Websites Are Learning To Predict the Perfect Outfit For You

Hey, all they need is a lot of very personal information. The first question is whether customers will think they get enough of an advantage to make the information exchange worthwhile.

The second is whether the sales and margins the companies generate are sufficiently scalable to make a difference to impatient investors. JL

Erin Smith reports in the Wall Street Journal:

There’s a real skill to using that questionnaire in a way that builds confidence and credibility upfront, and doesn’t feel like a personal security breach. Companies wait until near the end of the initial survey to ask personal questions like if a client is pregnant. At that point, a prospective customer thinks, “I’m already playing the game now."
Who is your girl crush?
Do you love or hate this bohemian ensemble?
What size do you wear in J.Crew? In skinny jeans?
By asking questions like these, online retailers are putting together the puzzle pieces of your personal style and body type in an effort to make your shopping experience individualized and tailor-made.
When shopping in a real store, the adventure often comes from finding an ensemble or an item that pushes you outside your comfort zone—discovering you look great in a monochrome blue jumpsuit your sister picks out, or trying a chunky necklace at the behest of a salesperson. A growing number of online retailers are trying to be that best friend or make you feel like you have a luxury stylist by probing the nuances of your life and style. The aim is to make online shopping less isolating and to sell you something you don’t know you want yet, but fits with your style, rather than that third boring cardigan.

When you arrive at a site, you answer some questions and the computer comes up with selections and styles. Then humans get involved to make the final decisions, taking into account things the algorithm can’t pick up, such as a note the client added saying they hate orange or quirks in the way a dress fits certain body types.
“I think we found this really sweet spot in between truly personal and somewhat removed,” says Narie Foster, New York-based MM.LaFleur’s chief operating officer, of the questionnaire her site asks shoppers to fill out. “In that sweet spot, people are extremely honest.”
The brand, which sells women’s professional clothing under its own label, offers customers a “Bento Box” of clothes and accessories selected after they answer a series of questions: Weekday style? Buttoned up? Neat? Anything goes? It then moves on to ask the shopper if she wears her clothes fitted or loose on her bottom half and requests her bra and jeans size.
MM.LaFleur doesn’t sell jeans, but asking about them is one way to discern a woman’s shape while avoiding what Ms. Foster calls the “uncomfortable question” of asking a lady for her weight.
Next, bra size. Asking about a woman’s lingerie can cause similar squeamish feelings, but it is necessary to predict sizing, the women’s clothing companies say. At MM.LaFleur, a customer who reports a dress size of four but a small bra band size might be sent a size two in the “Tory” dress, which is tighter across the back. She might get a four in the “Nisa,” which is more fitted through the hips. Customer feedback led the company, founded in 2013, to design its clothes to accommodate fuller hips and expand its size range.
Companies that offer online personal styling services think of them as a dressing room at home; they expect customers to send back some items. Easy returns are part of their business model. But by learning about clients’ specific preferences through feedback received on the returned items, the companies hope for a few successes in each package.
Online clothing retailers of all kinds struggle with high return rates. The return rate for apparel purchased online is about 20%, says Sucharita Mulpuru, a principal analyst for Forrester Research. FORR 1.79 % For more expensive items, returns rates can hit 50%. Brick-and-mortar stores often see return rates of less than 10%.
“There’s a real skill to using that questionnaire in a way that builds confidence and credibility upfront, and doesn’t feel like a personal security breach,” says Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of WSL Strategic Retail, a firm that analyzes and develops retail strategy. Companies like Stitch Fix wisely wait until near the end of the initial survey, she says, to ask personal questions like if a client is pregnant. At that point, a prospective customer thinks, “I’m already part, I’m playing the game now,” she says.
San Francisco-based Stitch Fix, which sells women’s apparel, asks customers to say whether they love, like, don’t really like, or hate a series of clothes groupings, such as a “classic” look with blue blazer and plaid scarf, or “edgy,” with a sheer black tunic and studded boots.
“The edgy picture includes products that are pretty extreme and that we wouldn’t stock,” says Katrina Lake, founder and chief executive. “But it actually pulls out the nuance in your preferences,” she says, adding that images that weren't as polarizing weren't as effective in understanding people’s style profiles.
Bombfell, a styling service for men, has found it is particularly helpful to ask the clientele—often guys who don’t shop a lot—to review a collection of images, including a pink shirt and a plaid shirt, and tag what they’d never wear. “They don’t really know what they want, but they do know exactly what they don’t want,” says Jason Kim, Bombfell’s chief technology officer. “Even the most clueless guy will know ‘I’m never wearing skinny jeans.’”
Knowing a customer’s age, profession, and geographic location is considered integral to finding products for them. “If you’re in New York, you’re 31 or 30, you’re an investment banker, you’re much different from a stay at home mom who is 40 years old and lives in Virginia,” says Cheryl Han, co-founder and CEO of Keaton Row, which assigns stylists to clients after the client answers several questions. “It’s much more nuanced, but it’s a starting point.” The stylists use the answers to put together an “online look book,” and the client can buy the suggested items from sites like Shopbop or Saks Fifth Avenue.
The company also asks customers to click on items they already own, such as a denim shirt, and choose which outfit the like it with best—a black blazer, leather pants, a floral dress, or a striped shirt.
Keaton Row, which says customers spend an average of $650 during the first month working with their assigned stylist, asks clients how much they invest in their wardrobe. The answer options are: “contemporary” with tops $75 to $249; or “premium” with tops $250-$499. This lets customers know the price tags that might come with their looks.

ENLARGE

Keaton Row creates electronic ‘look books’ for clients to match their preferences. The site connects customers with stylists after they answer a questionnaire. Photo: Keaton Row

Specific requirements for clothes that flatter her figure are “things I tend to share with my anonymous stylist more than I would with anyone else,” says Chicago-based legal technology consultant Julia Byerson, 31, who has used several online shopping services. A vintage-inspired black and white polka dot dress that a stylist at New York-based Keaton Row selected often attracts compliments on its fit and is something she’d never have chosen for herself, she says.
MM.LaFleur’s has similar pricing cues, and asks clients to select their “girl crush” from a choice nine women including Tina Fey, Sonia Sotomayor, and Joan Didion. It tells clients the type of women they have in mind when designing clothes, says Annie Thorp, the company’s marketing head. “We’re not thinking [supermodel] Gisele.”
Bombfell uses somewhat goofy pictures of male celebrities, like Will Ferrell or Joel McHale, when asking clients to identify things like their body shape or skin tone. It inserts a little fun into the shopping process, which many shoppers haven’t usually enjoyed, Mr. Kim, says. “A lot of brands are very aspirational. You should be ‘this guy.’ We’re not trying to do that,” he says.
Online styling services say shoppers’ detailed feedback on why they don’t like something—MM.LaFleur regularly receives photos and handwritten notes—gives them a leg up on traditional retailers. The online services know exactly why one sweater sells better than another, says Ms. Lake. “In a store, you might have glanced at a top and thought, ‘That’s too baggy for me," she says. “We learn that for every single product.”