By Tracey Lien
Los Angeles Times
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) “Stitch Fix Kids” functions similarly to its adult counterpart. At signup, customers pay a $20 styling fee and fill out a questionnaire that asks about their size, shape, budget and style preference.
Los Angeles Times
Since 2011, Stitch Fix’s army of personal stylists has shipped curated boxes of clothing to women so they can try on and buy tops, trousers, dresses and coats from the comfort of their home.
The San Francisco company, which went public last November, added men’s clothes in 2016. Now it’s tackling a new frontier: clothes for kids.
Stitch Fix Kids, which launched Tuesday, functions similarly to its adult counterpart. At signup, customers pay a $20 styling fee and fill out a questionnaire that asks about their size, shape, budget and style preference.
Stitch Fix’s personal stylists and data scientists then compile and ship a box of eight to 12 garments and accessories, based on the customer’s profile. (Boxes for adults contain five items.)
Customers return what they don’t want and pay for what they keep. There are no membership or subscription fees.
While the adult questionnaire asks customers to define their sense of style and the occasions for which they are shopping, the children’s questionnaire asks how often the child performs activities such as bicycling, playing sports and video games, reading, and participating in theater. Parents are also asked to describe their child’s personality (thoughtful, artistic, sassy, adventurous, shy) and what clothing types they prefer (T-shirts, sweaters, skirts, shoes).
Katrina Lake, founder and chief executive of Stitch Fix, said that the service’s goal is to help people “discover products and styles they love,” and that extending Stitch Fix to children will “inspire … confidence in our littlest clients” and save parents time.
Stitch Fix’s children’s offerings range in size from 2T to 14 and in price from $10 to $35 per item.
Stitch Fix got its start as a scrappy operation, with Lake asking friends and family to fill out style questionnaires, shopping for clothing from retailers herself, and personally shipping boxes of clothes to her clients.
As of 2017, the company employed more than 3,500 full- and part-time stylists and dozens of data scientists, and had five warehouses across the United States.
The company’s stock price has more than doubled since the November IPO. On Tuesday its shares jumped more than 10 percent and were trading at $34.30 around 9:30 a.m. Pacific, on track for a record-high close.
As of June, it has more than 2.7 million clients, up 30 percent from a year earlier. Stitch Fix also reported nearly $9.5 million in profit in its most recent quarter, which ended April 28, a turnaround from the same period last year, when it was losing money.
