I have a dark suspicion that their best target market might be to pretend they're not algorithmic, but actually being so.
Most people, almost by definition, have rather ordinary tastes. They will want to imagine that it's slightly better than average, but not outrageous.
I don't know much about fashion, but I see it a lot in food marketing. Restaurants differentiate themselves on trendy but safe choices. It works down from the high end: Gordon Ramsey splashes something with truffle oil, and a few years later you can get New Burger King Truffle Fries. A lot of "mom & pop" restaurants are just heating up things off of Sysco trucks.
I don't mean that to sound snobbish. People should enjoy whatever they like. I'm slightly turned off when it's marketed as being really innovative while smaller, more interesting things languish, but that's just the market at work.
As it applies here, I suspect that most people really could be very happy with algorithmically applied clothing. A truly personal stylist would be much more expensive and outside of most people's comfort zones anyway -- unless they did basically the same thing as the algorithm.
What Stitch Fix can offer is the illusion that you're being truly stylish without any of the risks. Which is a fine thing, as far as I'm concerned, if it makes them happy. That excludes a market which really does want a truly personal, human stylist, but I suspect that market isn't nearly as large, and even smaller if you ask them to pay what hours of attention would really cost.
Adding a very thin veneer of humanity on top would be a big win. Have the AI do most of the work, then have a human being sanity check it and add a personal note (maybe something derived from their conversations... which could itself be mined by the AI and then massaged by a human).
If it's nothing more than "You mentioned that you liked the coat that [celebrity] wore, and this was a similar sort of look but in [color] you said you liked", that could potentially give people a really positive experience. Even if many people are wearing the same coat because the algorithm recommends it.
Comments
I have a dark suspicion that their best target market might be to pretend they're not algorithmic, but actually being so.
Most people, almost by definition, have rather ordinary tastes. They will want to imagine that it's slightly better than average, but not outrageous.
I don't know much about fashion, but I see it a lot in food marketing. Restaurants differentiate themselves on trendy but safe choices. It works down from the high end: Gordon Ramsey splashes something with truffle oil, and a few years later you can get New Burger King Truffle Fries. A lot of "mom & pop" restaurants are just heating up things off of Sysco trucks.
I don't mean that to sound snobbish. People should enjoy whatever they like. I'm slightly turned off when it's marketed as being really innovative while smaller, more interesting things languish, but that's just the market at work.
As it applies here, I suspect that most people really could be very happy with algorithmically applied clothing. A truly personal stylist would be much more expensive and outside of most people's comfort zones anyway -- unless they did basically the same thing as the algorithm.
What Stitch Fix can offer is the illusion that you're being truly stylish without any of the risks. Which is a fine thing, as far as I'm concerned, if it makes them happy. That excludes a market which really does want a truly personal, human stylist, but I suspect that market isn't nearly as large, and even smaller if you ask them to pay what hours of attention would really cost.
Have the algo do the work, have a human present the solution.
Adding a very thin veneer of humanity on top would be a big win. Have the AI do most of the work, then have a human being sanity check it and add a personal note (maybe something derived from their conversations... which could itself be mined by the AI and then massaged by a human).
If it's nothing more than "You mentioned that you liked the coat that [celebrity] wore, and this was a similar sort of look but in [color] you said you liked", that could potentially give people a really positive experience. Even if many people are wearing the same coat because the algorithm recommends it.
This is exactly the Stitch Fix approach.