ASOS is searched 1,830,000 times a month in the UK, with a peak of 2,240,000 in November 2025. All the other fashion searches we measured, added together, come to about 15,000. The asos.com domain ranks for 258,144 UK keywords with 15,510 first positions (DataForSEO, Google UK, September 2026).
In clothing, generic search belongs to those who sell online at scale, and a small shop or brand will not win it back. What is left, and it has surprising volumes, is the niche: vintage, the boutique, the specific piece, the gift.
Below: the numbers behind UK demand, where the seasonality sits and what to work on when you are not a marketplace.
Local niches have more volume than the categories
| Search | Monthly volume | CPC | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| vintage shops london | 3,600 | £0.52 | 4,400 in September and October 2025 |
| jewellery shops london | 2,900 | £1.66 | 3,600 from September to December 2025 |
| clothes shops london | 2,400 | £0.48 | 2,900 from September to December 2025 |
| womens clothing online | 2,400 | £0.88 | 3,600 in September 2025, 2,900 from March to May 2026 |
| jewellers london | 1,900 | £3.35 | 2,900 in September 2025 |
| boutiques london | 1,000 | £0.41 | 1,300 in September 2025 and March 2026 |
| outlet online | 880 | £0.47 | 1,000 from September to November 2025 |
"vintage shops london" gets 3,600 searches a month, more than "clothes shops london" with 2,400. A niche beats the general category in the same city. And it is a search ASOS cannot satisfy: the person typing it wants to walk into a real place and look at the clothes.
Jewellery has the longest season: "jewellery shops london" holds at 3,600 from September to December against an average of 2,900. Four months of gift buying, not a few weeks before Christmas.
Four different calendars in the same sector
Clothing retailers think in collection seasons, while searches follow other cycles.
September and October are the months of the physical shop: vintage and clothes shops in the city peak then. September to December is the gift season, which moves jewellery. November belongs to the marketplaces and outlets: ASOS reaches 2,240,000 searches, "designer outlet" goes from 22,200 to 33,100 in November and December. Spring, from March to May, is the second high point for buying women's clothing online, ahead of the summer.
A shop that only communicates when the new collection arrives is speaking in the wrong months two times out of four. The content calendar has to be built on these peaks, not on the stockroom's.
The cost of a click tells you where not to go
The sector's category searches have the maximum advertising competition index ("outlet online", "womens clothing online", "jewellery shops london" and "boutiques london" all score 100 out of 100) and very low costs per click, between 41p and £1.66.
That is the signature of a saturated market with thin margins: many advertisers buying space, none willing to pay much for it, because each click is worth little. Buying visibility on these words means queuing behind businesses with catalogues of a hundred thousand items and logistics a shop does not have.
The ground you can work is where the marketplace cannot answer: immediate availability in store, the hard-to-find size, advice, the one-off piece, repairs and alterations. These are small searches, often local, that a general catalogue does not cover.
The physical shop has an advantage it does not use
Local search is the only place where a shop competes on equal terms, because Google answers with a map and the map does not contain ASOS.
The levers are the same as in other local sectors: a complete Google Business Profile with a precise category (not "shop" but "vintage clothing store"), accurate opening hours, photos of the interior and of real stock, reviews asked for at the till. In retail, product availability can also appear directly in the profile, and that is the information that decides whether someone takes the Tube to come to you.
Recommended reading: local SEO on Google and, for those who also sell online, ecommerce SEO.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth opening an online shop if I have a physical one?
It is if your range has its own demand online, in other words a niche. Copying a general catalogue means competing with a site that ranks for 258,144 keywords and its own delivery network: the numbers almost never work.
Better to sell on marketplaces or on your own site?
The marketplace brings volume straight away and takes a commission; your own site costs more at the start and keeps the customer. The split that works in other sectors applies here too: the marketplace to be discovered, your own channel for the people who come back.
How much does Instagram matter in fashion?
It matters for discovery and for building the brand's style, which here is the product. It does not answer the searches of people who want to buy now: those go through the map and the search engine.
When should I push?
September and October for the physical shop, September to December for gifts, spring for selling online. They are different windows with different messages, and they use the same budget, better distributed.
Is vintage really an interesting niche?
The numbers say yes: 3,600 searches a month in London alone, more than the general category, at 52p a click. It is local, specific and lightly contested demand.
Where to start
Write in one line what your shop sells that a marketplace cannot, and search Google for that thing with your town next to it. If few results come up and no big brand, you have found the search worth existing for. If ASOS comes up, rewrite the line until it disappears. If you want an opinion on which niches have volume in your area, get in touch.
