In today’s world of so many choices, some consumers have enlisted the help of personal styling services to make their fashion decisions for them. One of those services is Milwaukee-based Wantable, which operates on a subscription-based, try-before-you-buy model. Launched in 2012, the e-commerce company relies on staff stylists, customer data and proprietary technology to curate a selection of clothing items that are shipped to subscribers who either choose to buy or return them.
Wantable has continued to find new ways to engage with customers over the years through its Stream, a personalized feed where customers can browse and react to items with a thumbs up – requesting for a future order – or thumbs down, removing it from the feed permanently. A new “Snooze” option takes an item out the curated mix for 30 days.
To give customers even more say over their next “edit,” Wantable recently updated the Stream with its new “Most Wanted Requests” feature, allowing customers to select up to four must-have items that are then reserved and prioritized in their next order. The idea is to give customers greater opportunity to get involved with the styling process and, in turn, greater likelihood of making a purchase. BizTimes associate editor Maredithe Meyer recently spoke to Wantable chief operating officer Tyson Ciepluch about the company’s latest tech-powered innovation. The following portions of their conversation have been edited for length and clarity.
BizTimes: How does the new Most Wanted feature benefit customers?
Tyson Ciepluch: “We have a model that we’re very proud of in terms of personal styling and picking things out for people – and for some people, that’s completely what they want to do, they don’t want to make requests. But other customers love to be part of the process a little bit, so it really just gives us another level of flexibility for customers to engage with us in a shopping experience that’s different than certainly traditional retail, in which someone has to hunt and pick completely among a very wide group of things in order to find what they want.
“One of the things that from our perspective is helpful is it gives the customer a level of engagement or attachment or connection to the process that’s even greater than just making a request or doing nothing at all. It makes them invested in that choice; they want to be right about that choice. We find that the more people are engaged in that process by making requests, and even more so with Most Wanted Requests, the more likely they are to buy. And more likely they are to be happy with their experience.”
How long did the new feature take to develop?
“We consider ourselves a really fast-moving company in terms of technology and bringing ideas to fruition. The idea came about in January and was considered and somewhat planned out in January. All of the front-end engineering and data science work was completed in the month of February, basically. We launched it on March 4. Like a lot of things, we test it early on and we don’t immediately roll it out to everyone to make sure we’ve worked out all the kinks. Its full-feature rollout was April 15.
“One of the reasons I’m proud of Wantable is our ability to do things like come up with an idea like that. Sometimes that planning period can be a day, sometimes it can be a month in this case. Being a mid-size company, we still are very nimble in that we can do those sorts of things. Also, being a company that has built our own technology pretty much from the beginning allows us to do those things as well.”
How does increased customer engagement impact profitability?
“We know our metrics are much better the higher level of engagement we have from a customer. We know that giving customers that opportunity, quite frankly, creates the likelihood that they’ll be happier with their order. And we’ll be happier with the order, too, because of a higher average order value.
“Our business model as it is currently constructed has really been the same since about 2015 and there are a bunch of built-in costs for us to receive an order, style that order for the customer, pick, pack, ship it, pay the shipping costs, have it go out to the customer, and then most likely some items being returned unless we’ve hit a complete home run and they want to keep seven out of seven things. There’s a whole bunch of built-in costs to that, so – not just because of that, but that’s a huge part of the reason – what we get out of each order on average is really important to us. The higher our average order value can be, the better it is for Wantable. We’re not just talking about prices going up. What we’re always trying to drive is customers keeping more (items) because then we know they’re happy and they’re engaged. It allows us to take those base costs and take advantage of them more or just make the orders more profitable is really the goal. And to have happier customers.”
How does artificial intelligence play a role in Wantable’s interface?
“Our stream feature uses AI to generate choices for customers that we feel they’re going to like more, be more interested in, be more likely to buy. The Most Wanted Request feature really just supercharges that a bit. A really critical part of it – and it’s a little less sexy to be honest with you – is just we have to make sure we have those goods (in stock). Our inventory management system is completely integrated with the Stream – all proprietary, all built ourselves basically. We’re absolutely using AI to put all that in front of customers and then the same thing would be the case with the things that are available for Most Wanted Requests.”
