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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

Here's what I don't understand about this business model.

On the one hand, you're targeting guys who feel like they don't know enough about fashion to be able to make good clothing choices themselves -- so they trust an unknown stylist with unknown credentials to make the choice for them.

On the other hand, you're targeting guys who value premium, name-brand clothes.

I would think that if you're in category one, you wouldn't know enough to have strong brand preferences, and if you're in category two, you know enough that putting everything in the hands of a stylist would be uncomfortable for you.

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I'm who this service is made for. Typically when I find a place, i'll stay loyal to them for a while. The right place has to have these 3 qualities. First, the price has to be a good value. I don't want to pay a lot for something that will last a short time. I wear cloths until i can't. Second, there has to be at least one employee there that is willing to help me find something. I can't pick cloths out, I need a guy/girl willing to say "this is not a good shirt for you". and the 3rd is the universal, the cloths need to be close to my style, which I would describe as business casual. I'm probably going to start with the essential, but i might sample the "luxury" level first. If it proves fruitful, perhaps i'll stay with it.

Welcome aboard! Let me know if you have any questions or requests any time. bernie[at]bombfell[dot]com

Just one request: please accept delivery to Europe (at least France) even with some shipping cost and I will join immediately.

"I'm who this service is made for."

Same here - pretty much all my clothes are either things I bought (starkly functional - mostly cross-use for outdoors activities) or purchased under the influence of my long-suffering spouse, who does have excellent taste - even I admit that the Armani leather jacket she (I) bought years ago is fantastic.

@arethuza We've found the significant other's approval is a critical factor in keeping it :)

Hey I'm one of the founders. I don't think that trusting brands is mutually exclusive with customers who aren't extremely knowledgeable - if anything, that's the reason brands exist: as a signal for customers who don't have much of their own "information" to rely on.

Many of our customers actually really enjoy discovering new brands that they wouldn't have found on their own, vs. sticking to the tried and true.

And for guys who already know and value specific name-brand clothes, there's actually another benefit which a lot of guys probably identify with: the ability to get more clothes from that brand's most recent collection without having to go get it yourself.

There's a third category: guys who like mid-level clothing but don't have time to test the fit of different brands. I gave Bombfell my measurements (not bizarre but outside of what you find at Macy's) and they've sent two shirts and two pairs of pants. The first pair of pants didn't fit, but they took my feedback and sent a much better-fitting pair for no extra cost. I could "defect" and buy the same brands elsewhere, but it would cost more than $69.

Given the choice to sell brand name goods at brand name prices, vs selling off brand goods at off brand prices, there's a lot more profit in premium brand products.

Of course it would be even more profitable if you could sell off brand goods at premium brand prices - but would such an offering attract enough customers to make much money?

I'll go ahead and definitively say "no it wouldn't make money" selling off brand goods at premium brand prices :)

> On the one hand, you're targeting guys who feel like they don't know enough about fashion to be able to make good clothing choices themselves -- so they trust an unknown stylist with unknown credentials to make the choice for them.

> On the other hand, you're targeting guys who value premium, name-brand clothes.

I fit both of those categories, and I don't think that I am particularly unusual in that regard. That said, I share similar reservations about a subscription model for clothing as others have voiced here, but I might give it a go.

Just commented elsewhere in this thread about this, we intentionally made the service super flexible so it's not a "cram things down your throat" model. You can rush or delay your next shipment, cancel a pick if you don't like how it looks, set frequency to every 2 or every 3 months or put your membership on pause indefinitely. Because we pay for shipping both ways, we only make money if we're sending you stuff you actually want.

I can only speak for myself, but I just signed up, so I guess I'm part of their market.

I consider myself (or at least, aspire to be) decently fashionable, but I have a lot of anxiety about actually clothes purchasing. The whole subscription + curation model means a) clothes appear without me having to actually make the (for me, very fraught) decision and b) when I think that an item of clothing looks good, I have some corroboration on that from someone who does this for a living.

That in a nutshell is what we want to fix. Clothing retail online and offline isn't built with the majority of guys in mind. I think there's a large, silent majority of guys who would buy clothes more often with better guidance and curation.

I really don't care about 'name brands' but they seem to have higher quality clothing. I assume it's classic price discrimination and floor space issues, but I don't see why you can't have a high quality online only brands that don't charge 90$ for a decent pair of pants.

I think the issue is cost-driven. Particularly if you're going to offer free shipping both ways, you're going to have to charge a certain floor to make a profit after the manufacturing cost of the clothes. If you ship a 2 pound package (pretty reasonable estimate for pants) across the US, you're potentially looking at $20 hit if you pay for shipping there and they choose to return it.

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