How To Increase Sales in the Clothing Business: 14 Proven Ways (2026)

If it’s been harder in recent years to make sales in your retail clothing store or online store, that’s because the shopping journey has changed. 

A customer might discover a jacket on TikTok, check sizing on your mobile website, and buy it in-store—or the other way around. Along the way, there are endless distractions in their feed and in life, keeping shoppers from purchasing. 

That means you have to work harder to earn the sale, both online and in-store. Ahead, you’ll learn 14 proven ways to increase sales in your clothing store while also improving operational efficiency. 

1. Get a great commerce platform 

Your commerce platform is the nucleus of your entire growth strategy. In today’s world, a unified platform is necessary, as it houses all product, inventory, customer, and payment data in one place. Using this data, you can connect with shoppers on any channel and provide a shopping experience that converts.

Why is this important anyway? According to a 2025 specialty retail executive survey, shoppers who engage with your brand across digital and physical storefronts spent approximately 15% more per order. In addition, these customers showed 70% higher year-over-year retention than those shopping on only one channel.

Shopify provides the supportive friend energy your clothing line needs to boost sales. Shopify handles the complexity of selling in-person, online, and internationally, so you can focus on customer experience. 

Shopify also offers:

• Access to the world’s best-converting checkout to minimize friction at the most critical point of the journey
• With 99.9% platform uptime, your store stays open even during the most high-pressure seasonal launches
• A commerce platform powering millions of merchants in over 175 countries

🥇Case study: EVEREVE launched with Shopify across 103 stores and 275 POS stations in just eight months. The result was a 20% year-over-year increase in online conversion. Notably, 65% of their revenue now flows through Shop Pay, which delivers an 85% higher average order value (AOV) for their customers.

“Now we can have Shopify build the core things that Shopify is really great at, and our team can move to a place where they can innovate and really focus on the things that make the EVEREVE brand special,” says Tamer Selim, CTO of EVEREVE. 

2. Upgrade your checkout experience

Shoppers are moving fast, and they are doing it on their phones. In 2025, mobile generated around $2.5 trillion in revenue, accounting for 62% of all online revenue. If your checkout requires too much typing or hides the total cost, people leave.

Every year, more customers expect one-tap options like Shop Pay, which converts up to 50% higher than guest checkouts. Adding even one extra payment method beyond cards can boost conversion by about 7%. 

Princess Polly, for example, used Shop Pay to cut checkout time by 7.6%, helping conversion climb 4.1%.

Building trust is also key. Show your return policy early and offer installment payment options for higher-priced items. Whenever checkout recognizes a shopper across your site and your stores, you create loyal customers who boost sales.

“Implementing Shop Pay’s authenticated checkout was incredibly straightforward for us. We ran an A/B test, as we rigorously test everything we change on our site,” says Claire Miller, ecommerce manager at Princess Polly. 

“This made it easy to evaluate the feature over two weeks, with transparent results boosting our confidence. It reduced errors from un-logged users and cut checkout times significantly. The familiarity and trust our customers have with Shop Pay added another layer of comfort, enhancing the overall speed and frictionless experience of the checkout process.”

3. Leverage AI for personalization in the customer experience

These days, you can’t survive as a clothing brand without some form of personalization that improves customer satisfaction. 

Shoppers expect brands to know them intimately—both online and in-store. In 2025, 39% of US consumers wanted tailored interactions and personalized recommendations, according to research from TransUnion. 

To personalize customer experiences without being intrusive, focus on building unified customer profiles, which collect data from across your business. When online browsing data, purchase history, and in-store POS activity flow into one place, your personalized recommendations reflect actual size and style preferences across every channel.

Using that data with an app like Nosto can turn your online store into a personal stylist. It uses intelligent site search and merchandising to display the clothes a person wants to see based on their data. You get total control over how products are ranked, so you can push high-margin items or clear out seasonal stock.

4. Adopt a B2B/DTC model 

Operating a hybrid model provides the best of both worlds. DTC protects your brand and margins, and B2B ecommerce offers stability through bulk reorders. B2B buyers are increasingly demanding better experiences. Data shows that 73% prefer buying online, and 75% will switch suppliers for a better digital experience.

To win, make your wholesale portal feel like your DTC store. Use B2B on Shopify to offer self-serve ordering with custom pricing and payment terms, while keeping your inventory in one central brain. 

Apparel brand &Collar used this hybrid approach to drive a massive 3,144% year-over-year sales growth and a 418% jump in wholesale revenue. By unifying your retail operations, whether you’re selling to a boutique or a single in-store shopper, the experience is seamless and reliable.

5. Expand your online store internationally 

Going global opens you up to a whole new audience. DHL’s 2025 data shows that 59% of shoppers now buy from international retailers, mainly to find better prices or brands they can’t get domestically.

A smart way to start is by checking your organic traffic to see where international interest already exists before picking one or two target markets. Then, use a tool like Shopify Managed Markets to localize currency and handle shipping. 

