Playbook, fashion retailer
Reading out measurements instead of predicting a fit
Clothing has a property no other category shares: the question that stops somebody buying and the reason they send it back are the same sentence. Everything a fashion assistant is worth is concentrated here. It is worth a great deal if it reads measurements out accurately and worth less than nothing if it starts choosing sizes, because a confidently chosen wrong size is a return the shop paid for twice.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for sizing and fit holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The question that costs a sale and the question that causes a return are identical, which happens in no other retail category.
- A number on a size chart may be a body measurement or a flat garment measurement, and a shopper will read whichever one makes the garment fit.
- Sizing is not consistent inside a single retailer's own catalogue, because a block cut for tailoring and a block cut for jersey behave differently at the same label.
- A visitor quoting their size in another brand is asking for a comparison the material does not contain, however confidently it could be improvised.
How it arrives
- am i between sizes in this
- does this come up small
- what size is the model wearing
- what is the actual chest measurement on a medium
- is it true to size
- i am a 12 in another brand what should i get here
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The size chart, with the basis stated on it | Chest, waist, hip, inside leg and sleeve per size, and a line at the top saying whether these are body measurements or the garment measured flat. The two get confused constantly and the confusion is the return. |
|---|---|
| Model height and the size worn, per shoot | Shoppers reason by comparison rather than by measurement, so one line saying the model is a given height and wears a small does more work than three paragraphs of description. |
| Fit notes at block or collection level | Which of your lines run small, which are cut generously, which sit high on the waist, which drop after a wash. Merchandisers know all of this and it almost never reaches a page, and block level is the level at which it stays true across seasons. |
| Fabric behaviour | Composition, whether it has stretch and in which direction, whether it relaxes with wear, whether it shrinks. A rigid weave and a heavy jersey at the same measurement fit nothing alike, and this is the material that explains why. |
The reply
On this line a medium measures the published width flat across the chest, which is the garment laid down rather than a body measurement, so allow for how you like things to sit over what you wear underneath. The model in the photographs is the height listed on the product page and is wearing a small. Our fit note for this collection says it is cut generously through the body and the fabric has no stretch, so if you are between sizes the useful comparison is against something you already own that fits the way you want.
Every sentence is a fact from a document, and the reply says out loud that the chest figure describes the garment rather than the wearer, which is the misreading behind most size returns. The model line is there because it is how people actually decide. The last clause gives the visitor a method for choosing without the assistant choosing, which is the distinction this pair turns on.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks the assistant to pick a size, or starts describing their body or their usual size elsewhere in order to have one picked.
I can give you the measurements and the fit note, but not a size, because that depends on how you like things to fit. Leave your name, email and the piece you are looking at and somebody on the team will help you choose.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never name a size for a described body.
- Never present a body measurement as a garment measurement, or the other way round.
- Never say a fabric will stretch or shrink to fit.
- Never carry a fit note from one line across to a different block.
Questions
- Is refusing to pick a size not just unhelpful?
- It would be, if the reply stopped at the refusal. It does not: it gives the flat measurement, the model comparison and the fit note, which is more than the product page offers and more than most shop floors give. What it withholds is a guess, and the guess is the part that comes back in the post.
- Should we index individual product pages for measurements?
- Index the size guide and the fit notes rather than the catalogue. Product pages turn over several times a year and an assistant describing last season's coat in the present tense reads as carelessness. Guides and notes hold across seasons and cover far more questions each.
- What about between sizes questions specifically?
- Those are the ones where the temptation is strongest and the material is weakest. The honest reply gives both measurements, the fit note, and a way to compare against something the shopper owns. Anything more confident than that is the assistant inventing a body it cannot see.
Keep reading
- Everything for a fashion retailerFit is both the most asked pre-purchase question and the biggest cause of returns. Here is what a clothing retailer can safely automate.
- Handling sizing and fit in generalThe highest volume pre-purchase question in clothing and the biggest driver of returns. Quote the chart, never guess a size for a person.
- Exchanges, reorders and the size that sells out while you waitMost clothing shops refund and ask you to reorder rather than swapping. Saying so plainly is the highest value line on the page.
- The three separate waits hiding inside one refundInspection, processing and the card issuer are three separate waits. Naming all three prevents the chasing message on day four.
- Size level availability and the hole in the middle of the runFashion stock is a question about one size inside a line, not about the line. Why the middle of the curve goes first.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.