How to Solve the Sizing Issue in Fashion E-commerce — Gulnaz K | Why Sizing is a Challenge in Fashion E-commerce, Why Returns Hurt Fashion Sustainability, How Size Tips Boost Customer Satisfaction, How Proper Sizing Lowers Returns (#342)

In this episode of the podcast, we dive into the crucial issue of sizing in fashion ecommerce and explore innovative solutions to reduce returns and boost sales.

Our guest, Gulnaz K., founder of EasySize.me, shares her expertise on solving the sizing dilemma. 

With nearly 15 years of experience in tech and a master's degree in strategic marketing, Gulnaz brings a unique perspective on the intersection of fashion and technology. 

Her company's flagship product, Fitquist, is used by over 700 brands to tackle sizing issues and minimize returns, revolutionizing the online shopping experience for fashion retailers and customers alike. 

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why sizing is a major challenge in fashion e-commerce 
• What role product photography plays in size understanding 
• Why returns are a sustainability concern in fashion 
• How size recommendations can boost customer satisfaction 
• Why having sizing advice is crucial for holiday sales 
• How proper sizing can significantly reduce return rates 

Links & Resources 

Website: https://www.easysize.me/lp/shopify-lp 
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/fit-quiz 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/easysize/ 
X/Twitter: https://x.com/easysize 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/easysize/ 


Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://t.ly/q4kig 

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Transcript

Welcome to the e commerce coffee break podcast. We discuss how to solve the sizing issue in fashion e commerce. Joining me on the show is Gulnaz K., founder at easysize. me. So let's dive into it. 

This is the e commerce coffee break. A top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants. And business owners looking to grow their online stores.

Learn how to survive in the fast changing e-commerce world with your host Claus Lauter, and get marketing advice you can't find on Google. Welcome, welcome to the show. 

Hello. Welcome to another episode of the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we wanna talk about how to solve the sizing issue in fashion e-commerce.

Now that's a big problem and I struggled with that quite a few times, and we wanna dive. into this topic and see how we can find a solution to help you with selling more in your fashion e commerce store. Joining me on the show today for this topic is Gulnaz. She's a serial entrepreneur and founder of EasySize.

me, a startup changing fashion through data and sustainability. Her flagship product, Fitquist, is used by over 700 brands to solve the sizing issue and cut down on returns. With nearly 15 years of experience in tech and a master's degree in strategic marketing, she brings a unique view on the fusion of fashion and technology.

She's also a foremost contributor writing on fashion, e commerce, and sustainability. So let's welcome her to the show. Hi Gulnaz , how are you today? 

Hi, Claus. I'm doing well and thank you so much for this lovely introduction. 

Let's dive right into it. So passion always had the problem if you run an online store that finding out the right size is a bit of a tricky thing and you're trying to solve that.

Tell me what's what's kind of your approach or how did you come to find a solution for this? 

I mean, as you mentioned also in the beginning yourself, I have always struggled with finding the right size, and I'm a big avid online shopper. I hate buying stuff in regular stores and, uh, my friends always joke that I even call it not brick and mortar, but offline shopping.

Um, because for me, that's, that's sort of like the opposite to the convenience of online shopping. Um, and the, the big problem with, uh, sizes in fashion, uh, uh, it's due to, um, lack of standardization, I think to some extent, uh, because, uh, We see that pretty much each brand. And, um, of course, even if we zoom out, like each country has its own sizing formats and sizing conventions.

Um, and there is no such thing that, uh, you know, one size fits everybody or one size is true size. Um, so I came to realization that this was such a massive problem when I started, um, ordering a lot more stuff online, especially from international stores. And, uh, I would go through this sort of like loop of buying something.

Then trying it on, uh, realizing that it doesn't work and then sending it back. Um, and, uh, as, uh, many other online shoppers, I would at that time shop while at, um, at work or, um, commuting to work in Metro or buses and so on. So of course I knew that there is no, um, option for me to stand and sort of like, try to measure myself or even add my weight or take body scans or what, what, whatsoever.

