Subscription apparel retailer Stitch Fix Inc. ended its fiscal year on a high note. It grew its active customer base roughly 18% during its fiscal year, which ended Aug. 3. The retailer now has 3.2 million active customers and those customers are increasingly lucrative; its revenue per active client grew 9% year over year during its fiscal fourth quarter.
While Stitch Fix built its business using technology and stylists to send shoppers a “Fix” box of apparel based on previous purchases and a style quiz, this year it expanded its scope by using its technology to sell merchandise in new ways. For example, in the fall Stitch Fix launched two new ways for shoppers to buy items directly—as opposed to from curated boxes—from selections personalized for them. The new shopping options are:
Shop New Colors: This feature, currently available to U.S. shoppers who have bought adult apparel from Stitch Fix, allows customers to buy previously purchased items in new colors, prints and sizes without paying the $20 styling fee that the retailer charges for each “Fix” box.
Shop Your Looks: Currently available only to U.S. women, Shop Your Looks makes personalized, algorithmically generated recommendations intended to complement pieces a shopper has already purchased from Stitch Fix. Over an eight-week trial period, more than one-third of customers who made purchases through Shop Your Looks engaged with the Stitch Fix website multiple times and about 60% purchased two items or more, the retailer reported.
Analysis of North America’s leading online apparel retailers. Includes over 35 charts, total sales of the 242 apparel and accessories-focused retailers in the Top 1000, and adedicated section on how consumers shop for apparel online.
Each new shopping option makes product recommendations based on items shoppers have previously purchased from Stitch Fix, the style quiz and/or Stitch Fix’s Style Shuffle, a game-like website feature used to collect feedback from consumers. Style Shuffle shows users photos of clothing and solicits feedback, generating data Stitch Fix uses to fuel strategic decisions and make better recommendations to individual consumers. For example, Stitch Fix recently began using Style Shuffle data to create visual galleries that stylists use when making style suggestions.
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