Use A/B testing for your fashion brand
What comes to your mind when you hear fashion brand? Are your first associations creativity, luxurious fabrics, sketches of elegantly clad runway models? That would be mine.
In this day and age, creating a fashion brand from scratch requires the founder to be so much more than creative. Customer-centricity and the ability to use product development methodology present equally important elements of success. This is particularly true when you’re a first time founder with no previous fashion industry track record. Using ‘lean startup’ tools to continuously seek your potential clients’ feedback can make or break a brand.
I certainly haven’t spent fifteen years in the fashion world — I attended a one week course on building a fashion brand at Central Saint Martins in December 2016. While creating my last startup on personal finance and investing however, I learned about the benefits of experimentation. My experience taught me to incorporate the lean startup methodology (Eric Ries). Eric Ries encourages every founder to experiment as much as possible and to use the insights for strategic direction.
I first conducted 11 qualitative interviews with potential clients in Europe, Asia and North America. The interviews revealed different pain points, but no recurring themes. I lacked direction what to do next. Luckily, my network contains product development expert Loubaba. She patiently explained to me how to use A/B testing to get more data.
A/B testing is also referred to as split testing. One set of customers is shown one product feature (the ‘control’ feature). Another set of customers is presented a slightly altered version (the ‘challenger’ feature). Feedback on customers’ behavior using the product feature is assessed and informs the product design. A/B testing can save you a lot of money and resources.Using sketches of dresses instead of getting one sample dress done saved me a lot of time and enabled me to reach a higher number of potential customers. My first prototype or ‘MVP’ (minimum viable product) was a sketch by the very talented Tatiana Grahovskaya (you can hire Tatiana’s services on UpWork).
Creativity and A/B testing do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.For example, I made the executive decision to not split the customer group into two. Instead, I exposed them to two sets of product features simultaneously. I showed them sketches of two variations of a shirtdress. They provided their feedback to product features such as the cut and length of the dress, the belt, the collar and the button front as well as the fabric and fabric pattern.
I ran this experiment for four different sketches, splitting the total number of 130 respondents into four groups. The dresses were identical, but the fabric color and pattern varied.
This is what I learned: the overwhelming majority of the respondents preferred dress B. A lot of the product features of dress B were in line with the prospective clients’ expectations, so I will not have to make many changes to it. In terms of fabric pattern and color, the green and red dresses were favorites. Big floral prints (such as featured on the red dress) were welcomed over smaller floral prints (such as featured on the blue dress). Organic cotton and cotton were ranked highest in terms of dress fabric. Given that dress B was such a hit with the 130 women I polled, I will not do another iteration with sketches. I will move on to the prototype stage (sample dresses will be sewn). 3 prospective customers will try those on and share their opinions about fabric and fit. The focus continues to be on testing, learning, and iterating.
In terms of improving the A/B testing, my friend John pointed out not to use two different models with different facial expressions. This can impact whether the dress will be received favorably or not. John used to work as a programmer at Apple and regularly “shipped products”. I take his feedback very seriously. Linda, the French fashion designer who works with me, also observed that the choice of colors and fabrics can be influenced by seasonality (I ran the survey from June through August).
To conclude: In 2020 — the year of the fashion industry’s abrupt disruption — I see more and more fashion founders who create impressive fashion DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands. Founders who did not attend fashion school, who build a brand out of university or who pivot from a former career in management consulting to this new destination. Based on my own experience, combining creativity with lean startup tools helps you create a fashion item that customers will actually like.
On a sidenote, using A/B testing can also lead to higher customer engagement. I asked all participants in the survey to leave their e-mail addresses in case they are curious about how the brand will evolve. Most did.
Sources:
“The Lean startup” by Eric Ries (book, available on Amazon)
Amy Gallow, Harvard Business Review online: A Refresher on A/B Testing. Published on June 28th, 2017. URL: https://hbr.org/2017/06/a-refresher-on-ab-testing
Lindsay Kolowich Cox, Hubspot online: How to Do A/B Testing: A Checklist You’ll Want to Bookmark. URL: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-do-a-b-testing