99Dresses (YC W12) wants to give women an infinite closet

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/26/99dresses-wants-to-give-women-an-infinite-closet/

by garry • 14 years ago

208 146 14 years ago

ryanwanger• 14 years ago

I'm sure there is a market for this, but that saddens the non-consumer in me (that someone would feel as though they can't wear the same piece of clothing more than once).

rprospero2• 14 years ago

True, but this site will actually help on that front. The site is a used clothing store that's trying to bypass the stigma attached to used clothes. They're harnessing consumers into a recycling program.

vacri3• 14 years ago

For example, with furniture you buy a new couch or a bed and then you have one, you don’t need another one or a different one two weeks later. Not so with dresses or shoes.

'need' is an interesting word to use in this context.

benmathes2• 14 years ago

That seems to be how fashion-conscious women feel about new clothes. And fashion is a major channel of non-verbal communication about status/lifestyle/cleanliness/trendiness. While one may differ about it's philosophical value, it's certainly a market need and it has real use; Humans make snap decisions on appearance.

vacri3• 14 years ago

Trendiness may be, but do you really change your status/lifestyle/cleanliness every two weeks? It's not a need, it's a want. While on the one hand "it's just a turn of phrase", on the other hand, the smoke-and-mirrors fashion industry makes workhorses of these phrases.

it's certainly a market need and it has real use; Humans make snap decisions on appearance.

If you're making a decision on someone over the course of fortnights on their clothing decisions, that is pretty much not a 'snap decision' by definition.

The issue I have is with the particular phrase - the linked article is talking about 'how women buy clothes', not 'how fashionistas buy clothes', and most women do not need (or even want) to buy new clothes every fortnight, let alone this idea of wear-once-and-toss-away. It's just the next impossible ideal of the fashion world.

I don't really have a problem with the product, I'm all for swap centres, I just have a problem with the language of need.

chc3• 14 years ago

No more weird than the use in your profile: "the moderation system on HN is in dire need of an overhaul". In reality, nothing globally catastrophic will happen if either does not come to pass. Both are really more like "strongly felt personal preferences". Hopefully the usage makes more sense now.

cma• 14 years ago

Only one of the two has a positional externality that cancels out all of the utility.

vacri3• 14 years ago

A classic Reductio ad Absurdum fallacy, suggesting that imminent global catasrophe is required for something to be questioned.

Anyway, within the scope of moderation systems, the HN system is in dire need of overhaul - it's terrible, and often leaves people annoyed and puzzled. Within the scope of clothing, people do not often need new clothes every week. A very, very small segment of people might be actually negatively affected by not having new clothing every week.

But honestly, the subtext of my comment is that this product just feeds into the impossible ideals of the fashion world. Fixing the moderation system on HN can be done by one coder in an afternoon. Fixing the multiple complex issues with body images is not so trite, and while not catastrophic in the traditional sense, certainly does have global consequences.

trickjarrett2• 14 years ago

I was toying with a similar idea though it's more akin to the Netflix model for clothes.

You'd basically pay an up front cost, say $XXX and then you would be able to order a week's worth of clothes. Then you'd mail the clothes back for laundering before being sent out again.

It is really a half-baked idea and requires a sizable amount of logistics, etc. But it was an interesting concept to toss around.

rprospero2• 14 years ago

I think that you're onto something there. I need to wear a suit three times a year. Most of my friends are the same way. We all have a suit in our respective closets, but it's just taking up space for most of the year. Now, we're different enough sizes that we couldn't all just share one suit, but, if you had a few thousand clients, you could certainly send a fitting suit to the fellow who needs it, when he needs it.

There's also a huge boon to be found in having branches in both hemispheres. Instead of spending December paying the land tax on a warehouse full of shorts, just rent them out in Australia. Then, come July, send out the shorts in the US and the sweaters down under.

I'm not sure about the environmental impact. On the one hand, you have quite a bit of carbon footprint from shipping the clothes all around. On the other hand, the company would have a strong economic incentive to maintain the clothes. I'm betting a lot of clothes that are currently thrown away could be saved with proper cleaning and sewing skills. I'm now imagining reading the company's blog having less posts on Redis integration and far more on their new way to remove grass stains.

