A fifth of young UK consumers have bought fashion NFTs - report

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Dec 19, 2022

Little wonder that it’s Millennials and Gen Z-ers who are driving metaverse fashion. A fifth of them have already made a Non Fungible Token (NFT) fashion purchase, according to research of 2,000 UK shoppers.

A report called ‘How your brand can capture its full potential globally’ by fashion/lifestyle commerce platform Centra, showed that while just 9% of UK shoppers across all age demographics have bought fashion in the metaverse, Millennials and Gen Z-ers lead the way when it comes to actually buying fashion in retail’s alternative dimension. 

Some 21% of Millennials and a further 19% of Gen Z consumers said they’d already bought an NFT or digital fashion asset, with men twice as likely as women to have bought fashion in the metaverse.  

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Meanwhile, 38% of those who’d bought a fashion NFT did so because they believed it would be an investment, rising to 46% of Gen Z shoppers. 

The novelty of owning a digital asset also ranked highly among the shoppers polled, with 31% motivated by it being a new digital form of owning something from a brand they liked, and 28% saying they liked the idea of owning something in a virtual world. However, a hefty 34% said they didn’t want to own fashion digitally, preferring physical fashion garments.

Also, 31% of Gen Z shoppers said they wanted to dress their digital avatars as the main reason for purchasing NFTs, with a further 23% saying they wanted to be just as well dressed digitally as they were in the real world. And 39% of UK shoppers across all age groups believe digital avatars will become the norm within the next two years, with 44% it would happen in five years.

While a quarter (27%) believed NFTs to be the future of fashion, there remains an element of mistrust about the longevity of fashion sold within the metaverse among UK shoppers. Some 29% said they thought fashion NFTs were a fad that would pass, while 25% didn’t trust them. A further 24% thought NFTs were simply a gimmick used by fashion brands to sell more ‘things’ to shoppers.

Martin Jensen, CEO and co-founder of Centra, said: “The metaverse is still evolving – and you could say that it is still shapeshifting as retailers and brands try and get their heads around the opportunities this next dimension of retail offers. And whilst the metaverse isn’t here in its final guise yet, it’s certainly real for consumers who are already showing demand and adoption when it comes to owning fashion digitally.”