So I started thinking, is there a way for us to solve this problem without adding inconvenient, um, actions, um, to own shoppers? So like asking about their weight, asking about their body measurements. So that's how my journey in this industry started. So I came pretty much as a, an outsider to the fashion world.

Um, primarily knowing about e commerce from the technical perspective, um, from working in tech. And, uh, slowly, slowly we started looking into the problem. Um, and. I realized that actually when it comes to sizing, it has a lot more to do with the way you wear items, be that shoes or clothing than your physical dimensions.

Um, physical dimensions like weight, it can change. I myself, I know it's like my weight fluctuates all the time. Um, and of course, taking a body measurements correctly, it's a problem on its own. It's a huge challenge because a lot of people don't really take it correctly. Um, But if you get a sense of how an item should look on you or how you wanna look in, in a certain item, like do you wanna wear a shirt as an over short or do you wanna go for a super oversized fit?

Um, if you know those things, it actually makes them, um, solving the pittas problem a lot easier from the technical perspective. So essentially what we've decided to do with, uh, fit quiz is to ask you a few. Questions as a shopper that you can easily answer nothing about your weight, nothing about your body measurements.

Just things around like sizes that you typically wear your fitting preferences and then some visual questions about your body shape. And then on the other side, we have this massive database with more than 18 million shoppers in it. Um, and, um, what we try to do is essentially try to find your passion doubles.

So what Netflix does with recommending TV shows and movies to you by comparing your preferences to others, that's what we try to do with sizes. We learn about you, we compare you to other customers, and the same thing we do with items as well. And based on that, come up with a recommendation that will work the best for you.

No, that sounds very smart of specifically what you mentioned, international sizes. I was in Bangkok last week trying to buy some t shirts, ended up buying t shirts in 4XL, which in the United States would be a complete different game. Um, and these t shirts are still quite slim, to be honest. So, um, When it comes to international stores, I mean, how do you find out they're sourcing from all over the world as a, as a fashion store, um, you have all your SKUs and they might have different sizes, so you might be a retailer sourcing from different sources with different sizes.

How do you break it down to a product that, you know, this product. Is basically this size in real life? 

It's a very good question. And actually, in fact, we know for sure that, uh, even, uh, big and more established brands, they will not have consistent sizing even within the same category. So if you have like, let's say a pair of fans and maybe it's like, let's say, Winter collection or a classic collection or so on like they might actually feature differently as a person Um, that's why we also figured out early on that We cannot just have one sizing sort of recommendation logic for everything that uh an online store sells So those recommendations must be on a sq basis.

So, um what we came up with is a concept of size models So essentially size models is a setting, um, that you can, um, set up within our app. And, um, that setting represents how a certain item supposed to fit people. And it means that you can group products into one size model. So if you know that, let's say these five sweatshirts, they fit the same way, but this one is very unique, you can assign different size models.

to them. Um, those indicating to our algorithm that they should be treated differently. Um, and site models also allow you as a brand, as an owner of a store, um, indicate whether products are running big or small or whether they should be very sensitive to where it's like, um, different answers that a customer is giving and so on.

So instead of using size charts or garment measurements in this case, which we know are a hassle to, to compile and maintain, we tried to come up with something a little bit easier. Um, Um, a little bit, uh, simpler for shops to understand and something that will allow them to group products and, and have different recommendations depending on how they're supposed to fit 

them.

You mentioned sizing charts, and there was a bit of a problem because people have sometimes a wrong idea about the real size or anything. I'm a solid XL, but maybe you're just an M or a triple XL, whatever. What kind of role does the product photography and presentations play in understanding your size?

Um, I think in general, um, photos and especially when shops use real people, um, and real models on their photos, we see that working really great. Um, so there are some brands we work with, for example, and they will have even to the point that the same item will be worn by maybe, uh, people of like four or five different body shapes and different heights.