Honestly, given the sizing issues, this probably makes more sense for men's clothes, but that avoids competition with 99dresses.

Dammit. I'm going to be thinking about this all night.

trickjarrett2• 14 years ago

I'm more than happy to toss the idea around with you, I think it's an interesting idea and if it reached critical mass it could do really well - but I'm skeptical it could get there and that the price points would be such that consumers would be interested.

astrofinch3• 14 years ago

If I'm a guy who occasionally has to wear a suit, it seems like it would be a lot cheaper for me to pay the fixed cost of acquiring it than the ongoing cost of having it shipped to me every so often when I want to wear it. And it's another thing to remember and worry about.

dcpdx• 14 years ago

I've been thinking about this exact idea for the past month or so and still love it. I recently tried Trunk Club, which is a similar service but they actually select the clothes for you and you only pay for what you keep and send the rest back. The inherent ownership problem still remains, though--there's yet one more pair of pants or shirt taking up space in your closet that you'll eventually get sick of (that and it was really expensive--like $175 for a button-down expensive).

I like the idea of having a somewhat curated selection of some top brands like Banana Republic, J.Crew, Gap, etc. and being able to choose a certain number of items to take out at one time. I'd pay upwards of $200/mo if it meant I had an endless rotation of new clothes to try on without having to keep. And if you like the garment? Feel free to keep it and pay retail.

The collaborative consumption model is disrupting industry after industry, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets it right in fashion. I would honestly consider starting this myself, but I just left a startup and joined the Goog less than a month ago--need some stability for awhile.

zszugyi2• 14 years ago

How do I make sure my wife never finds out about this?

paylesworth• 14 years ago

Would you rather her buy new dresses? I definitely think this is a much better proposition

reinhardt• 14 years ago

Talk about a false dilemma..

zszugyi2• 14 years ago

Not sure, I'd analyze the benefits of both options. I'd think that this service would eliminate the constraint of not having enough room for new clothes in the dresser at least.

enneff• 14 years ago

Why? Don't you want your wife to dress well?

wtvanhest• 14 years ago

I'm so glad they invented this website! It is so infuriating when women think it is OK to just wear the same thing twice!

all kidding aside, I bet women are going to love this.

jilebedev• 14 years ago

Isn't half the thrill in "not wearing anything twice" that you're always wearing something new? It'd be a bit drab to wear something another person has maybe stained or worn in. A good part of the appeal is the "new clothes" feeling, right?

prawn• 14 years ago

Some of it, but it's offset by the cost. Women will lend each other dresses quite often. My sisters-in-law are regularly around at our place borrowing clothes and bags from my wife.

maaku2• 14 years ago

Sizes are never standard--you really have to try something on to know if it fits. How have you solved this problem?

FredBrach• 14 years ago

I would say that the virtual currency solves that a lot.

maaku2• 14 years ago

what?

btucker• 14 years ago

This does seem like a bit of a problem, but I'd imagine the idea is you "re-sell" anything you no-longer want-- which may mean it didn't fit you right.

What it strikes me this business needs are small pre-paid boxes which will fit in US mailboxes or can be left for your mailman.

moskie2• 14 years ago

Maybe they could crowdsource this type of information.

"People who said this item fit well, also said these items fit well..."

amilanez4• 14 years ago

I don't imagine that crowd-sourcing would work well -- body types vary wildly withing a given size. A size 6 isn't a size 6 isn't a size 6 . . .

kmfrk• 14 years ago

I don't know if it's something that needs to be addressed. People who are more lenient are the target demographic more than people who would otherwise not rely on an online service.

EDIT: On an unrealted note, the name "Forever 21" is incredibly sad.

joejohnson• 14 years ago

Why do you think Forever 21 is sad?

aaronbrethorst• 14 years ago

I've always assumed that Forever 21 appealed most to the under-21 crowd.

rhizome3• 14 years ago

Roughly, "my measurements are X, and this item fit like Y" is how I would want it to boil down. I'm not sure it would go over if implemented just that way, but the idea is there somewhere.

twelvechairs3• 14 years ago

Good luck getting women to post their detailed measurements on a public website....

