Idea validation - an "outfit inspiration" e-commerce tool
So I don't really know what to call this, and the idea isn't even fleshed out yet.. but I have this basic "problem" and I'm wondering if anyone else is in the same boat and would find this useful.
The Problem: When shopping for clothes online, I sometimes have a hard time visualizing what outfits to pair with an article of clothing. For example, say I liked a shirt on a website.. well what jacket and pants would pair nice with that? This is easy shopping in store because I can just trying on different things but that's obviously not possible online.
The solution: A widget embedded on your clothing product pages that would showcase your article of clothing paired with a few curated outfits. Ideally displayed on real-life models.
So I'm open to suggestions on what the actual solution would be.. I'm mostly trying to gauge whether or not other people feel the same pain point here or if it's just me.
Thanks!
Hi there!
I can say that I would probably like this as a customer, but tbh I don't buy a ton of clothes these days. I've also never tried on multiple garments together at the store so I'm probably not your target end-user here! 😂
So, all that said, my initial reaction is that this is a nice-to-have but not an omg-take-my-money concept.
I know you aren't sure what the actual solution would be, but you got me thinking so here are a few thoughts/questions for you:
It seems like there is a specific audience you'd want to validate this idea with, and tbh I don't think IH is the best place to do it. Can you find a forum or subreddit with clothing-oriented folks, or people who run e-commerce sites, and find out more about their pain levels around this issue?
Who would your market be/who are you selling this too? Would it be that an e-commerce site would pay you somehow (e.g., a plugin on a WordPress market?)
Are you thinking the clothes would actually be photographed on the model? Or is this like an augmented reality approach where the clothes are applied onto the model via software? (the latter sounds hard, but interesting technologically)
As a consumer, I wish there were a service that would auto-suggest outfits for me where I specify a few pieces of clothing I already have and it suggests one or two things to buy, but tbh I probably wouldn't pay money for it (I've considered things like trunk club but haven't ever pulled the trigger)
Good luck moving forward!
Thanks for the thoughtful response! Yeah I realized after I posted this that Indiehackers wasn't the right audience for this question haha. To answer a few of your questions..
I think the main customer would be E-Commerce brands that meet a certain threshold of revenue but don't have the infrastructure/budget to hire and manage a modeling department. My initial thought is that this is basically outsourced modeling... Although I can think of a few different ways to attack the issue.
Yes I was thinking actual curation and photography by real life people. Understandably, this adds to the cost immensely.
Yeah there are stylist services out there.. but like you said, I don't think there's a large market of people willing to pay for that service. I think it needs to be free for the consumers and your paying customers are the brands. They would benefit theoretically by higher conversions, more up-sells, and decreased returns when the buyers are shopping with confidence.