Asmv's Profile

I love ASOS, its probably one of the first international e-commerce companies that started to ship to Peru, so I have been a loyal customer for a long time. One of the best things they did when they started is actually what the name is all about “as seen on screen”. Buying clothing, especially at the beginning of e-commerce was really tricky for customers since you couldn’t fully figure out what how would the clothes look on somebody from a plain picture. They did a great job uploading “catwalk”, which are videos of models walking on the catwalk wearing the clothes. This gives the consumer a clearer view on how the fabric falls, the garment fits, etc. By increasing information available for the customer, they decrease their return rate, which works great for their “fast fashion” business model, where they try to constantly release new SKUS and hold little inventory.

Super interesting! In a world of “one-stop-shops” where you try to give the client everything they could possibly want, I find this type of proposition very valuable. My biggest concern is about throughput time though because at the end of the day, they make money based on the amount of clients they get. I don’t necessarily see the need to “sacrifice” customer experience if the investment in training the employees leads to same level of expertise that will end up with same amount of time dedicated per style. I agree that consistency in the time and output are the key elements to build a loyal clientele and clients should be totally indifferent about what stylist they get, I think one key component to that might be in the compensation structure, since all the stylists have an hourly wage, and the number of clients they serve doesn’t matter, there is no real incentive to improve their technique and improve cycle time at the same time. I think a balance between both compensation structures might be what DryBar needs.

This post is super interesting to me, I really would never expect to see how useful can innovation in operations be for an agency, but I understand how “just in time” information is crucial for this business to be successful. It might be a stretch to compare it to Wallstreet, but while reading the post, I imagined frenetic agents calling managers, producers, casting directors, all at the same time, and trying to book appointments and get the best contracts just like traders do, trying to get the best deal for their clients using real-time information and having to compete with other traders, with access to the same information. The trader with the best access to the biggest amount of information will get the best deal, same story for the agents.