Unless I'm missing something here it looks like there were a total of 17 responses (8 yes 9 no). Are you really making a major business decision on a survey with an N of 17?
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I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
51–60 of 115 posts
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#52The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…
High end consumers are often jerks, but so are some people who sell to them.
I know a woman who makes hand-knit sweaters for about $250. She makes them out of acrylic yarn, which shocks me. If I'm going to spend a lot for clothes I'm going to want a nice material, like wool. Particularly when you consider the cost of the labor, the extra cost of the wool is nothing.
She told me she did sell a wool sweater to somebody who went home and washed in hot, it shrank, and then heard no ends of complaints about it, so she resolved to never sell wool sweaters unless they are specially commissioned.
Some luxury retailers provide a great experience, like the ones around Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Other ones make it really clear they hate you. I know of one retailer in the UK where if you buy something with a credit card you'll get fraudulent charges from the UK just a day or two after your order.
Nasty.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#53>> The pitch was to get away from inaccurate generic sizing terms like “small”, “medium” and “large” and move to a system based on body measurements.
I'm a man and possibly missing something, but it seems to me that women's clothing is deliberately inaccurate.
When I buy pants (in America), the measurements are expressed in inches. I rarely even try them on.
Women's sizes vary by brand and seem engineered to flatter rather than describe. A woman buying a "size 0" has not expressed her desire for a predictable, sensible sizing system.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#54Wow...thanks for all the comments. I've been a causal reader of Hacker News, but this was my first post. I'm really impressed all the comments. Lots of great questions/comments. There was one thing I neglected to mention in the blog post, that I should mention now. We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. We wanted shoppers to see the power of submitting thei…
“We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. [...] We threw quite a bit of money and traffic and the contest and we saw almost no engag[e]ment.”
You’re a new website with zero brand recognition. If you had promised a free Cadillac in exchange for someone’s home address, you probably would have seen the same level of engagement. That doesn’t mean people don’t want to receive free luxury vehicles, they just don’t trust you with their data.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#55The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…
All your points except number 1 and 2, I’ve experienced far more often with small clients (self employed, or a small business), not with larger companies or independently wealthy individuals. It’s the ‘I Built This!’ mentality.
You don't need to actually have "built this" to act as if you did, naturally.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#56Did he tried with men?. I defenitely would give my measures to be able to buy clothing online, tshirts, hoodies, pants, even caps. I don't buy online right now unless is a bramd I already know and I go directly for my size. Is
You should check out http://www.angora.io/feed
I end up just going with Asos due to their excellent return policies. There's too much variance among body types and brand-reported sizes that this doesn't seem like something crowdsourcing alone could ameliorate.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#57The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…
Your list directly contradicts the success of just about all luxury brands that have been successful.
Could you therefore clarify what you mean by 'prospects "with enough money"'
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#58I don't buy this. There's something about the article that annoys me, too. I can't quite put my finger on it. I think it's because it has a linkbaity title, a tone of confidence, but is filled with weird stuff.
Disclaimer: I co-founded Everlane (http://everlane.com), although I left to start Dev Bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com) last January. I'm just speaking for myself.
First, look at the error bars. 100.0% (+0.0/-79.3) Saying "the sample size is too small" doesn't even do it justice. Looking at numbers like this will put you in a mindset where you make silly decisions because, hey, they're numbers! They're objective!
Second, this is not how fashion works. As a rule I don't trust survey results early on in a product life cycle -- customer's don't have sufficient context, so you're learning more about their predispositions and biases than their actual attitudes about your (potential) product.
Talking "scientifically," there's a huge uncontrolled variable here: brand. Would women share their measurements with Hermès if it meant proper sizing? How many women who shop for high-end clothes employ something like a personal shopper? What about stores that sell more intimate products, like lingerie? How about wedding gowns? Of course a woman would share he measurements to get fitted for a high-end wedding gown.
I have yet to commit any capital or conduct any surveys and already I feel like I have a decent framework for approaching these issues. If there are high-end retailers with whom women are comfortable sharing their measurements, what is it about those retailers that makes them comfortable?
Why would a woman be willing to share her measurements with Hermés but not Ross Dress for Less?
IMO that's a 1000x better starting point than the one asked in the survey.
This survey is neither reliable nor valid.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#59I agree with you that perfect sizing is the future of fashion retail--especially online. However, I completely disagree with your methodology. This demographic is going to be won over by marketing , and you didn't have the correct marketing play in hand when you ran this survey. I'm going to give you an example: If you ask people: "When shopping for clothes on the web, would you submit your email address if...?" Most…
I don't think you should massage your sample into giving you an acceptable answer. No matter how you shuffle the words around, it comes down to the blunt action of "submitting your email address" or "submitting your body measurements." If your target demographic is repulsed by the bare truth, you have to decide whether it's worth combating this reality with a "market play." It might be better to change your target de…
But people will say and do different things substantially by how it is presented. "Would you carry around a device that lets a company track your location 24/7?" will get people to answer "no" who have a cell phone in their pocket. If you had asked the general population 10 years ago if they would give a company a list of all their friends, their hobbies/interests/religion/political beliefs and all their photos they would have shouted no, of course not, but they do that with facebook today.
Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100
#60Unless I'm missing something here it looks like there were a total of 17 responses (8 yes 9 no). Are you really making a major business decision on a survey with an N of 17?
Only 3 of the 444 responses from women made over $100k.
The chart in the article is only for women 18-24, 17 responses.
Looking at all 444 women regardless of income, 56% said yes, and their income chart is far more even. And in the next income range, $75-$99k, 59%, or 13 of 22, said they WOULD give their measurements. Fun tool to play with however :)