Not sure this will work.

amilanez4• 14 years ago

Women tend to know their size within a given brand. As long as they stick to those, they'll be fine.

yarone• 14 years ago

My guess: they haven't solved the "fit" problem, they won't bother trying (too hard), and it doesn't matter.

These dresses are equivalent to "found money."

Woman has a closet full of dresses. They're old, uninteresting, unwearable, etc. She posts them online, earns "buttons," and buys dresses that look like they might work. Some do, some don't. Net result: more dresses to wear.

jedc• 14 years ago

And those that don't can just go back into the system again, too. Positives all around.

The "buttons" part is even more clever, in that they're building a real ecosystem that doesn't center on cash. Also, I can see this working incredibly well for pregnant women; they only need their maternity clothes for 5-6 months or so.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

Couldn't the system learn quickly? Like person A and B both wear a dress from person C. Now the system knows that person A could also exchange dresses directly.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

I meant of course A and B could exchange dresses.

grannyg00se• 14 years ago

Most of the women I know who are serious about their fashion are pretty certain when it comes to their size at a particular store. Sure a six isn't always a six. But a six at Forever 21 is usually consistent with other sixes at Forever 21. And they know their size at each particular store.

Kiro• 14 years ago

No, sizes differ within stores as well.

samstave6• 14 years ago

Rent-the-runway lets you select an alternate size in case the thing you receive just doesn't fit right.

Dove2• 14 years ago

Suggestion: measure the dresses.

Sizes in women's clothing have no objective standards at all (I do so envy men's pants, which come in 34x30 rather than Size 8 Slim Petite), but Kendall Farr opens her well-known book by suggesting that women break out the tape measure anyway. Measure yourself, and then measure anything you're thinking about trying on -- it saves time.

marquis3• 14 years ago

It helps a litte but not completely. Women may be the same size and measurements, but a completely different shape (men have this problem too, right?) What we need is technology that can 3D scan an item and virtually drape it. Then I can get myself scanned and try on the virtual draping. Only then will I fully be comfortable spending real, non-returnable money on the internet for clothes (shoes and accessories are less of a big deal for fit).

jedberg• 14 years ago

You just put it back into the system if it doesn't fit.

Melyan• 14 years ago

Aren't most amateur hackers retirees in nursing homes with a lot of time on their hands? Nice to see an application aimed at a different audience (young women).

smanek• 14 years ago

http://www.renttherunway.com/ has been doing something similar (high-fashion dress rentals) for a few years now. Of course, Rent The Runway is more centralized - it's more analogous to a hotel, while 99 Dresses is more AirBnB.

sriramk• 14 years ago

Rent the Runway stocks the clothes themselves while this and My Dress Affair (another competitor) are a peer-to-peer marketplace.

joezydeco2• 14 years ago

RTR will also ship a second identical dress of a different size in case you find out you don't fit the original size chosen. RTR also sends the dresses using a premium shipping service with tracking (i.e UPS or FedEx).

silencio• 14 years ago

There's also the huge difference in that RTR specializes in designer clothing that is more for one-time-wear-only kinds of occasion that might warrant renting (I've done it a couple times for a wedding and a super formal dinner event), while 99dresses seems to be just selling run of the mill clothing I have in my closet with shipping potentially costing as much as what I paid for the dress in the first place just to sell it to someone else.

The fundamental idea of reselling used clothing is really cool and needs an overhaul from the usual Goodwill and other thrift stores, but 99dresses seems targeted at a specific audience that quite literally only wears something a couple times before tiring of it. I'm not sure how compatible that is with constantly changing fashions and questionable clothing quality from some of these clothing stores... I have a lot of old non-designer dresses I could be selling on this site, but after a couple times they've all got small problems (I don't want to sell something I mended!) or are out of fashion by a year or two.

jcampbell12• 14 years ago

I checked out the site. Look interesting, but I noticed one major issue: pagination is a mistake in e-commerce. "View all" or infinite scroll is a must.

unohoo• 14 years ago

I agree. It shouldnt take more than 1 or 2 clicks for a user to review all your products. Ecommerce sites tend to not pay close attention to this - but look at how much significance Google pays to this metric.

patio11• 14 years ago

There are infinitely many things that would improve the sales of an e-commerce site. First among all things is making sure the site is not on localhost.

