Deep data dive into your closet
Sellers scramble for valuable info: Body measurements
The first step for a shopper buying a suit at the fast-growing menswear retailer Indochino is sharing his personal information: A salesperson armed with an iPad measures nearly everything on his body, from the distance between his belly button and rear to the circumference of his knees.
The next step is getting a customized, made-to-measure suit delivered to his home within a few weeks. But his body data live on: Company executives are hoping to build a “master data model” that would connect his measurements with his advertising, shopping and spending histories.
Clothing companies now see body measurements as one of their most prized currencies, and millions of Americans are increasingly offering up their innermost personal data in search of customized pieces or a better fit.
Companies such as Indochino, Wantable and Stitch Fix, the latter of which counted nearly $1 billion in sales last year, gather dozens of data points on each customer, including weight, jobs and past pregnancies. They are being joined by Amazon.com, the online retail giant that counts fashion among its fastest-growing businesses and now sells a bedroom camera that offers opinions on what a user wears.
But the corporate harvest of data about our bodies, including our faces, voices and fingerprints, also is raising privacy concerns about how much sharing is too much in service of betterfitting clothes.
“These body measurements look a lot like medical records,” said Peter Swire, a law professor at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business who coordinated with the White House in the 1990s during the shaping of the nation’s medical privacy law.
Those health privacy rules, Swire said, “would apply to this data if the measurements were taken at the hospital. It doesn’t apply when an online company puts them in an app.”
Companies value this data because it can lock customers in for life and make it easy to order customized clothes over the Internet without trying anything on. But some privacy experts question whether Americans have a clear idea of what they are handing over.
“There’s a little bit of a weirdness about it. You’re letting people into your life,” said Autumn Rocha, a 26year-old student in Baltimore and Stitch Fix client. “But there’s also something cool about it: ‘This is what I’m into. What can you find for me?’ ”
A new Stitch Fix customer fills out a profile that compiles up to 85 data points. A woman is asked if she is a mother or currently pregnant, as well as her due date. She also hands over her dress, waist and bra size; her age, job and location; parts of the body she would like to flaunt or downplay; and answers to more-abstract questions, such as if she likes taking risks.
Algorithms use that data to pick through Stitch Fix’s inventory, referring options to a human “stylist” who decides on which to send. The customer pays to keep the clothes she likes and can send back anything she doesn’t. She can’t, however, go on the site and pick things out; her only choice is what the algorithms recommend.
The company says it can better assess style by having access to customers’ Pinterest and Instagram accounts, which many customers willingly share. Company executives said others go a step further, sharing details of life milestones — new jobs, recent divorces, upcoming vacations and funerals — to define the clothes they are looking for.
Stitch Fix chief algorithms officer Eric Colson said he was surprised at how quickly customers were willing to share so much about themselves. At Netflix, where he previously led data science and engineering, the streamingvideo service pushed to keep new users interested by removing as many questions at sign-up as possible. But at Stitch Fix, where building a profile can involve answering more than 80 personal questions, the follow-through rate is one of the highest Colson said he has ever seen.
Stitch Fix refers to its data-gathering in the terms of a lifelong relationship: Customers go on a “client journey,” and the company pledges to be a “partner for life.” In a presentation to investors in November, Stitch Fix outlined the spending history of a 36year-old Indiana doctor whom, through switches to maternity wear, they could track through three pregnancies.
The technology has helped the company achieve incredible growth. Its more than 2 million active clients drove nearly $1 billion in sales last year, more than 10 times the company’s revenue in 2014. The company has in a few years become one of the biggest online clothes sellers in the United States, with sales last year that rivaled department store giant J.C. Penney, according to data from market researcher Euromonitor.
The company now employs about 80 data scientists to help refine the algorithms that decide clothing deliveries and predict purchase behavior.
Traditional retailers are racing to catch up, acquiring or partnering with companies that can help them compete.
Nordstrom bought the clothing subscription service Trunk Club and partnered with Shoes of Prey, a customizable-shoe company. The Macy’s subsidiary Bloomingdale’s partnered with the personalized-bra company ThirdLove, which allows women to size their bust by taking selfies in the company’s app.
Many of the new retailers say they don’t share or sell the size data they are collecting — it’s too much of a competitive edge. Stitch Fix said it employs an internal security team and says it protects its customers by removing some identifying information.
But privacy experts worry that the retailers eventually will sell the data, which could prove incredibly valuable to marketers and health insurers. Or the information could become the target of hackers. After all, passwords can be changed; body sizes can’t.