Photo: ThirdLove
Can Brands Avoid Turning Off Customers When Changing Sizing Ranges?
This article was co-written by Patricia Vekich Waldron and Jeff Sward.
I used to love ThirdLove. The digitally native women’s intimates brand known for inclusivity, online fit quiz, and its wide range of sizes solved one of women’s top apparel challenges for me and many others.
Founded in 2013, ThirdLove gained popularity in a market dominated by Victoria’s Secret and other global chains due to product education, range, and fit. ThirdLove has since opened physical stores, acquired Kit Undergarments, and added sleepwear and activewear lines in order to broaden its market and drive growth.
The brand has also phased out sizes at the edges of its core lingerie product range. I found a favorite item discontinued when reordering online and confirmed via online chat with one of their stylists that the brand no longer carries the size that works for me.
It’s always a risk to discontinue products, especially when a company’s value proposition is based on having great breadth and depth. Range and assortment management are just one of many challenges merchants face. I checked in with merchandising expert and fellow BrainTruster Jeff Sward to get his point of view.
“There’s a growth opportunity in offering extended sizes, and who doesn’t want to be inclusive? Brands have the best of intentions, but I think it’s a lot more complicated than most people think,” commented Sward. “If the attempt was made and didn’t work, managers should conduct a postmortem to determine why didn’t it work.”
Root Cause Analysis
Sward’s guidance is to understand the root cause of why an offered size, style, or range did not perform up to expectations by asking these questions:
- Was it a design issue?
Even within a given brand’s aesthetic and attitude, some fabrics, colors, and patterns might not translate into smaller and larger sizes. Was the assortment appropriately curated with this consideration?
- Was it a fit issue?
Offering smaller and larger sizes is not as simple as scaling core size body specs up and down. Body contours and dimensions in the smaller and larger sizes need exacting attention to detail.
- Was it a breadth and balance issue?
If the overall design was on point and the fit was appropriate, was there critical mass in the style offering? Were there enough styles, balanced between basics, key items, and levels of fashion, so that the customer could feel that they had a reasonable range of choices available to choose from? Or were there too many styles, spreading “X” amount of demand over too many choices and causing unacceptable levels of sell-through for too many styles? The resulting markdowns make the whole extended-size offering look unprofitable.
- Was it a marketing and patience issue?
Offering a new size range means attracting and acquiring new customers. Did the right marketing in the right media take place over the right amount of time?
Communicating Changes
Communicating changes to customers should be part of the range review process. Brands should easily be able to identify and notify specific customers and/or cohorts in advance of discontinuations or changes, especially given online purchase history is easily available. Any of the following tactics would go a long way in retaining customers who are impacted by decisions to modify a range:
- “Final buy” promotion for discontinued items
- Suggestions for suitable substitutions
- Invitation to retake a fit quiz
- Appointment to consult with an online stylist
- Promotions for items in related or newly added categories
I’m not sure what the root cause — or possible remediation — was for the items I love being discontinued. I just know that all brands would better serve customers by taking a more proactive approach in communicating changes to consumers who have ordered sizes and styles that will be discontinued.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How can apparel brands do a better job of retaining customers when they scale back on the range of sizes they carry? Do merchants need to do a better job measuring and identifying the root cause of item performance?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
It drives me crazy when products I rely on are discontinued. And it’s even worse when it’s a surprise. With all the data retailers are supposedly collecting perhaps they should use it to communicate issues like this with loyal customers.
ThirdLove built its business on being all inclusive and now it’s not; the promise of the brand has been broken. Discontinuing styles is expected, discontinuing sizes is not.
Patricia is right when she said offering smaller and larger sizes isn’t easy. If you are going to promise customers something this specific make sure you can actually do it long term.
Brands cannot be all things to all consumers which is why identifying a key unique value proposition is critical. Third Love had that UVP but by changing its tactics and reducing its assortment it will alienate the strong cult following the company has amassed. With AI, brands can get rich data that helps them better understand customer preferences, monitor quality control for size scaling, and be proactive with communications to their community. Getting the consumer involved in the design process can make the outcome more relevant. Just ask the Target Team that developed All In Motion,
Being completely transparent with customers is key here. You really need to do what you say. If you’re all-inclusive then you need to be just that. You may run out, but that is an everyday risk, so encourage your customers to shop early and often.
I’m all in on User Generated Content (UGC), too. Sizing charts can only help so much, especially for hard-to-find sizes. Customers want to see exactly what they will look like in the product on a real-life person so they don’t have to make countless returns. Besides, using UGC for fit promotes inclusivity and customer loyalty as well. Customer loyalty is the goal, so keep your eyes on the prize. If you do what you say, your customers will be your brand advocates.
Given that a core part of ThirdLove’s proposition was size inclusivity, this seems like an odd decision that potentially undermines the whole business model. Of course, sometimes changes are necessary but customers should be consulted and, at the very least, be told of the changes.
When brands scale back on sizes, they help truly inclusive brands seize opportunities to sell. For instance, Good American ensures all items are available in all sizes – from 00 to 24 – at all times. Narrow apparel ranges can limit fit, sales, satisfaction and loyalty.
Merchants need to examine e-commerce and fitting room data to learn precisely why customers left emptyhanded.
With the caveat that a Retailer cannot be all things to all people, there should be an expectation that not all sizes (or colors for that matter) will sell through at the same rate. So a slow selling size may not really be that much of an outlier when compared to it’s peers, as opposed to the sell through rate of the core sizes of that item. While few retailers do this, before discontinuing a size range the questions to ask would be, does that size/item drive the sales of related products, (so you lose a basket, not an item) and do the customers that buy that item rank higher on a RFM basis. Cutting the size/item may be a lot more costly than it appears. If these metrics check out, then sometimes the cost of keeping a customer with extra inventory investment is higher than the expected value.
One would think that, if fringe sizes are less profitable to manufacture and are being eliminated from many assortments, some company will see the void as an opportunity. However, taking advantage of the opportunity may mean that fringe sizes may be priced higher than their midrange closet mates.
Communication and transparency are a non-negotiable when informing loyal customers when product is discontinued.
Many brands will adjust size ranges and scales in response to what customers are buying. However, if a brand is discontinuing a size or stye due to poor sales then they need to let customers know. When a customer is disappointed, it’s very hard to get them back in the store.
Merchants, planners, and insights teams need to speak to the customer and understand why product is selling and why it’s not. Fit, function and aesthetic problems need to be identified and solved quickly. But keeping customers in the loop as you close that feedback loop is critical.
These decisions always beg for a view into business analytics. Are the products effectively organized within hierarchies and attributes to allow for a full picture of the opportunities for growth, maintain and reduce. All or nothing is rarely the best answer. In the case of ThirdLove, has a new kid on the block taken over some market share? Is there an opportunity to get some back? With this decision it appears they will never know.