Stitch Fix has grown at a steady but not outrageous rate | Hacker News Reader

Stitch Fix has grown at a steady but not outrageous rate

bloomberg.com

31 pointshhhust8 comments

I used to use Trunk Club, which was founded two years before Stitch Fix.

I had a really, really good experience with it. When I first signed up, one of their stylists called me for a "style interview" in which she asked follow-up questions to my answers on the sign up form. She also had me send her pictures of major pieces of clothing (shoes, jackets, etc.) that I already owned so that she would know to send matching stuff. It was great - I did two "trunks" with them, and kept everything (probably $1000 worth of clothing and accessories), and still wear each piece five years later.

In comparison, Stitch Fix never called me before sending me stuff. As a result, I kept only one item out of five they sent in the initial shipment, and it has been two weeks and I still haven't really worn it. Overall it feels like a shitty version of TC, and I can't say I'm impressed. I'm going to wait for the next "fix" or whatever they call them and probably cancel afterward if it is similarly bad.

My wife used it for a year and absolutely loved it, but after a year, she had enough clothes to the point where she didn't need to buy any more. That's when she stopped using it, pretty similar to what they discovered themselves.

This happened with my wife as well. She plans to start it back up again in the future, but exactly when is hard to predict.

I had no idea stitch fix was doing so well financially, but I guess I'm not too surprised. I love their service (tho be ready to drop some $$).

Does having to send items back bother you? I'm surprised by the popularity of these services. I always assumed people wouldn't want to go through the hassles of going to the post offices to return stuffs every time they order.

Usually I don't send anything back -- but when I have, I've been able to just drop it in a blue mail box vs. going all the way down to the post office; very easy. I've seen people in my building just leave it down by the mailboxes for the carrier, but I have a blue box on my walk to work and drop it in there.

I guess it does bother me a bit, tho I rarely actually send things back. If I did more often, it might annoy me enough to cancel. But man having clothes that look good that require zero effort on my part is pretty sweet.

I've only sent items back a couple of times (been using it over a year now).

They seem to be really, really smart (devious?!) with the pricing for the individual pieces. If you don't keep all 5 items, they charge you a $25 "stylist fee". The price difference is then not all that large in many cases to keep all 5 items, vs sending a couple back.

I'm sure they tune their algorithms so that items more likely to be kept are the pricier items, and items that you are most likely to send back are the cheaper ones. Or maybe they even vary the prices per customer, based on feedback and prior history, to increase the odds of a "full purchase". If they don't, they should.

Either way though, it saves me hours of shopping at malls or other stores, and usually does reasonably well with the styles and pricing. I like the service overall.

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