Um, having that kind of representation is always amazing because I as a shopper want to see somebody who looks like me, uh, or at least somebody I can relate to. So I think in general that is a fantastic tool and fantastic strategy for fashion brands to communicate their sizing effectively. Um, From, uh, the perspective of the algorithm, like specifically in our product, we are just now starting to, uh, test the different body, uh, sorry, photos and, um, uh, product images in the algorithm itself, because until now it has been very much, um, based on the, uh, sort of, uh, textual data we have and contextual data around orders, returns of a product and so on.

But of course, photos can be, um, a great representation of how items are supposed to fit it. I would say that when it comes to photography in general, one challenge we have seen with brands is that often they will either not have enough resources to take pictures on different models. Or they will end up with like sort of, um, very, I guess, unrealistic model.

Uh, so meaning that, um, maybe you are selling, um, outdoorsy stuff, let's say outdoors fashion. And then all of your pictures, uh, are with like a model that is like high fashion model. So there is the very big gap between like what your customers probably see themselves like and what they see on your pictures.

Um, of course, AI now is also, uh, becoming a more widely used, uh, for a lot of brands. Like we see brands experimenting also in trying to, uh, create different images, um, to represent people of different shapes.

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com. And now back to the show. You mentioned the beginning returns is something you did a lot and every, um, seller out there has the same problems. Obviously you, you want to limit returns, refunds, all of that, and making sure that your client orders in the right size in the first place obviously helps with that.

Talk me a bit through the process when it comes to sustainability, what kind of results do you see there? How much do returns drop down? How does it work? 

Yeah, I mean, returns is a massive problem in the industry and, um, For a very long time, uh, what was surprising to me, uh, when I would talk to shops is that many shops took it as almost like cost of doing business.

Um, and I will hear so often when they will say everybody has returns in fashion, um, returns on average are around like 25 to 30%, depending on the category and geography. And they will say, yeah, that's, you know, you can't do anything with that. That's just, given people just return, but the reality is that today we are seeing some really great direct to consumer brands that are able to really, really minimize their returns.

Um, for example, obviously sizing is one of the problems. Like what one thing that we see with our tool that on average, we will lower their return rate between 15 and 30%, uh, depending on the product category. Yeah. And then when it comes to sustainability, there is also a massive impact from that as well.

Um, because we see that, uh, with, um, sustainability aspect, it's not just the return part, um, that, uh, contributes, um, because obviously there are those like trucks going back and forth and meeting CO2, but it's also what happens with items after they're returned. Because they need to be processed. In some cases, they cannot longer be sold if they're damaged, or maybe if the season is out, then they cannot be sold because they have to be, they have to go on a discount and so on.

Um, we even seen some big established brands going to an extent of like, for example, dumping those unsold or returned items on a landfill or. Burning it down and so on. So it's like, there are unfortunately a lot of those really bad practices. Good, uh, story. It looked like good point. There is that we see that the majority of direct to consumer, the smaller brands, they don't really do that.

They still try to sell it, which is great. But of course, the more they can minimize returns, the more sustainable they become at that end of the sort of product journey while they're still, um, with, uh, with the shop. 

I think it has a lot to do with satisfaction and convenience and also leading with sustainability and all of this has an impact on the conversion rates and I reckon that somebody who was happy with his first order when it comes to the size will be a returning customer over time.

Do you have some examples of clients you work with, what kinds of results they saw? 

Uh, yeah, so sales conversion is actually, uh, unsurprisingly, probably is the first metric that we're able to track. Um, because, uh, obviously when it comes to returns, usually if we just start working with a shop, we would typically need to wait at least around 30 to 60 days to see the impact on returns because of the different return policies that they will have.

But sales conversion is something that we are able to see an improvement on pretty much from day one. And usually we will see an increase around 60%. Uh, from a product page to an actual purchase, um, and I would say, like, in some cases we see results like two X or three X of the sales conversion just by simply adding the size recommendation.