Many sites do not implement view all or infinite scroll and, empirically, still manage to make quite a lot of money. One prominent example is Amazon.

More broadly, I would sincerely love it if HN did not try to play "Let's one-up the founders" on day 1 for every startup, with special attention paid to YC startups. All startups will have great big honking problems on day one. (They're more of the flavor "Nobody knows we exist" than "Our 100 products are paginated rather than on a single page.") The ones that succeed in solving those problems will, in the process, revisit almost every stupidly inconsequential implementation detail, in the same sort of painful, considered depth that all of us who have shipped software before know will eventually happen.

Wouldn't we be a happier, more productive community if the tone was less "I have found your flaw!" and more "That's a good start. You might consider adding X, Y, and Z to the roadmap. Those have previously had outcomes like X1, Y1, and Z1 when tried in circumstances X2, Y2, and Z2. X and Y can probably wait, but Z should be a fairly high priority because $EXPLANATION_OF_HOW_Z_PREVENTS_YOU_FROM_DYING."

jcampbell12• 14 years ago

I think you are reading something into my tone that I didn't intend.

More importantly, I think you are wrong to think "Nobody knows we exist" and getting the details right are somehow separate. I built a business by a thousand small fixes. I worked on getting the SEO, copy writing, UX, ads, etc. better every day. Then one day the conversion rate was high enough that buying ads became nicely profitable and word of mouth started to take effect. Details matter.

If a fashion site has an UX issue that makes it not fun to use, it is a real problem. There is no next button at the bottom of the list of items. It feels like the site is broken, but this such a trivial problem to fix.

chc3• 14 years ago

A must? You clearly live in a different world from me, because in the one where I live, Amazon, eBay, NewEgg, Zappos and Etsy all seem to get by OK with paginated listings. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of a major ecommerce site with an infinite-scrolling interface.

stevengg• 14 years ago

I saw something like this on r/malefashionadvice but they would mail you a box of stuff every month and you would just keep what you liked and mail back what didn't fit or you didn't want. looks like a few sites are doing it now

http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/gyg6z/i_g...

https://www.trunkclub.com/

http://www.frankandoak.com/

http://www.manpacks.com/

benmathes2• 14 years ago

There's also threadflip.com

This market is probably all about getting the critical mass of users so you have supply.

hendzen• 14 years ago

New startup naming trend: two digit number followed by a noun.

joezydeco2• 14 years ago

Well, they are the only .com domains that are pretty much left.

femto• 14 years ago

Yeah. I'm thinking of starting a social cloud computing service called "127.0.0.1". It will use a sophisticated virtual currency and economic model to guarantee that users only get out what they contribute.

damncabbage• 14 years ago

This site in particular has been around for a couple of years now, mind.

twelvechairs3• 14 years ago

I'm not sure what the appeal of the virtual currency model is ('buttons').

There must be a scare for potential users in not receiving real money for sales, but something which can collapse or fluctuate in value at any time (also, it is potentially almost valueless if for instance you move somewhere the website doesnt operate).

Maybe not all people are as skeptical as me, but I'd imagine that this model will prevent users from 'leaping in' by selling large amounts of clothes, (and thus ending up with a huge store of 'buttons' that they may or may not ever find a use for).

I am very curious as to what the founders see as the upsides to this model which overcome said downsides.

dagw• 14 years ago

The clothes people will be selling is probably stuff that has pretty close to zero value to the owner to begin with. Stuff they would have gotten rid of a while back if they'd just had the incentive to do so. For example I just packed up and donated two large bags of clothes charity, had this service been available to me I might very well have sent them some those items just to try it out. If it worked out well enough I think of a few more items I'd happily send off as well.

xinliang• 14 years ago

I am thinking what if someone buys branded clothes from this website and sell it in other second-hand market, the cost of one button is only one dollar which I think is too cheap?

