BrainTrust Query: Dressing Rooms More Than a Convenience

Commentary by Bob
Phibbs
,
The Retail Doctor

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion
is a summary of a current article from the Retail Doc blog.

Initially, a fitting
area was for checking the “fit” of corsets and handmade clothing.  Department
stores included them eventually, and they became a decision zone for customers.
Now, most retailers see them only as conveniences for the customer. Yet the
facts are astounding:

  • Shoppers who use dressing rooms are 71 percent more likely
    to buy versus those who browse the sales floor at 28 percent.
  • Those who use
    dressing rooms buy approximately two times what the browser buys. And they
    return less.
    If they’re assisted in the dressing room, they will buy nearly two times
    what the unassisted buys.
  • My colleague Marge Laney with Alert Technologies who provided
    those statistics says, “There are only two reasons people use fitting rooms:
    number one – to steal something; or number two – make a buying decision.
    In both cases, service helps.”

Indeed, I found myself shopping at a Zara store recently.
I ended up on the third floor and discovered a small men’s section with some
nice flannel prints. I grabbed a large and went to the fitting rooms.

As I walked
to my dressing room I passed pegs with number tags on them. I figured during
busy times they must give these to people entering as a security precaution.
In my case, the retailer had only one girl working the entire floor. She didn’t
notice that I went into the dressing room.

After finding my arm wouldn’t go
through the sleeve, I put my shirt back on, walked out to grab the extra-large
and returned to the fitting room. Not a word from the girl.

After again finding
the extra-large too small, I just walked out looking like some Elvis impersonator
from Canada in a red, white, and black check shirt unbuttoned to the waist.
Still not a word from the girl who saw me go into the dressing room again;
she was just too busy standing behind the counter.

The XXL I found fit.

My time spent: 20 minutes.

I didn’t get mad and just walk out like most. Instead,
I did her job for her. Many times, stores let customers feel like unpaid associates.

But
what if you don’t sell clothes? Are there places someone could encourage you
to, ‘Try it on to see how it fits?’ Yes.

  • Cars. “Let’s take her for a test drive.”
  • Eyeglasses. “Let’s see how you like
    the frames.”
  • Bowling balls. “Try to pick this up to make sure the finger holes
    line up.”
  • Chain saws. “Feel its comfortable grip and notice how light this is.”
  • Toys.
    “Let’s open it up and see how easy it is to play.”
  • Food. “Free sample.”

When you get the item in someone’s hands or on their body,
they are more likely to bond with the item. The competitive advantage for retailers
able to train try it on and sell via the fitting rooms is meeting with success
for big retailers like Nordstrom.

Discussion Questions: Why do fitting rooms
appear to be a second-thought for many apparel retailers? What should the role
of the fitting room be?

BrainTrust

Discussion Questions

Poll

19 Comments
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Ian Percy
Ian Percy
13 years ago

Why don’t many retailers pay attention to dressing rooms? Because they don’t think.

We have all had poor ‘try it on’ experiences like Bob described, including store owners and managers. Yet store after store replicates the poor experience rather than change it. Many decisions are made for the convenience of the store, NOT for the convenience of the customer. Tiny dressing rooms save money and space, for example. “Since most of our customers are crooks, let’s use number tags and make sure the curtains are flimsy so we can see what they’re doing. One hook is plenty. And put just one mirror outside the change cubicle so we can keep track of what’s going on.”

A friend of mine, Donald Cooper (now a customer service consultant), used to have a women’s apparel store inconveniently located outside of Toronto. He had huge dressing rooms with lots of hooks, a big place to sit and multiple full-length mirrors. But what got him attention was that he had an area with big comfortable chairs and TVs for those waiting. He had a beverage counter with coffee, water, juice and – get this – including GRAPE juice which kids loved! Most will think that is absurd but Don got more marketing mileage out of that grape juice than anything. Oh…and he also banned the phrase “up to” on discount sales promotions. His philosophy: Do it all for the customer!