So, um, like, for instance, we, uh, we work with a shop and they sell specialized shoes. Specifically for people who have wider foot and, um, without fit quiz, their self conversion was around 0. 2 to 0. 3%. And when people actually are using it, uh, and interact with it, like they pretty much triple that sales conversion today, though there are indeed those niches, those industries were not having any kind of sizing recommendation or sizing advice, um, is so, so negatively impacting the business of a shop because it's just simply too specialized for people to understand.

As we are on an audio podcast, can you talk me quickly through the different steps of using FitQuiz? What can I expect when I'm a shopper and see it in my store? 

Yeah, so in the most common case, you will usually interact with it on a product page. So when you land on a product page, there will be a button saying, I'm not sure about the size.

So find my size. Um, it's all customizable. So it depends a little bit on what a shop wants to show. Um, and then when you click on it, we typically show a pop up with somewhere between 6 to 8 questions. Um, they will differ a little bit. Um, for example, we have a different flow for unisex items where we would first ask about your Gender or which gender you identify with, um, we also have a separate floor for shoes where we will have a little bit more detailed questions around your foot shape and foot length and so on.

Uh, but for the majority of shops that are using it today for apparel items and there we will have six questions where we start first by asking what sizes you typically wear, uh, for a specific category. Uh, we can show one, uh, size format or multiple depending on how international a shop is. So you can say like, okay, usually I wear a UK 10 and sometimes I go sign size up or size down.

We will have visual questions about your body shape to get a sense of how your body is actually built. Um, the only measurement based question we have, it's your height, um, that will be used in some cases just for pure recommendation. But in other cases, let's say. Like jeans or other items that have a length attribute, we can also recommend that as well.

And then the final question will be around your fitting preferences, how you want this item to fit you. Um, so once you answer those, we will give you the recommendation. Again, if a product has multiple attributes, like for example, size plus length or fit or anything else, We can recommend those two. And then the most convenient thing, and this is by far my favorite feature is that when I then go to check other products, every time I open a product from a similar category, Fitquist will automatically recalculate the size and will show me the recommendation.

So it means that I don't need to go through that every time, but also the recommendation will be adjusted depending on what we know about the particular product. 

Okay. No, that sounds very cool. What's the typical onboarding process? I understand you have a Shopify app. Um, what's the installation, what steps do I need to go through before I can get up and running?

Uh, yeah. So we've, uh, had our app in the app store for almost two years now. And, um, actually in the last, like maybe 12 to 14 months, we really focused on improving the self service capabilities of the app. So now a lot of the things there are, you're able to do as a merchant pretty much within the app, um, with very little technical help required.

Um, we start when you are setting it up for the first time, we start by helping you to get all the settings in place. So for example, you can, um, select the languages that your website has, um, and then change different language settings for the fit quiz, uh, um, pop up itself. Um, you can, um, tell us about the genders, what type of genders you have, like, is it unisex?

Is it a mix of male and female? Choose categories that you have, um, select size models either from the default ones we have or create your own. Again, size model is by far the most important step, which is like the settings. fitting sizing settings. Um, and then there is a new feature that we just released, which is mapping rules, which allows you to pretty much map your catalog and Shopify by using tags or types to automatically assign to a specific size models in category, um, which is great for shops that have a lot of new stuff coming in, uh, in their story, their inventory is updating all the time.

Um, so that part, um, was like the settings. It takes a lot of time. It's probably around like between 5 to 20 minutes, depending on how much, um, how many products you have in your inventory. Um, you can then also customize the appearance of the tool. Um, so change icons, visuals, colors, and so on. And then the final step, which could be a little bit technical, it's adding to your theme.

Um, so, um, we do have a, a simple integration that works with the majority of simple themes. Um, but if you have something more advanced, you might need, um, a developer to help you out. Um, and then once it's launched, uh, every time you open fit quiz app in Shopify, you will see a dashboard. Um, there we have a lot of performance metrics, like how often people use it, how it impacts your add to cart conversion, sales conversion.

Um, we also have this new report, which is out of stock report. Um, and that allows you to see. See which sizes for which products were recommended and were out of stock. So that also has become a really great tool for a lot of, uh, uh, inventory management, uh, kind of challenges that shops have. Um, so yeah, so I think like the fastest integration we have so far, it's probably taken like maybe 10 minutes.