How about using the library system, having a certain amount of deposit on the account, if the user lost the clothes then the presumed value of the clothes will be deducted from her account?

sneak2• 14 years ago

How can you possibly be so sexist to alienate the men who wish to have infinite closets? It's not just women who wear dresses, you know. It's sexist bullshit like this that keeps men from getting started in the fashion industry.

ceol2• 14 years ago

Is this sarcasm?

sneak2• 14 years ago

No.

mitchty• 14 years ago

While I'm all for equality of dress, pun intended, I doubt many guys would actually use this service even if society was fine with it.

That said starting with women and dresses and later expanding to guys, say for dress suits/etc.. wouldn't be a bad idea.

nostromo• 14 years ago

I love these business models that find ways to put unused inventory / capacity to good use and reduce overall consumption in the process. My most recent favorite is a "tools as a service" co-op in Seattle: http://wstoollibrary.org/

Cheers to fewer underutilized dresses and belt sanders ending up in landfills.

nmcfarl• 14 years ago

Well that link just got mailed to everyone I know in West Seattle. Definitely more useful to my demographic than the product being discussed. :)

adriand• 14 years ago

I didn't see anyone saying this yet, so I'll say it: this is an excellent idea. My wife literally (and I do mean literally) has a closet full (in fact, stuffed) with clothes and she constantly complains that she can't wear any of it, that they don't fit her any more, etc. And this is a walk-in closet.

I don't know if she would like this service or not (a lot of it would, like many web apps, come down to how easy it was for her to use) but if she did, man oh man, would you ever have a dedicated customer. And I bet that goes for thousands, if not millions, of other women. Great idea!!!

polynomial• 14 years ago

"99 ties"?

zeteo2• 14 years ago

I don't understand the need for creating their own currency (the "buttons" system). I hope it's something very smart, because these "exchange used goods" enterprises often fall prey to the venerable Gresham's law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greshams_law#Application

I.e. in this case the danger would be that users have an incentive to glut the system with low quality items (defects, uncomfortable etc.).

chewxy• 14 years ago

according to my partner who used the aussie version of 99dresses, this is indeed the case towards the end

astrofinch3• 14 years ago

It seems like if women really do have closets full of perfectly good clothing they don't like, there is value to be captured.

There's always stuff you can do like implementing user reputation systems, etc.

bootload• 14 years ago

"... Durkin decided to shut down the Australian site and give the US market a go — So she applied to Y Combinator, and got accepted. ..."

The idea that stands out most to me, is this is the sort of idea and company, few male hackers could make work.

guynamedloren3• 14 years ago

For those of you who are confused about the 'button system' (virtual currency), here's what I think they're going for:

By introducing virtual currency, the money put into the 99dresses stays in the 99dresses system. If real money were traded, a person could easily dump all of their unwanted clothes and be done with it. This isn't what 99dresses want. They want to build a community. They don't want to lose you after dumping your clothes - they want you to engage and interact by picking up secondhand clothes from other members of the community. They want to be your primary clothing provider - or close to it.

It's also worth noting that spending 'buttons' doesn't feel like spending money (even though they are equivalent to real money), which leads to impulse decisions and less friction. For the users, it feels more like an exchange than pouring in your hard earned money. The obstacle, of course, is drawing in new users, but once they're in, they're in.

kami8845• 14 years ago

I have read about relevant studies where people had an easier time surrendering things that symbolized money, even though they were perfectly equivalent, just as soon as they were removed from the actual physical currency:

"Dear Mark, Why is it that casinos use chips versus real money on most of their games? Dave M.

