Original Article:
Stitch Fix’s CEO on Selling Personal Style to the Mass Market
by Katrina Lake
https://hbr.org/2018/05/stitch-fixs-ceo-on-selling-personal-style-to-the-mass-market
“At Stitch Fix our business model is simple: We send you clothing and accessories we think you’ll like; you keep the items you want and send the others back. We leverage data science to deliver personalization at scale, transcending traditional brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retail experiences. Customers enjoy having an expert stylist do the shopping for them and appreciate the convenience and simplicity of the service… Of course, making something seem simple and convenient to consumers while working profitably and at scale is complex. It’s even more complex in the fashion retail industry, which is crowded, fickle, and rapidly changing. Other apparel retailers attempt to differentiate themselves through the lowest price or the fastest shipping; we differentiate ourselves through personalization. The part of me that loves data knew it could be used to create a better experience with apparel. After all, fit and taste are just a bunch of attributes: waist, inseam, material, color, weight, durability, and pattern. It’s all just data. If you collect enough, you’ll get a pretty good picture of what clothes people want… But the part of me that loves clothes recognized the human element in shopping—the feeling of finding something you weren’t expecting to and delighting in the fact that it fits you and your budget. I saw an opportunity to combine those two elements—data and human experience—to create a new model for buying clothes… Hybrid Designs, our in-house clothing brand, came to life one rainy afternoon when a couple of data scientists were thinking about how to fill product gaps in the marketplace. For example, many female clients in their mid-40s were asking for capped-sleeve blouses, but that style was missing from our current inventory set. Fast-forward a year, and we have 29 apparel items for women and plus sizes that were designed by computer and meet some specific, previously unfilled needs our clients have… The analytical part of me loves our algorithmic approach. But shopping is inherently a personal and human activity. That’s why we insist on combining data with a human stylist who can alter or override the product assortment our styling algorithm has delivered. Our stylists come from a range of design and retail backgrounds, but they all have an appreciation for the data and feel love and empathy for our clients. Humans are much better than machines at some things—and they are likely to stay that way for a long time.”
This article is a great overview of how technology and data science can set businesses apart and drive success. sdsemih