Um, and then the longest, it will be a couple of hours, depending on how customized you want it to, to, um, to make as a shop. 

You mentioned already, obviously we're talking about fashion stores, but you also mentioned shoes. Um, who's your perfect customer? Is there any kind of specific stores that use it more than others?

Um, it's a good question. I think we, uh, we always go through a little bit of a seasonal, um, sort of thing during summer where we get a lot of, uh, swimwear brands. Um, so, um, I think this summer we've got a lot of swimwear brands that would utilize it. Now when we are heading more towards, um, a winter season, we are getting a lot of streetwear brands.

Um, actually I was surprised to, um, to discover that there are so many cool streetwear brands in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Because we've been getting a lot of installs from those regions recently and that has been really, really cool to see. Um, When it comes to categories, I would say like, obviously, uh, fashion, um, well, apparel categories, they are the most popular ones.

Um, within them, uh, we pretty much work with everything. Um, I think the only exceptions there are kids wear, uh, we don't work with children's fashion yet, and then some types of bras. Um, so those are the just two categories that we haven't tackled yet. Um, but otherwise, uh, shoes or apparel that works pretty much with everything.

Sounds for me like an old brainer to have it. Tell me a little bit about your pricing structure. 

Well, first of all, we offer free trial. So there is 14 or 30 day free trial, depending on which one you choose. Uh, and it starts the moment you add it to your theme on Shopify. So you can actually go through the first set up steps without subscribing.

Um, then, um, depending on the types of features you want to have in place, um, we have starter pro and premium plans. 20. 00, 100. 00 and 250. 00 per month. Plus, we also charge a usage fee of 0. 15, but only for cases when the recommended size was added to cart without changes. Um, we do have a lot of advanced, um, uh, features.

For example, if you have something super advanced in terms of the recommendation, or if you want to have a lot of customization enabled, so those are usually going to the prone premium. Um, but sorry is obviously, um, is the most popular plan we have right now. Um, that, uh, shops usually start with. So it's perfect for a brand that it's maybe brand new and they don't really require a lot of customization.

You can start, you can see how it works. And then if you like it, you can always upgrade to an annual plan where you don't pay the usage fee. And it's just a. A flat fixed fee, depending on the plan that you have chosen. 

Okay. No, sounds good. Before our coffee break comes to an end today, is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?

Oh, that's a great question. I would say like, regardless what you decide to do, and I'll be that fit quiz or something else, um, as a fashion brand. And especially now, when we are heading towards the busiest time of the year with holidays and black Friday, I Having some kind of sizing, um, recommendation or advice on a page is going to be, uh, fantastic for you.

Uh, and we see it all the time when shops have, uh, an avalanche of returns, uh, after the holidays. So if you really want to ban that and avoid that, um, get something that will allow your customers to understand your sizing better. Um, if you want to go for fitquiz, of course, we'll be happy to work with you, but otherwise just having something, um, that could explain how it works, uh, will be, will be fantastic.

Yeah, I think it's a win win situation. I mean, the customer wins because they get a product delivered that fits them, that they want and fits them, and you as a seller, you don't have to deal with the refunds and all the hassle of returns and so on and so forth. Where can people find more about you guys?

Uh, yes. So you can find it on our website. Easy size dot n e. So that's easy and size. Very, very creative. And then, of course, we have our app on, um, on Shopify's app store. So it's a fit quiz. F I T quiz, Q. U. I. Z. So fit quiz on the Shopify's app store. 

Okay. I will put the links in the show notes as always, then you just want to click away and open.

A lot of people will try it out. As I said, I think it's a no brainer. Um, I have sold t shirts in the past, so I know the pain about returns. And I think that's, is the perfect solution, um, to get people to buy from you and get a package that they really love and fashion that fits them. Thanks so much for your time today.

Yeah. 

Hey, Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e commerce Coffee Break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It will make it also easier for others to discover the podcast.

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