Hey HN- I am an insider to this business and in the subscription commerce space and know these companies well. Here are a couple high level insights about this business:
Dark Pattern: of course, but we call this conversion optimization. We try to make the checkout process as easy as possible to minimize friction. Give customers a great offer, get the credit card, and they will opt-in to the subscription and forget tomorrow.
Negative Option: The billing model is one in where you purchase, or get a free trial, and you are automatically enrolled until you cancel. Think about the old Columbia House DVD club or BMG (if you are old enough to remember). We call this "breakage". This is what makes the model work. If every customer picked out shoes every month, or they automatically shipped every month, they would lose money. This is because the cost of the shoes + shipping doesn't leave to much room for margin. This also allows them to front load their marketing dollars and scale - spending $50+ to acquire customers, which eventually become profitable as customers continue to get billed month over month.
Tricks & FTC Compliance: I do notice on the billing screenshot that they have an opt-in checkbox to the VIP club (subscription terms). However, these are behind a link, which is against the FTC guidance on negative option marketing. The FTC and Visa & MasterCard require any subscription to have an opt-in box which the customer agrees to the amount, billing frequency, and customer support info to cancel. They clearly are not doing this, and apparently haven't been caught since it "looks" like just typical ecommmerce.
eCommerce vs. Subscription: Interestingly, JustFab recently acquired ShoeDazzle, who was their primary competitor for years. That was, until ShoeDazzle decided to move away from the subscription model, and go to a retail model. Pando Daily did a whole series about this, and the CEO they brought in to lead it. Guess what? The pure e-commerce model didn't work, ShoeDazzle struggled, returned to subscription, but eventually sold the company for a deep discount of the valuation to JustFab.
Bottom line, they shoes they sell are cheap and fashionable. In fact, they lose money on a unit basis. Yes, there is a small percentage of the revenue from customers that love the service, pick out shoes and pay monthly, but a a majority of the revenue is coming from consumers who just wanted a deal on one pair of shoes.