that you could wear all night (comfort), with a minimalist design that could pair with any dress/gown in your closet, at any level of formality.
The Perfect Jean solved one of the most common complaints about men's denim: lack of comfort.
Most men's and women's "skinny" jeans contain 2-5% elastane (or some other stretch fiber). The Perfect Jean is 64% cotton, with the remaining 36% split up across three different stretch fibers.
The proposition: a jean that won't crush your nuts, because it's stretchy enough to do full splits while you're wearing it.
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No one is going to buy your best sellers if they can't find them on your site. This is a huge problem for brands with big product catalogs.
Sure, you have the "best sellers" page, but shoppers land on your site via thousands of unique pathways. Instead of taking the time to digest your header nav, they'll often head right to the search bar instead.
Unfortunately, Shopify's "out of the box" search feature is terrible. The results are not comprehensive, and sometimes they almost feel random.
The filter feature is worse, if you can believe that. You can't filter by product size OOB. If you're a fashion or footwear brand running a promotion, this is a conversion rate killer.
Layers has the solution, and it costs up to 40% less than legacy search SaaS.
Layers delivers accurate and blazing fast search results, robust collection filtering with accurate sizing availability, and even visual discovery: a shopper uploads a photo and gets the exact item or the closest match.
They also let you–the operator–merchandise by what actually matters: sort collections by margin, sell-through, newness, or 7-day revenue. These sorts are updated daily–no spreadsheet grunt work, no tech tickets.
Rainbow Shops saw a 30% increase in conversion rate after switching. Across customers, Layers drives +13% conversion rate and +14% revenue per visitor, with average order value held steady.
Layers is offering my readers 15% off their first 3 months. Click here to book a demo.
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The Kyoto Pant from Leset straddles pattern 1 and pattern 2. It is a carpenter-style pant that frequently sells out and gets Substack fashion blogger shout-outs weekly.
The proposition: pants that ride the line between easy (drawstring waist) and sloppy (PJ pants). The crisp cotton fabric, the slightly bowed leg and the color offering keep these pants on the right side of the line while delivering comfort.
Pattern 2: Trend-Aligned Scroll-Stoppers
These are products that align with trends or perennial aesthetics and deliver a ton of clearly legible perceived value.
Mary Jane flats were having a moment a few years ago (maybe they still are?). These and these were best sellers for their respective brands.
Brands like Never Fully Dressed pin their entire growth strategy on designing into this pattern.
There isn't much more to say on this strategy, because its one part merchandising, one part design.
You can use a tool like Particl to understand what styles and fabrications are trending within a category, but it takes a design eye to iterate successfully on those ideas.
Pattern 3: Pure Marketing
These are manufactured trends–the styles that everyone is suddenly "obsessed" with, even though they seem totally random.
In reality, the brand hired a PR with solid influencer relationships, gifted a ton of product to the right people, and then added 50% affiliate commission on LTK or ShopMy as icing on the cake.
If you have enough money and awareness, you can even manufacture a cultural moment. Back in 2017, Gap launched a capsule of 90s reissues featuring Naomi Campbell in the campaign.
This "broke the internet" and sold out the capsule collection. But that pool of inventory was small in relation to Gap's overall business, and the viral customers didn't stick around. The impact on long-term sales results was minimal.
That is how a lot of these "pure marketing" best sellers play out: a momentary spike in sales that doesn't translate into long term customers.