Two of the biggest reasons people abandon international carts are long shipping times and surprise customs fees. Shopify recently made it easier to handle this by expanding duty and tax calculations to all plans, so customers see the total cost upfront.

Apparel brands like Represent, for example, saw a 30% conversion lift just by localizing for the German market. So, start with your bestsellers in a few key regions and scale up once your shipping costs are dialed in.

6. Sync with social commerce

Social media is now where the transaction happens. 

Data from 2025 shows 70% of shoppers already buy through social platforms, and most expect these apps to become their primary online shopping destination by 2030. For Gen Z, social feeds are already the main way to find and buy new products.

To improve your social commerce game, here are some tips:

• Use the TikTok, Meta, and YouTube Shopping channels so more customers can check out without leaving their favorite apps.
• Since 82% of shoppers are influenced by social buzz and viral trends, focus on styling videos, creator reviews, and quick product demos.
• Use Shopify Campaigns to create trackable links and see which platforms drive revenue.

Overall, treat your social media channels as a storefront. They are so much more than ad channels and can help you meet more customers where they spend the most time. 

7. Use Shopify Collective to sell without inventory

The dropshipping market is expected to hit $464 billion in 2025, with fashion leading as the largest category. 

For apparel brands, the biggest challenge is often lean inventory, where demand changes faster than you can restock. Shopify Collective solves this by letting you sell products from other curated brands without buying a single unit upfront.

Some ways to use Collective include: 

• Adding accessories, footwear, or seasonal layers to see what resonates before committing to a full production run
• Using gap fillers like socks or jewelry as easy add-ons at checkout

When a customer buys a Collective item, the order goes straight to the supplier to ship, and tracking syncs back to your store automatically.

With Collective, the model allows for premium expansion while keeping margins healthy, typically between 20% and 50%. For example, Criquet Shirts used Collective to sell custom products, which resulted in 7% of its returning customers buying into the new line.

8. Start a customer loyalty program

Shoppers are currently juggling about 17 customer loyalty programs, but only stay active in nine. 

Standing out means offering more than a basic points redemption system to your loyal customer base. The 2025 Bond Loyalty Report found that feeling valued is what actually keeps people around, so consider offering perks like early access to product drops, exclusive colorways, or free hemming.

Focus on rewarding actions that build community, like writing reviews or referring friends. It also helps to keep the experience seamless between your website and your physical store. With Shopify POS, your retail team can see a loyal customer’s status and apply rewards instantly at checkout. You can set this up using apps like Smile.io, LoyaltyLion, or Inveterate.

BYLT Basics integrated its customer loyalty program into a custom mobile app and its retail stores in an effort to improve its unified commerce capabilities. Rewards are now accessible anywhere, whether a customer is standing at the register or scrolling their phone. 

“The ability of our loyalty members to redeem their rewards from anywhere is so important,” says Ryan Groh, head of ecommerce at BYLT Basics. 

“By using Shopify Checkout, we have our bases covered on the website and mobile app. And now, thanks to the integration between Inveterate and Shopify, our retail teams can help customers redeem and earn their loyalty points with the simple click of a button on the POS tile.” 

Thanks to this focus on brand loyalty programs, BYLT Basics now accounts for 10% of conversions, and the brand reports less time spent managing inventory and coordinating systems across channels. 

9. Invest in visual merchandising

Visual merchandising works by triggering emotional responses that lead to purchases in your retail clothing store. The way you display clothing in-store depends on your clothing brand and store layout. 

But there are some strategies you can use regardless of your unique situation:

• The 30-10-3 rule. Grab attention from 30 feet with a seasonal vibe, identify the category at 10 feet, and provide a clear reason to buy at three feet, like a styling tip or limited edition sign.
• Create “speed bumps.” Place a mannequin or a complete look rack every 15 steps to slow shoppers down and highlight high-margin outfits.
• The margin ladder. Position full-price heroes at the entrance, bundles in the mid-store, and impulse items like jewelry or socks near the fitting rooms where purchase decisions happen.
• One-touch standards. Keep focal tables grab and go. If a customer has to struggle with a complex fold or a hidden size tag, they’ll move on.

10. Use in-store promotions

Almost all (91%) of shoppers are seeking deals when they go shopping, a study from Savings.com found. Strategically place promotions at a retail clothing store’s three main conversion points: entry, fitting room, and checkout.

• Entry. Hook shoppers with store-only promotions to convert foot traffic right away. Make the promo simple for first-time visitors, like scanning a QR code to get a $10 credit to use today. 
• Fitting room. Promote add-ons while shoppers are trying on different outfits. Retail associates should know the current deals so they can help style and save. For example, they could compliment the jeans a shopper is trying on, then recommend a basic tee that’s on sale to complete the look. 
• Checkout. At this point, shoppers are ready to buy one or a few items. So, your goal here is to encourage them to buy some last-minute, high-margin items like socks, candles, or jewelry near the register. 

