The Fix Is In

When someone compliments my appearance, (“I love your handbag,” “those shoes look adorable on you,” “your look is on-point, where do you shop?”) I get a warm feeling inside. It’s ironic, because I hate to shop. If I won the lottery one of my first indulgences would be hiring a personal shopper. When I exhaust myself at the mall and drag my daughter or a friend along for a second opinion, and those efforts pay off with a compliment, it’s all worth it. But honestly, if there’s a way to bask in that glow without having to go the mall, I’ll choose that way every time.

That’s why I have been loyal to Stitch Fix since I first subscribed to the online clothing delivery service several years ago. For those unfamiliar, it’s a “curated and personalized experience,” and here’s what I love about it: 1) by asking you a bunch of questions when you join and gathering data about you with each order, they have mastered shipping you exactly five items which are consistent with your style but edgy, stylish, and unique, 2) like they say in their marketing, my own home becomes the dressing room, and I can see how the items fit with other things in my closet and 3) each Fix comes with postcard pictures of possible outfit combinations incorporating the items contained in the shipment compliments of a StitchFix personal stylist.

It occurs to me that if the team of stylists who do such a fine job choosing clothing and accessory items for me started to suggest other products or services that might fit my lifestyle, I would pay attention. The service is more engaged with their customers than ever through the app — you can send them a quick note to say, “I have a wedding in 3 weeks on the Cape and need a cute sundress — Help!” So not only are they gathering data on my sizes and tastes, but my life events as well. I am essentially an open book, highly susceptible to their suggestions.

In a recent article, Katrina Lake, Stitch Fix’s CEO, pinpointed what she sees as the core value proposition of the service: “combining data with a human stylist who can alter or override the product assortment our styling algorithm has delivered. Our stylists . . . have an appreciation for the data and feel love and empathy for our clients. Humans are much better than machines at some things — and they are likely to stay that way for a long time.”

Deep data combined with an empathetic human touch. That one-two punch would be very persuasive for me in making all different types of purchases: home décor, cars, tickets to events, travel. Taking it a few steps further, I bet the business model could point me to communities of like-minded professional moms with similar tastes and interests. The opportunities are endless, and I was gratified to see that Ms. Lake recognizes it, musing about a recent travel decision with her family, “if you go through all the decisions you make in your life, and think about what it would be like to have the help of an expert, like a stylist, basically, helping you with that, there are a lot of opportunities for taking a business like ours and applying it to other industries.”

How the possibilities in the combination of big data, AI and human interaction play out over the next decade will be fascinating. I hope many more companies are thinking beyond the traditional boundaries to reimagine their narrative, and therefore their ability to deliver what we as consumers don’t even know we can’t live without. The potential is limitless when we toss aside traditional boundaries and take risks to discover the “what if.” That’s true for each of us as individuals as well, but I’ll save that reflection for another day.

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