Bill Emerson
Bill Emerson
13 years ago

As Bob points out, the lack of associates to effectively manage the sales opportunity in an efficiently run dressing room is a huge and obvious miss. It is just another symptom of a much larger syndrome. For decades, four-wall retailers overbuilt and then, as sales suffered, embraced promotional pricing to drive incremental sales. This obviously impacts margins negatively, leading to expense reduction as the only way to protect profitability. What’s the biggest controllable expense in four-wall? Store-level payroll. Staffing was cut, causing lower sales, more promotions, lower margins, and more staffing cuts. As evidence, 30 years ago there were over 130 department store marquees in America. Today, there is basically one, with a couple of regional players on the bubble.

The sad truth is that most apparel retailers are essentially self-service. You’re lucky to find an associate on the floor, much less the dressing room. Only when you get to the luxury channel (like Nordstrom) with their higher margins do you begin to find knowledgeable sales associates.

Max Goldberg
Max Goldberg
13 years ago

Good article, Bob. You said it all: why shouldn’t apparel retailers actively encourage customers to try on their products and assist that effort with attentive salespeople? It just makes sense. Other industries employ this tactic with great success.

I would also add that retailers should take care to make their fitting rooms presentable. All too frequently, I go into a fitting room that is full of clothes that previous users did not buy, dirty and home to collections of stray pins.

If retailers are serious about getting consumers to purchase, they need to be serious about letting consumers “test drive” the merchandise.

Phil Rubin
Phil Rubin
13 years ago

The statistics about incremental purchasing tied to the use of fitting rooms — with and without sales help — are noteworthy. Retailers not paying real attention to them can be easily understood.

First, fitting rooms take valuable square footage that cannot be used for merchandise. The area is not seen as part of the selling floor and thus it doesn’t get the same level of attention.

Second, fitting rooms are tied to service, and service is unfortunately not a place where many retailers are increasing their investments. It’s easier to create a mobile app or a Facebook page than it is to address store operations and/or increase sales associate levels (fixed versus variable costs).

Last, the stats Bob referenced underscore the fact that there is not enough business intelligence in retail. If there was, then we’d see more merchants acting on these data points!

Connie Kski
Connie Kski
13 years ago

Coldwater Creek does a great job with their fitting rooms. Floating associates ask the customer’s name and starts a fitting room for the customer with her NAME ON THE DOOR. Wow. Then they float in and out helping … and continue to use the customer’s name all the way to the cash wrap.

I’m impressed. I love shopping there. Even though I know that fairly quickly their items will go on sale and then to clearance, paying full price for that kind of in-store service works for me!

Janet Poore
Janet Poore
13 years ago

There are two separate issues: customer service and fitting rooms.

Just about all stores have replaced commission with a low hourly wage. There is no incentive for the associates to sell clothes or help customers. They barely even clean out the dressing rooms. Basically all they do is ring up sales and do returns. There are also fewer associates on the floor than there used to be. This is true even in upscale department stores like Lord & Taylor. I once waited 20 minutes at the register with nobody in the department. Turns out that one associate clocked out and the replacement was late. I found out that associates at Lord & Taylor are forbidden from staying even one minute beyond their schedule even if their replacement isn’t there yet because they don’t want to pay overtime. This is very poor customer service and I wonder how many sales they lose because people leave.

As for fitting rooms, most are too small with bad lighting and some lack chairs or benches to sit on while trying on pants. Some fitting rooms lack three-way mirrors to see how clothes look from the back.

I would never buy clothes without trying them on. Fitting rooms are much more than a convenience. They’re a necessity if retailers want to sell clothing.

Anne Howe
Anne Howe
13 years ago

Sometimes I think apparel retailers are over-investing in the power of external social media, apps and digital, while in fact missing the forest for the trees. Why ever would retailers under-invest in customer service in the fitting room? The biggest and most powerful social investment they can make is to offer someone for me to talk to while I am in their store.

Do they really believe I’m going to take a photo of myself in a potential outfit, text it to Facebook or post it on Twitter and wait for my friends to give me the nod or the honest feedback that it’s not right?

Are they just waiting for me to find an app that tells me who sells the same outfit for less money?

