Udi Nir, CTO, ModCloth at SXSW Lean Startup, March 9th, 2013

1. Agile Supply Chain
Udi Nir

2. ModCloth is a social shopping site...
..that’s shaking up the way fashion is
discovered, developed, and delivered.

3. We’re Democratizing Fashion
Make the Cut is a crowdsourced Be the Buyer allows our Name It and Win It
design contest. Users submit users to pick samples for engages users in
designs and vote on which our store. product-naming contests.
should be produced.

4. Sourcing

5. Traditional vs. Agile
Top-Down Be the Buyer
• Samples scouted • Community-driven
• Orders placed sourcing
• Designer produces
• Products launched

6. Be the Buyer Process

7. Customers provide direct feedback . . .
“Get rid of the ruffles and it would be amazing”
11.3% 88.7%

8. Skip It or Fix It?
• Poor score
• LOTS of feedback
(over 800 comments!)

9. Fix It!
• High pick rate
• Almost 12,000 votes
• Over 1,000 comments

10. Leading to valuable improvements...

11. Additional Examples

12. Up Your Alley Cat Flat
Original Sample Updated Design Picked

13. Whole Neutral Outlook Dress
Original Sample Updated Design Picked

14. Lots of Learnings
10%
20%
80%
90%

15. Insights + Engagement
• Average sales for Be the Buyer items
have 2.2x the velocity of non-Be-the-
Buyer items!
• Great engagement vehicle
• 19 Million votes
• 10% of members voting on BTB
• 33% of BTB customers voted
before they placed their first order
• BTB customers spend 2.5x more
than non-BTB customers

16. Takeaways
• Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – just
because an idea gets roundly panned doesn’t mean
it won’t be universally loved with just a few tweaks.
• You don’t have to source and produce mass
amounts of physical product to find out what will sell.
• Involving them in the decision making process
makes for loyal, high-value customers.

17. facebook.com/ModCloth
@ModCloth
pinterest.com/ModCloth