Because most players do not equate casino chips with real money. It is far too easy, Dave, to be caught up in the game and forget what you are actually betting. Chips possess none of the qualities of real money. A dollar has a more palpable feeling and is more difficult to surrender than parting with a casino chip. Real dollars evoke those hours of employment, mortgages, and dry cleaning bills. But once purchased, chips seem like fun tokens found at the fair, not a medium of exchange. That is why casinos prefer pit employees to "change color" or upgrade your chips. They are not being courteous, just trying to induce larger play."

source(down):http://www.markpilarski.com/column14-2.html

zeteo2• 14 years ago

That system sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't work. Even places where virtual currency doesn't buy anything tangible, such as MMORPGs, develop black markets rather quickly.

guynamedloren3• 14 years ago

Sure, black markets are to be expected with any marketplace. Regardless, implementing virtual currency like this is arguably a more effective means to accomplishing their goals (growth/engagement/satisfaction) than not having virtual currency. But I could be wrong.. I guess we'll see.

nl2• 14 years ago

That's a feature, not a bug.

If the virtual currency is worth real money, then the company issuing the virtual currency can make money by letting people buy into the system. I'd expect 99Dresses to start allowing people to buy "buttons" with real money after that have built up enough inventory in the system.

jmilloy3• 14 years ago

By using the buttons, 99dresses makes their system more fragile than necessary, and excludes people who could help build the community. Consider that most people won't need more than a few dresses worth of buttons. So someone who has 300 dresses has no incentive to upload them all to the site. Someone else has already pointed out that dresses need to be able to come out of the pool. Again that doesn't happen if money can't come back out. I might not even get to choose a dress I want if I'm worried that I won't be able to trade it again. The flow of dresses in and out is restricted, and that's not a good thing for the company.

Why not allow people to exchange buttons back for money, just at a lower rate?

guynamedloren3• 14 years ago

> dresses need to be able to come out of the pool

Why? When you receive a dress, it is set to a disabled state on the site (rendering it unavailable for others). I'm guessing a dress can be in this state indefinitely, if one desires to keep a dress forever.

> I might not even get to choose a dress I want if I'm worried that I won't be able to trade it again

When would this happen? Why would you not be able to trade it again?

It sounds like you're confused about the logistics in play. The system is effectively the same as any other buying and selling marketplace, but virtual currency is used in place of dollars.

davidbanham2• 14 years ago

The article does a poor job of explaining the fact that the primary way you earn buttons is by uploading and sending dresses, not buy purchasing them.

You upload a dress and set your own price for it in buttons. When someone requests that dress you send it to them and you gain n buttons.

jergason2• 14 years ago

I love this idea. I am a poor, but fashion-conscious man. Is there a similar service for men out there?

mahyarm• 14 years ago

Start your own?

lukev• 14 years ago

I agree that this is a problem for men. However, I don't think a clothing exchange/rental is the way to go.

If I find a pair of pants or a shirt that fits me well and I enjoy, I will keep it and wear it repeatedly until it is too worn or stretched out.

In a lot of ways, that's the opposite problem form what this site is trying to solve.

jergason2• 14 years ago

I think some men consume clothing this way. I think there are some who use the model of wearing lots of different clothes as well. I would if I could, but for now I stick to a small number of comfortable pants and shirts.

samstave6• 14 years ago

99pants.com

I would like a suit service just like this.

dhardy• 14 years ago

I have been working on basically this same thing but for a wider audience for the last 3 mos. Unfortunately I am a solo act and only have evenings so everything takes 10x longer.

samstave6• 14 years ago

This is interesting. My wife has a closet full of literally ~300 dresses. Many she has worn only once. They range from forever 21 to Bebe, BCBG, Dolce and Gabana and the like.

This would be ideal for her - however I think the button thing where you get button credits, but when it says "the seller pays for shipping and handling" this seems a little like a disincentive.

Do you get button credits for the shipping costs?

Who determines the button value of a given dress? The site or the seller?

Whats the typical shipping cost - and are savvy selleres accounting for this in their set button price?

It would be a hell of a lot smoother if you would print out a shipping label from 99dresses which has the buyers address etc on it. The cost comes out of the buyers button credits etc..

When I buy something from Amazon, I pay the shipping cost as the buyer - why the heck is it good to make the seller pay this, get a box fill out the label etc...