No wonder more of us are shopping apparel at Zappos. They’ve provided a framework where shoppers can learn from the experience of others. Traditional retail sales associates have knowledge to share with shoppers based on other shopper experiences in and around the fitting room.

Why can’t someone at Macy’s tell me “that shirt runs small” and offer to go get the bigger size while I try on the one I have in my hand? Anthropologie excels at this. It’s not that hard. It’s simply useful and relevant conversation. The sad fact is that many retailers neither pay or train employees enough to invest in the human relationship.

This is a problem that’s just not that hard to fix.

Gordon Arnold
Gordon Arnold
13 years ago

In addition to the inventory for sale to the customers, most retailers are involved with renting space to their vendors to use for advertising and/or promotional inventory item sales. Advanced management floor plans clearly show areas of opportunity and potential to improve profitability with weighted per square foot sales results.

One area considered a sacred trust is the service desk, which is a very close second to the cash register. These two areas are where 40% to 60% of customers come in to sole contact with an employee by customer design. And the % of customers that only want to “go in and out” is increasing at an astounding rate. As a result, retailers are trimming down the amount of “sales support floor space” in favor of making more products that turn to company standards easily available and more store service real estate available to vendors willing to pay for it.

Today, there are fewer and fewer customers visiting stores for several reasons. The two large and looming reasons for the decline are the increase in convenience of internet sales which is now second only to the “Depression”. The people interested in directly interfacing with the retailer for support of their investment are now considered low yielding visitors or shoppers. Visitors and shoppers will for the foreseeable future be forsaken unless they demonstrate the capability of volume purchases that are repeated over regular time intervals.

Dan Berthiaume
Dan Berthiaume
13 years ago

Optimization is probably a big culprit, as I don’t think most (or any) optimization algorithms include figures for higher customer conversions due to quality fitting rooms. Retailers are looking at how to maximize the return on shelf space, which is a worthy goal, and I’m also not putting down the value of shelf/space optimization technology. But retailers need to look at some of the softer returns, such as higher conversion rates among shoppers who visit dressing rooms, as well as hard returns such as sales per square foot.

Ed Rosenbaum
Ed Rosenbaum
13 years ago

Just think for a moment about the comfort (or lack of) of a dressing / fitting room. Maybe the previous shopper’s selections are still there and there is no room for you to sit or hang the selections you brought in. Maybe pins are still on the floor. Ouch to both.
Let’s add to the comfort by having a clerk assigned to, or at least near, that area to watch over, assist you or maybe bring you different styles in your size. It is almost like having your own personal shopper. Does this add to your shopping enjoyment? I will say it would to many men, not unlike myself, who do not care to shop for themsselves or anyone else for that matter. But now my personal shopper has made my selections easier by offering a variety to try on.

What’s happened here? I have more of a selection, will purchase more, just as the article suggested, and leave a happy customer telling others of the ease of shopping at (fill in the blank).

Ted Hurlbut
Ted Hurlbut
13 years ago

What do sales associates and fitting rooms have in common? It seems retailers feel that the positive contribution they make to sales must be hard to quantify. Sales associates have merely become an expense line on the P&L to be minimized, and I guess fitting rooms simply don’t generate any quantifiable sales per square foot. As Anne Howe points out, retailers continue to disinvest in human-based customer service in favor of technology driven “substitutes” like digital messaging and media.

Eliott Olson
Eliott Olson
13 years ago

Is is easier to sell a piece of clothing when you have someone ready to answer the question, “Do these pants make me look fat?”

Doug Pruden
Doug Pruden
13 years ago

Two responses:

First, one of the advantages that brick and mortar clothing retailers have over their online competition is the opportunity to try on clothes. If the store hopes to stay in business, making an effort to win those points should be a no-brainer. If a sales associate can be there to provide alternative sizes and colors, all the better. And to at least be on par with the online merchants, perhaps that associate can be proactive and recommend different styles that “other shoppers like you also tried on.”

