Remote Personal Shoppers Know Your Style
"Let’s check back in with Trunk Club next year and see how it fares," said Cathy Hotka, principal, Cathy Hotka & Associates, in a 2009 RetailWire discussion. In an accompanying poll which asked, "How big a market opportunity do you think there is for Trunk Club?," 50 percent answered "very big or moderate," 45 percent "small," and 5 percent "pretty much none."
In 2012, RetailWire addressed "Trunk Club’s Full-Price, Full-Service Model." Answering the question, "How transferable is the Trunk Club model to other product categories?," 40 percent each of respondents said "in only some cases" vs. "hardly at all/not at all."
Meanwhile, across the world in Sydney, Australia, Gentlemen’s Supply Co is now thriving. Co-founder, Eli Chaiton, wants to make shopping as "hassle-free as possible without losing the best bits of the in-store shopping experience, like attentive service, product advice and being able to try before you buy."
Checking back in now, though, it seems Trunk Club is using proprietary software and algorithms to enable stylists to look after some 500 customers each. Tracking measurements and preferences for its 30,000+ members, according to Techcrunch, involves technology customers barely notice. Simultaneously, its website (www.trunkclub.com) boasts "there’s no replacement for the human touch."
Stylists are said to "know which sizes from what brands will fit you best" and have the "ability to put those clothes together into a look that’s distinctly your own." According to CNN/Money, investors believe customer service is TrunkClub’s unique selling proposition. One investor observed, "its sales team and stylists are developing relationships daily over a long period of time."
Trunk Club product director Neil Kamireddy refers to stylists as humans "made bionic by technology," telling Techcrunch, "Our technology goal is to make this feel very human. … The customer may not even notice the technology, but we remember his kids’ names, and what items he returned five trunks ago."
- It’s click and easy for clothes to maketh the man – theage.com
- To reach a different kind of shopper, men’s styling service Trunk Club arrives on iPhone – techcrunch
- Brian Spaly: Trunk Club’s virtual stylist – CNN Money
- Guys join "get out of shopping" club 25/6/09 – RetailWire
- BrainTrust Query: Trunk Club’s Full-Price, Full-Service Model – RetailWire
Discussion Questions
Do consumers perceive remote personal shoppers as an attractive option? How can bricks and mortar retailers compete with such an offer?
The market for personal shoppers has certainly always existed in the 1% stratosphere. The degree to which Trunk Club can attract 2%-ers and 3%-ers will determine its longevity, which appears to be at least holding. One way for retailers of any type to compete with personal stylists is to align with them, similar to the successful relationships that have been built with specialized bloggers.
Is personally tracking 1% of your customers (500 of 30,000) profitable? Maybe, but does it have legs? Not seeing it.
The concept of a remote personal shopper is intriguing. If someone—or something—is watching me closely enough to know what I really want and will buy, I’m interested. However, if it crosses over to promotional and sales, then it is just like any other marketing and sales campaign. A truly personalized approach will rise above the “noise” of all of the other marketing and sales messages.
I don’t think consumers find remote personal shoppers enticing. What consumers do like is content curation and the freedom to go online at any time and visit a specific website where they can select from a unique catalog of items they find appealing, as presented by a company or through crowdsourcing. Zappos Labs sums this up with their mantra “the frontier of online retail is curation.”
Trunk Club is curated commerce that has found a niche in menswear, particularly with customers who use smartphones for shopping. It will appeal to select consumers who are comfortable shopping without direct human interaction and also with sharing a good amount of personal information.
Consumers are already telling brick and mortar retailers what they like, as evidenced in the rise in popularity of Pop Up Retail, mobile retail, concept stores, store-in-store formats.
Consumers like a unique shopping experience, whether it is online or in-store.
It is always nice to have someone curate for us. Just look at the success of sites like Pinterest. Now, take that to the next step where the curator is someone who knows the brands, the fit, the style and how they work with different body types and sizes? That’s no longer marketing, but selling.
In this day and age when time is thin, give a person a little advice that is specific to their needs and voila, they just might be more likely to press the buy button.
Can brick and mortar compete? Absolutely and they should. Instead of having sales associates sitting around waiting to ring the register, why not hire people who really like the brand and then teach them how to style and curate for each customer.
Oh yeah, you might have to pay them a little more too, but if they are doing what they love, duh, they just might bring customers back!
Although none of us are privy to their financials, Trunk Club does seem to have hit on a solid business model. Given their startup culture and heritage I’m not surprised they are using technology and data to bolster the experience in any way they can.
I also find it interesting that just as Warby Parker has opened retail stores in NYC, Trunk Club is trying to make their Chicago HQ into a destination experience for their members. More evidence that the digital and physical worlds are converging.
Brick and Mortar based retailers can definitely compete by being smart about how they use technology to empower their associates and enliven and refresh the in-store experience. Nordstrom’s Innovation Lab seems designed to do this, and a few other retailers are making similar moves.
I feel very special as a Zappos VIP shopper. They regularly bring me up to date on the stuff I like, so they know me pretty well. This status fits me just fine, but mebbe that’s because I enjoy shopping and know exactly what suits me. Their parent company, Amazon.com, treats me in a similar way. I’m very comfortable with this arrangement. I don’t like intrusion.
There’s a myth lurking here, and it’s the one about men’s seeming inability to shop for themselves or even dress themselves. Yes, I’ve seen evidence of that myth – or maybe it’s a semi-myth (check out the talking heads on TV – ugh!), but I’ve also observed that the younger the man, the more definite and informed his fashion preferences. And this isn’t just metrosexuals. Guys depend on their peers – as well as savvy salespersons – to lend some expertise. B-b-but, the implied intrusiveness of personal shopping avatars trying to sell stuff I must believe will be off-putting to most males worthy of their man cards.
B&Ms don’t need to worry about this.