I've tried StitchFix twice and found their stylists pretty lacking in terms of value they add. They don't listen to your requests and I'm sure most of them just have templates of stuff they send out w/o looking at what you liked / disliked. I'm fairly certain it's a role that can be very easily filled regardless of the Zipcode.
In fact, I was pretty convinced until now that the stylists were just algorithms but it looks like I was wrong.
Katrina Lake talks a little about the way they've structured this during her How I Built This interview[1]. They seem to have a pretty large engineering / data science org, and it feels like the stylists are effectively human curators of algorithmic recommendations.
1. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759594143/stitch-fix-katrina-...
Wow!
Most people in first world countries are well above the subsistence level, and much of what they spend their money on isn't useful. It does, however, improve their quality of life. Clothes are no better or worse than my own hobbies, and I suspect, yours.
For some people, buying clothes is a really stressful and difficult psychological process. You really don't know anyone who does not like shopping for clothes and would be willing to buy away that stress from a personal shopper/algorithm ?
Maybe you personally don't find value in that, or your tastes don't agree with Stichfix's style, but it seems quite understandable to me that many people would want this.
VC funding comes down to gut decisions, and I suspect there are a lot of other billion-dollar opportunities out there in spaces that are overlooked by the demographic of wealthy white american males between the ages of 25-50.
One example comes to mind from the recent thread[1] about hiring for older programmers - someone gave an example of an older friend of theirs who started getting substantially more offers once he changed the way he dressed:
> It began with a friend who was in the job market as a 50+. More on the hardware side. This guy has some cool experience. He gets lots of interviews, they go well, but no offers. As his frustration grows, he grows desperate to try something different. He dyes some color back into his hair, gets some tinted glasses, and lets his daughter take him shopping for some more hip interview clothes. A month later and he's in bidding wars for who to hire him. He said the difference was night and day. He was now pointing out his age in interviews "are you sure I'm not too old?" and the interviewers were like "no way man."
In a case like that, fashion has clear social utility and a very real, tangible value to that person.
But being smart, I decided to avoid expressing my skepticism about how she was spending her money. Turns out that for her, it's a great idea. She hates to shop, hates to spend time shopping, but has to look professional for work. Like many women, she's not a size 0, so finding stuff that fits as well as looks good can be a challenge.
With Stitch Fix, they always send the right size. And the styling (as much as I can tell as a dude) looks fine. If you don't like something, you just send it back.
Prices are higher than I would have expected, but again, that's because I'm a dude who buys cheap stuff. Women's clothing is both more expensive, and less sturdy than much of what men wear.
So I’m guessing by owning the brands themselves they get even higher margins than if they were buying unwanted brands in bulk at a discount. And each of the brands goes for a certain generic style, e.g.: “Even Tide brings the vacation to your closet with a mix of coastal colors and mid-century modern inspired lines.” [1]
Kind of a let down for me as a subscriber, but I still buy quarterly as I’m so bad at picking a wardrobe out on my own.
[1] https://www.stitchfix.com/men/blog/the-service/exclusive-bra...
I thought about applying for their ML positions, because it's definitely an interesting business problem. But I got a strong feeling they don't actually use ML in their product. They're just a retailer after all.
It's almost as if it didn't matter what I put in my requirements, I was going to be given the same stock pack du jour. I even got this heavy winter coat from them that maybe would have made sense in Minnesota, but had no place in the Bay Area. They were not geography-aware at the time, from what I could tell.
Never used them since, it's easier to go into the store myself.
If that's what their stylists are coming up with then... ew
But I canceled when I very specifically stated in both my profile and my message to the stylist that I did not want any white/tan colored items (I'm fair skinned) or polo shirts (just not my style).
My next order contained a white polo shirt and a tan knit beanie (in the summer!). smdh.
I, too, figured it was just some algorithm dressed up as personal stylists, but knowing that it is actual people just makes it even more unforgivable.
Maybe the stylists really exist to train an algorithm that can replace stylists in the future?
I would be very surprised if an algorithm did not make suggestions that the stylists would confirm, deny or modify.
I've received orders from good stylists and bad ones. The bad experiences were exactly as described: my preferences were clearly not read, they specifically picked things I had already rejected on the style-carousel-rating thing. It felt like they just dumped a bunch of excess crap on me. When this happens, the pieces don't even fit right. Very frustrating.
On the other hand, I have gotten shipments that were clearly respecting my requests and preferences. Those interactions absolutely send me over the moon, and make me much more likely to buy something.