Clothing Leasing Companies: 5 Ways To Use Data To Make Decisions

Rent The Runway is a family.

Clothing rental service companies will buy clothes from top designers, and then hire those designed garments and accessories at lower prices to those in need.

For example, if you want to dress up for an event, but do not want to buy expensive clothes, you can try Rent The Runway service. Once you choose the design you want to wear on the website, you can choose the delivery date. After that, you need to send your clothes back. The company will be provided to the next customer who needs it after dry cleaning.

In Rent The Runway's own words, they are the best consumer sharing wardrobe.

But behind the scenes, according to Camille Fournier, chief technology officer of Rent The Runway, their quality service mainly depends on customized software and accurate logistics, helping users match their favorite garments and send them to them in time.

"

It's a data driven company, "she said." all jobs require data evaluation. "

Camille Fournier worked in Goldman Sachs, responsible for risk management and other software tools development, and at Rent The Runway, she built up inventory software to minimize the compression time of inventory clothing, helping customers "rent anytime, anywhere" to the clothes they want.

"Our goal is to create a brain for the company's inventory, which not only needs to understand our current inventory status, but also meets our future needs."

She said.

Here are the five ways Rent The Runway uses data to help them make decisions.

1, manage inventory to meet customer satisfaction.

Rent The Runway's customized logistics software can determine the time cost. For example, when customers want to send back clothes, they will make decisions according to the logistics time and the urgency of renting clothes demand, whether they are to use ground logistics or choose the air logistics arriving every other day to manage inventory efficiently.

"When we manage inventory, we want to be positive, but we don't want to be too active," Fournier said. "We need to know a lot of information, such as how much stock we have, what quantity we have, and of course.

We also hope to maximize the return on inventory. "

Customers in New York and Las Vegas can try their own clothes at the Rent The Runway store, while in Manhattan, users can send them by express company according to their time schedule.

2. On demand planning

The warehouse of Rent The Runway occupies an area of 40 thousand square feet and will soon be upgraded to 160 thousand square feet. Once the clothes enter the warehouse of the company, the company's "virtual brain" knows how to quickly arrange inspection, cleaning, and re deliver the goods to the next user.

"We will make reasonable planning according to needs. We know what clothes are in the package, know whether it needs to deliver today or tomorrow, and know if this package is urgent."

Fournier said.

3. Recommendation engine

On the website of Rent the Runway, they will move to the costumes that visitors may like as soon as possible.

"We do not want to visit our website to produce aesthetic fatigue, so we will provide many different styles of clothing and provide users with many different choices," she said. "We believe that users will place orders because they have found clothes that they really like."

When customers visit the Rent the Runway website, the company's recommendation engine will develop and play a role. It can analyze users' browsing history, as well as past historical data, age and other factors of renting clothes, and recommend some selected clothing to users.

In addition, customers can also get their own advice from the Rent the Runway store or by e-mail.

4. A comment system that enables everyone to play a role.

We encourage customers to comment on the clothes they rent, and they can also directly send pictures, which can help us improve the recommendation engine, or let other people who want to rent clothes see the actual effect of the clothes on them.

"We have a process that can analyze all comments submitted by users," she said. "Obviously, uploading pictures is not necessary, but our users seem to like uploading pictures very much. There are tens of thousands of them on the website."

According to Fournier, Rent the Runway will provide two recommended clothing choices for each user order. If these two items are not suitable, the information will be optimized.

"If you feel that the clothes you rented are not fit, it's okay, you can send them back to us, and they will not affect your credit," she said.

5, the new trend of online and offline trend

Rent the Runway's clothing buyers all have experience in the popular industry. They can catch various trend trends earlier.

They will pay close attention to the trend of fashion week in every season, and in Fournier's words, the fashion buyers of the company are watching fashion magazines almost all day.

However, these people will also focus on customer data and decide which new costumes for users to book.

"We get a lot of information by analyzing the user's browsing data," she said. "It's because we can see a lot of information that we can maintain our advantages in business."