Sizes are never standard--you really have to try something on to know if it fits. How have you solved this problem?
"People who said this item fit well, also said these items fit well..."
2) Look at this image to see the difference between different brands and their size 8 measurements.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/04/24/business/201104... via http://thesocietypages.org/graphicsociology/tag/womens-size-...
There's many variables to sizing. It wouldn't be impossible to create a database of measurements for every single piece of clothing.
And then there's the issue of shrinkage.
Those are irrelevant details. The basic form of input is "person A gives rating R to item B". This is precisely the formulation behind successful solutions to the netflix problem.
What I find a little disappointing is that the top 3 prizes for this Netflix-Prize-style competition total $7,000 in value. Is technical brainpower, even that of students, really worth that little? Maybe startups should band together to hold their own optimization contests if the 'market rates' are so low.
People saying that size numbers vary greatly are missing the point. If I say a particular piece fits me well (regardless of its listed size) and then a bunch of other people say it fits them well (regardless of its listed size), the site can then aggregate the other pieces of clothing that those people said fit them well to show me clothes that potentially fit me well (regardless of their listed sizes).
I would just call it data analysis, not crowd-sourcing
These dresses are equivalent to "found money."
Woman has a closet full of dresses. They're old, uninteresting, unwearable, etc. She posts them online, earns "buttons," and buys dresses that look like they might work. Some do, some don't. Net result: more dresses to wear.
The "buttons" part is even more clever, in that they're building a real ecosystem that doesn't center on cash. Also, I can see this working incredibly well for pregnant women; they only need their maternity clothes for 5-6 months or so.
What it strikes me this business needs are small pre-paid boxes which will fit in US mailboxes or can be left for your mailman.
EDIT: On an unrealted note, the name "Forever 21" is incredibly sad.
Sizes in women's clothing have no objective standards at all (I do so envy men's pants, which come in 34x30 rather than Size 8 Slim Petite), but Kendall Farr opens her well-known book by suggesting that women break out the tape measure anyway. Measure yourself, and then measure anything you're thinking about trying on -- it saves time.
Not sure this will work.
Obviously your experience is different. Happy to agree to disagree about the outcome, but lets not pretend like either of us have a definitive knowledge of all women.
However, it could be totally anonymized, with measurements being used only to filter what is displayed. Think of it like a dating site, where whether someone smokes, or is a vegetarian, or whatever can be used to gauge compatibility (such as it is). Nobody knows my search criteria on a dating site.