The Online Opportunity

Men’s wear is expected to outpace women's wear over the next two years, with a 5 percent annual compounded growth rate, according to the L2 Insight report on

U.S. men's wear. However, few fashion brands have prepared appropriately for the expected demand in their online businesses.

L2 evaluated 59 firms that carry only men's or both men's and women's products and determined that although 86 percent collect gender information from customers at sign-up, only 41 percent use that data to modify the subject lines of their gender-targeted e-mails — which historically achieve higher open rates.

Additionally, nearly onethird of the brands that carry men's wear fail to feature men's products on their homepages and another 19 percent push men's content below the fold. As an example, even though Calvin Klein's most-viewed product page in the last year was the men's underwear page, the com- pany's homepage promotes primarily women's wear.

The report said that men are increasingly using social media — particularly Instagram — in lieu of fashion magazines to glean information, yet men's-focused brands had 53 percent fewer posts, 75 percent fewer followers and 82 percent fewer total interactions on average. While Supreme and Hugo Boss buck the trend, other brands should increase their use on the site to further engage men, the report said.

Brands that primarily target men are using influencers more and more, with 37 percent of Instagram posts in the last year tagging an influencer, up from 27 percent the year before. Those that work with well-known athletes and musicians are more likely to find lifts in engagement but advocates, micro- and small influencers have also proven popular for brands such as Hugo Boss and Cole Haan.

Among the brands researched were Alfred Dunhill, Brioni, John Varvatos, Raf Simons, Supreme, Lacoste, Paul Smith and Thom Browne.