Second, as to how those fitting rooms are staffed and what they look, feel and smell like, most merchants haven’t given that a thought. Until retailers and management of businesses in general learn to understand the TOTAL Customer Experience and objectively determine where they are adding or losing the most perceived value in the customers’ hearts and minds, it’s unlikely that most will spend money for improved facilities or staffing.

Well designed, maintained and staffed dressing rooms could have a positive impact, but until the merchant quantifies it on their own turf, they will probably continue to view it as a necessity and as a cost center rather than as a potential contributor to sales.

George Whalin
George Whalin
13 years ago

Today, dressing rooms are more important than ever for some retail segments. In those stores with limited space and low prices it may be necessary to have small, stand-up dressing rooms. Since these types of stores generally serve younger customers they can get away with this approach. For stores selling better quality, higher priced fashions what they do with their dressing rooms is very important to customers.

In our work we have frequently helped clients upgrade their dressing rooms with improved seating, lighting and mirrors. For one store, we helped them increase the size of each dressing room along with another seat for the best friend, mother or daughter. The result was customers spent more time in the store and spent more on each visit to the store.

The amenities are important but, the sales associate or dressing room attendant play an equally important role. They need to be knowledgeable, well-trained an extremely attentive to the customer’s needs.

By refocusing and improving dressing rooms and the store’s associates retailers can improve sales and service to their customers.

M. Jericho Banks PhD
M. Jericho Banks PhD
13 years ago

This question never occurred to me. Didn’t know it was an issue. I know my sizes and brand preferences and, I must confess, the only fitting room I’ve used in the last two decades is Nordstrom. But, I’ve had Bob Phibbs experiences even there. Lots of self-service and, frankly, I prefer it that way. I don’t need a teenage girl advising me on khakis. Isn’t it great that the huge preponderance of the items we buy (including apparel) do not require fitting rooms? Maybe that’s part of the thought process by retailers for whom fitting rooms are second thoughts. Consider all the wonderfulness of the extra sales supposedly generated by cool fitting rooms with attendants, and then apply that to the clothing that actually requires private fitting.

Bob Phibbs
Bob Phibbs
13 years ago

Thanks for everyone chiming in so here’s a question. How come at NRF there is not one word about such topics that could truly grow sales while the drumbeat and breathless adoption of mobile plays on?

Jerry Gelsomino
Jerry Gelsomino
13 years ago

Stores that don’t pay attention to dressing rooms, don’t pay attention to the customer–whether it’s a fashion store or a hardware store. The experience of getting your hands on the product and trying the ‘fit’ is one of the few remaining points of difference between online shopping and a physical store. Why aren’t all retailers exploiting this significant opportunity?

Here is Asia, there have been studies done on the slower activity of online shopping of luxury products. Which makes sense! Buying a truly luxury item in Hong Kong for instance, can be a thrilling experience–stacks of sales people at your attention! Who wants to miss that!

All retail stores should be that responsive.

Marge Laney
Marge Laney
13 years ago

Bravo Bob and thank you! As an evangelist for fitting room customer service and the purveyor of fitting room technology, I sometimes feel like the lone ranger in my quest to elevate the importance of the fitting room. For the apparel retailer conversion happens in the fitting room, period. So while the other guys can use their front door traffic to measure and track the effectiveness of their in-store service strategy the apparel retailer cannot. Knowing how many people use their fitting rooms, how long they stay, and how often the customer receives service is the only way they can measure the effectiveness of their strategies and their people.

Most retailers believe the only way to provide great service in the fitting room is to flood the area with associates which is nonsense. A focused service strategy facilitated with the proper technology with minimum coverage removes the chaos of the fitting room replacing it with a highly controlled and serviced decision zone that will generate significant increases in conversion, UPT, and ADS, and create a positive customer experience that builds loyalty.

Still have doubts? Ask Victoria’s Secret.

Kai Clarke
Kai Clarke
13 years ago

This is a great example of how customer service, keeping the customer in the store longer, and offering a “try before you buy” incentive through the presence of a dressing room, not only increases customer satisfaction and sales, but also decreases customer returns, since customers will have had the opportunity to confirm that their products are exactly what they want before purchasing them.