So many places have great return policies, so it doesn't really matter anymore. There are places that specifically encourage you to buy like 2-3 pairs of shoes for example and ship back the ones that don't fit. If you are normally a size 10.5 shoe you can happily order 10/10.5/11 and then send the 2 that don't fit back for free. http://www.zappos.com/ is a good example. free shipping both ways.
Good point, but I find there are 3 obstacles to this.
1) Many shoes (and most jeans too) don't fit me in whatever size — either the fit is more complicated than a simple scalar, and/or sometimes I'd need a size somewhere between two of the sizes offered.
2) Returns on the scale needed are thus generally a bit of a pain.
3) I suspect that the overhead of paying for lots of returns makes these services rather dear, and since I find jeans and shoes way overpriced anyway this puts me off. (This one is probably all in my head, but it's no less real for that).
What I'd really like is a service where I could identify to it some clothes/shoes that fit me really well, and it could offer me a wide range of other clothes/shoes with a very similar fit. And isn't outrageously dear. (By all means, tell me this exists!).
For me your #2 is the deal breaker. If I have to box a bunch of stuff back up and drop it off somewhere it's more hassle than shopping at a brick & mortar shoe store. There would have to be a huge price advantage to make it worthwhile.
There are so many delivery services... there should really be an inverse. "We'll pick things up for you." I bet Shyp could branch out into this, though it's clearly not their target scenario http://www.shyp.com/
Most of the shippers happily pick up boxes from you. I have ups pick things up at my house all the time. Just put it in the box and stick the pre printed return label on the side.
It's a shame that their cheapest pair of jeans is over $100. While I'm definitely a fan of getting something quality that lasts a while (rather than just buying new pairs of shitty $20 jeans every year) it would be great if there was something in the $50-80 range. Doesn't have to be the fanciest raw selvedge denim or whatever but just some solid, well constructed jeans made from good fabric would be my ideal.
We chose Men's jeans and the higher price point as a way to constrain the problem, and test our algorithms and technology. It turns out they work very well, but usability is not close to what it needs to be. We also have plans to use this for simple basics too. For example, am I a Medium or Large for that T-Shirt? Or, I liked that shirt at the Gap, but the one I just bought from J Crew fits totally differently. We also can use the phone to get measurements from, say, a foot so that we can then get the right shoes. These are all easily solvable with data and we can use image technology to capture a lot of it. But, we need more data. If anyone on the thread would help and go through the Find Your Fit process (again, we know it is not the best experience), we can add a coupon HACKERNEWS and take 40% off to get the price into the zone your talking about.
Oh wow, I just happened to see this reply and I appreciate the feedback. I was mostly venting about the state of nice jeans in general. I've found there isn't usually a massive difference between $20 jeans and $50 jeans (quality-wise) but outside of the crowdfund-model stuff like Gustin (which has really been upping prices lately), it's hard to find something that fits in the gap between $50 Levis and $150-250 designer stuff.
When I get home later I will try to remember to give this a shot. The concept is awesome and it really is a "value add" worth some markup if you can shop online with some realistic expectation of fit.
And I understand the issue with less expensive stuff. The tolerances on cheap clothing (and plenty of not so cheap clothing) must make it hard. I've bought multiple pairs of the same "number" Levis and they fit completely differently due to how they cut the fabric I guess.
I'm surprised - is this a real problem? I thought 99% of all blue jeans in the world are made at the same Korean factory. Maybe they construct them to different standards? That makes sense I guess.
So many places have great return policies, so it doesn't really matter anymore …. http://www.zappos.com/ is a good example.
Of course it doesn't undermine your point, but it's worth noting that this is not a fundamentally different example to Amazon; Zappos is, at least in a sense, part of the Amazon empire (http://blogs.zappos.com/ceoletter). To be fair, they did have the same great return policies before the acquisition / merger / whatever.
(Another example of a fantastic return policy, in a rather different domain, is REI's (http://www.rei.com/help/return-policy.html). It used to be even better—lifetime, or maybe just 10 years?—but my understanding is that people would take ridiculous advantage of it.)
Zappos is a great example, a lot of retailers have good return policies too. However, usually the brands themselves don't have great return policies. Unlike Amazon/Zappos the return policies for each brand are different and the shopper has to keep track of them/figure out individually which is a big pain.
