What if someone knew your tastes, size, budget, style and wardrobe preferences so well they could do your shopping for you? This sounds like a pricey personal shopper or stylist professional, available only to the very affluent, of course. Right? Actually, wrong. Enter Stitch Fix, an online shopping experience that “blends technology with expert stylists,” according to their profile.
Stitch Fix looks to learn the customer’s style with a series of profile questions and feedback. The user fills out a comprehensive profile, describing style preferences, cost range, fit, height, weight, color partiality (do you like shirts to fit tight? Slightly fitted? Loose and flowy?). You are then given a series of wardrobes and styles to rate. Even as the user personalizes their style preferences, they can fine-tune the contents of the box as well. In need of a new blouse? Click the button for more tops and fewer bottoms. Other fields for refining searches include requesting no accessories, no shoes or other requests.
Once Stitch Fix has the information on a user gathered, an algorithm generates a number of options, which are then selected by a real-life stylist based on the answers given in the profile. The stylist selects five items to send to your home, for the cost of $20, which can be used toward whatever is kept. In the event that everything is kept, the customer receives a 25 percent discount toward the box.
So now the question remains: does this method really work? “Yes,” said Deena Lewin, a Stitch Fix user. She was so pleased by their results she even referred her sister to the service, and her sister uses it even more than Lewin herself. Lewin “always kept at least one item from each order Stitch Fix sent.” But Lewin did her part in helping the stylists learn about her as well. There is an option to write a note to the stylist after inspecting the items in an order, an option Lewin uses to her advantage. “I’ll include more general notes, such as requesting no sleeveless or cap sleeves, or how I only wear skirts so please don’t send pants,” she explained. “But I will also seek their expertise in trying to work with new styles, and the stylists really pull the right boxes together for me.”
Lewin does not seem to be alone in preferring this method of shopping. Following many requests from its user base, Stitch Fix is expanding to include a division for men’s fashion as well. And it should not be surprising that Stitch Fix has found a successful formula for delving into fashion profiles. Their chief algorithms officer is Eric Colson, formerly of Netflix, and helped personalize the Netflix suggestions list based on liked and viewed programs.
Of course, Stitch Fix is not alone in this business model. It is part of a new model that the New York Times refers to as “Curated Personalized Online Shopping.” The concept of customers describing their preferences and the retailer trying to match them is seen in other retail industries as well, such as Club W for wine and Birchbox for cosmetics and beauty products. Ruum.com, a children’s clothing retailer, recently closed, only to re-emerge as Kidpik, a Stitch Fix-type of company for girls’ clothing.
As if online shopping and Amazon’s market dominance was not enough to scare brick and mortar stores, the success of Stitch Fix and other similar models are sure to send a ripple through the retail industry.
By Jenny Gans
