How have e‑commerce marketplaces (Amazon, ASOS, Zalando) trended in search and sales for men's thong listings from 2020–2025?
Executive summary
Publicly available industry reporting shows strong overall growth in fashion marketplaces from 2020–2025, rising personalization and AI-driven merchandising, and an explicitly accelerating men’s apparel segment — factors that plausibly increased visibility and sales potential for niche categories like men’s thongs, but none of the provided sources contain direct search- or sales-level data for “men’s thong” listings on Amazon, ASOS, or Zalando between 2020–2025, so any firm claim about listing-level trends cannot be made from these sources alone [1] [2] [3].
1. Marketplaces grew and consolidated audience attention — fertile ground for niche underwear
Across Europe and the US, marketplaces captured an increasing share of online fashion sales through 2025, with reports citing marketplaces as the location of more than 70% of online fashion sales in the US and Europe and platform scale exemplified by Zalando’s multibillion-euro GMV and ASOS’s multi-million visitor base, which together create larger, concentrated audiences where even specialist garments can reach customers efficiently [4] [5] [6].
2. The men’s segment expanded fastest — structural tailwind for men’s underwear categories
Market forecasts and industry analysis identify the men’s apparel segment as the fastest-growing fashion e‑commerce category in the early‑to‑mid 2020s, driven by changing lifestyles and greater male engagement with online fashion, which implies growing demand potential for all male-focused subcategories — including underwear formats that were previously more niche — though the sources stop short of breaking growth down to specific item types like thongs [1] [2].
3. Personalization and dynamic merchandising changed what customers saw
Retailers and marketplaces invested heavily in personalization, AI recommendations, dynamic content and AR try‑ons through 2025, with ASOS highlighted for adapting page content to user behavior and Zalando investing in data‑led trend forecasting and 3D avatar tech, meaning that a shopper who engages with bold or novelty menswear is increasingly likely to be shown thong-style listings if algorithms determine relevance — a visibility mechanism that can boost niche SKU discovery absent explicit category demand data [7] [8] [2].
4. Platform rules, returns and commission regimes shape whether sellers list niche underwear
Marketplace economics matter: platforms like Zalando and ASOS enforce commissions and return policies and curate brands, while Amazon offers scale with different seller economics; those structural rules (commission ranges, return obligations and marketplace entry barriers) influence vendor willingness to list higher-risk or lower-margin novelty underwear SKUs, which in turn affects catalogue breadth and therefore observed search and sales volumes — the sources document marketplace commission structures and seller pros/cons but do not provide thong-specific listings data [6] [5].
5. Social commerce, influencers and trend cycles likely amplified short-term spikes
Industry reporting points to social commerce, live shopping and influencer-driven trends as major drivers of rapid product surges in fashion, and historically intimates and novelty menswear have been susceptible to viral demand spikes; the marketplace environment described in the sources therefore supports episodic increases in searches and sales for men’s thongs tied to cultural moments, though no source provides empirical search‑volume time series for that SKU [4] [2].
6. What the available evidence cannot tell — and why that matters
None of the supplied reports publishes granular SKU- or search-query–level metrics for men’s thong listings on Amazon, ASOS or Zalando from 2020–2025, so it is impossible from these sources to quantify year‑by‑year search trends, conversion rates or sales volumes for that exact item; the most one can responsibly assert from the reporting is that macro forces (marketplace concentration, male-segment growth, personalization, social commerce) increased the likelihood of higher visibility and episodic demand for niche menswear across those platforms [4] [1] [7].
7. Alternative interpretations and potential hidden agendas
Industry trend pieces and vendor-facing reports emphasize marketplace opportunity and tech-driven personalization — narratives that serve platform and vendor interests by encouraging listings expansion and advertising spend, which could overstate organic consumer demand for very niche SKUs; conversely, the absence of public SKU-level data may reflect commercial sensitivity or platform control of proprietary search/sales analytics rather than a lack of demand [2] [6].