Get creative with your in-store promotions to be memorable. Culture Kings, for example, used Shopify POS UI Extensions to run a Double or Nothing challenge in its Las Vegas store. Customers who spent $200 or more could shoot hoops on an in-store court and win up to $1,024 in credit. 

More than 100 high-value customers participated, and the promo generated viral content for social and daily jackpots, helping spread brand awareness. As Culture Kings’ senior director of brand marketing, Monica Lin, noted, “It was super exciting to be the first to use this tech. Shopify POS made everything seamless and experiential, from the mobile wallet passes to the instant store credit redemption at checkout. The buzz in store and online was proof that it’s moments over markdowns every time.” 

11. Offer multiple payment options 

Payment flexibility is a big win for retail clothing stores and online stores in 2026. According to the Federal Reserve, mobile wallet usage has climbed to 32% of all payments, while 10% of consumers now use buy now, pay later (BNPL) to manage their budgets. With higher-ticket items like jackets or denim, shoppers may be price-sensitive, so offering variety is a good way to preserve your margins. 

There are many types of payment options you can offer, especially when you use Shopify Payments, which provides more than 100 methods to choose from. 

12. Analyze your sales data

The age of data is upon us, and retailers are looking for ways to improve in-store profitability. Some 74% of retail leaders now prioritize tech investments based strictly on proven returns, yet the BDO 2025 Retail CFO Outlook found that only 47% of retailers expect profitability to increase. Given that, the pressure is on for teams to use their data to find hidden margins.

Fortunately, with Shopify Analytics, you can analyze data from across your online and in-store sales in one place. With easy access to data, you can:

• Run weekly checks to see which sizes and colors are driving net sales versus those causing margin leakage through returns or stockouts.
• Find opportunities to improve your retail clothing store staff’s selling skills. If an associate has high AOV but low units-per-transaction (UPT), they are selling expensive hero pieces but missing out on outfit-building attachments like jewelry or socks.
• Analyze repeat purchase timing and which categories are earning margin versus eating it via heavy markdowns.

You can also go deeper into your data using ShopifyQL Notebooks, a unique query language tool built for ecommerce data. You can simply ask ShopifyQL Notebooks questions about your business, and it will return custom answers with charts and graphs to understand sales trends and findings. 

French retailer Decathlon went from static data exports to ShopifyQL Notebooks to scale its US operations. CTO Tony Leon noted that refreshing data in a “live environment” is a massive time-saver compared to formatting manual extracts. 

By using ready-to-use templates to visualize year-over-year KPIs, Decathlon achieved 50% faster reporting and 60% faster data analysis.

13. Optimize your store layout

Your store layout also affects conversions. In a 2025 shopper insights survey, 42% of shoppers cited “hard to navigate” as a top barrier to shopping in-store, while 75% list “too crowded” as their number one frustration.

If you want to recapture a share of the $125 billion lost to poor merchandising annually, your floor plan has to guide shoppers to the ultimate decision point—the fitting room. 

Here are some ways to achieve this:

• Create a clear spine path and use category blocks (like Denim versus Outerwear) that shoppers can decode in three seconds.
• Place tops near bottoms and high-margin accessories near fitting rooms to drive UPT.
• Research shows signage placed near a product increases purchase likelihood by 8.1%. Use signs at main decision points like the end of an aisle or between departments to help shoppers move through the store. 

💡Pro tip: Use retail sales reports to measure the before and after of any layout change. If moving denim nearer the fitting room increases the attachment rate of belts and tees, you have the data to prove it.

14. Engage in clienteling

Personalized service is the most controllable in-store tactic for repeat business. Eighty-eight percent of retailers now view unified commerce as critical, yet sales associates are often overwhelmed, managing an average of 16 different systems daily. 

But retail clienteling works only when your team has a single, real-time view of the customer. Shopify solves this by merging every click, purchase, and interaction into a unified customer profile accessible through Shopify POS.

This means you can:

• Use customizable fields to capture fit notes, style silhouettes, and future intent to make outreach feel like concierge styling 
• Automate VIP tagging and trigger tasks for your team based on spending thresholds or time since last visit 
• Build high-value groups based on ROI to further personalize the shopping experience

AG Jeans improved its brand by making Shopify its single source of truth, replacing a fragmented system that used Salesforce and Lightspeed. A unified architecture gave store associates total visibility into ecommerce history, while online reps could finally see in-store purchases. 

Integrating Shopify POS with the Endear clienteling app, AG Jeans empowered sales associates to send trackable, personalized messages that drove an immediate 10% to 15% increase in clienteling transactions. In just one year, AG Jeans doubled its clienteling penetration from 15% to 30% of total business.

The ability for an associate to ring up a customer on a mobile POS in the fitting room, or save the sale by shipping an out-of-stock color from the warehouse to the customer’s home, has changed the clothing brand’s luxury service. 

As director of retail at AG Jeans, James Bishop explained, the goal is a seamless luxury environment from entry to checkout, and unifying data through Shopify, made that a scalable reality.