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Comment by kaitai | Hacker News Reader

I am a bit surprised that the article doesn't have any introspection about knowing the market (or not). It seems like the reasoning was: we want some money; women have money; women buy clothes; let's do fashion. It doesn't seem like there was much of a value proposition for the customer. Maybe the customer likes browsing Instagram. Maybe the customer asks all these questions (stupid questions as well as clarifying questions) to gauge how quickly a return would be dealt with if desired, to establish some info about company knowledge and responsiveness. (Buying clothes online is risky in terms of fit and fabric quality, especially with resellers.) How could a startup cater to the features of the marketplace instead of fighting them?

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I think people really underestimate the value add from "easy, free returns" for clothes shopping.

I remember using ASOS 10 years ago and at that time most online retailers had poor returns policies. (Legally all must have a 14 day returns), but ASOS went further with free returns and even provided shipping labels and bags for returns with the original shipment.

I think my then girlfriend returned maybe 70% of everything ordered, it was just how it worked. You'd browse, impulse purchase then see how it looks and probably return it.

As a result they took almost all of her actual purchases. And because they provided shipping bags/labels/etc they no doubt reduced the turnaround time so they got stock back quicker and reduced the chance of lost or damaged stock they couldn't then sell on.

I don't know but I hope that most retailers have caught on and provide similar now.

My experience backs yours. While living in the Bay, my wife bought most of the clothes through Macy's online interface, and we brought them back to the stores (we kept more than 60%).

Moved out of the US, and we do miss the convenience of that kind of shopping, and would love to use similar services, even with premium.

The one I wrote was an over simplification. There are of course more than that.

The value proposition to the seller were clear, we wanted to give them more exposure outside of Instagram, make their store be discovered by style/trends.

The value proposition to the buyer is what I think is lacking. We tried to generate sort of a board as a form of style inspirations, but it seemed the market doesn't really care about the mix and match of outfits. I guess what i realized too late is developing country markets are prioritizing price over style way more than developed countries

Thanks for the further discussion. Definitely makes sense for the seller.

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