Fashion comes out as best performing segment of e-commerce.

It is the busiest time in the fashion worlds calendar at the moment, as London Fashion Week is in full swing. The marketing and online presence of the fashion industry seems to be paying off as it has been revealed that fashion is the best performing sector of the e-commerce industry.

The UK online fashion sector has grown 258% in five years, making it the best-performing area across e-commerce, according to research from IMRG.

The fashion category of the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index outperformed other categories for four of the five years between January 2009 and December 2013, with sales increasing nearly 17% year on year, adding up to £91bn in 2013 and accounting for 21% of all online retail.

Andrew McClelland, IMRG’s chief operations and policy officer, said: "We have seen changes in the way consumers buy clothing, such as the rise of mobile devices and click-and-collect, which have contributed to an increase in confidence when shopping online.

"This report will help fashion retailers understand industry-wide trends and how they might affect their sector and own performance."

According to IMRG, fashion retailers were slow off the mark in the early days of online retail "for a variety of reasons but today, e-retail represents major opportunities for both multichannel and pure play fashion retailers".