This alone will prevent my wife from using this service. Even though she is an ideal candidate.

NeutronBoy• 14 years ago

The other side of the coin is that you don't pay shipping as a buyer, and it could also work as an incentive ('I've paid to get rid of my dress, I should now get one to make the most of my money')

marquis3• 14 years ago

Shipping labels is something I would pay a subscription for, as well as early access to newly received clothes. Try as hard as I might to buy beautiful things that should last me a lifetime, I am excited to try this service out. What will be the killer for me is the fit of the clothes. The real killer app that many are waiting for, is the ability to match an item to our figure and a get a real-time preview. I've seen suggestions of this at Siggraph but nothing consumer-ready.

AlexDanger2• 14 years ago

The real killer app that many are waiting for, is the ability to match an item to our figure and a get a real-time preview. I've seen suggestions of this at Siggraph but nothing consumer-ready.

I agree 100%, this is the killer app. My wife independently suggested this idea after buying some clothes online that technically were the right size but didnt provide a good fit for her body. I told her that it was a very difficult problem from a computer science perspective. Have you got any links (to Siggraph or others) which have taken a look at this problem in detail?

Aside from the obvious technical challenges, I did wonder how a site like this would handle some of the delicate issues around uploading pictures and/or 3D models of a woman's figure. How would this work? Would women be standing in their underwear in front of a webcam and rotating the body as prompted? Even if the collected data is a single texture or point cloud, it still could be considered a little...invasive? Not to mention the privacy issues.

s_henry_paulson• 14 years ago

>It would be a hell of a lot smoother if you would print out a shipping label from 99dresses which has the buyers address etc on it. The cost comes out of the buyers button credits etc..

And how exactly do you propose the company profiting off their own buttons? (Items in a database they can create at will)

samstave6• 14 years ago

I thought users had to buy buttons for $1. That is what it said in the article...

But the article was poorly written, so I am not sure if I was missing something.

Eliezer• 14 years ago

But - if you create an infinitely large closet, it will collapse into a black hole of infinite mass and pull the rest of the universe in on itself! Not only that, if you start with a completely full closet with numbered hangers and reach in for a shirt, all of the shirts will move forward one place, creating a new empty hanger even though the closet contains the same number of shirts and hangers! Which violates Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signaling -

What? They're trying to create a large finite closet? The universe is in no danger? Curse you, TechCrunch! Fooled again!

natasham25• 14 years ago

Ok, so I went to the site expecting to get some "buttons" as part of onboarding new users, but instead I started out with 0 buttons and no idea how to get these buttons to actually get a dress. After digging around the FAQ section, it says that I can purchase the buttons for $1 or upload my own dress. I don't have a dress to upload, and buying a used dress for $40 - $110 just doesn't make sense - I can buy a brand new dress for that much. Also, even if I were to upload a dress, I wouldn't get any "buttons" until I actually sell the dress. Not coming back to this site again.

Dove2• 14 years ago

I agree! Those prices are nuts. The really weird thing about them is the range -- I see everything from 4 buttons to 160! That makes me really wonder how they're set.

Even with the variation, the bulk of them appear to be $40 or more, which seems like a lot to me. If one is shopping used, pretty dresses can be had for under $10 at a thrift store. It makes no sense to pay so much for a dress I can't even try on first!

seanalltogether• 14 years ago

That's the problem with virtual currency like this, you have to create controls to address inflation and deflation, and certain groups of people always benefit from this.

I remember another site based around trading books that used a virtual currency, and a lot of the early adopters got free credits to help seed the system, while the late adopters could only get credits by sending books. It created an imbalance from the beginning.

Another issue is dealing with hoarders and retailers, which can damage the button system by putting too much virtual currency into the hands of only a few.

egypturnash• 14 years ago

My initial reaction is "I already have an infinite closet, it's called the thrift store four blocks away whose buyer's tastes match mine". On the other hand if I lived in the burbs, this might be more appealing.

It also reminds me that I've been meaning to clean out my closet, maybe I'll try putting whatever the thrift store won't take up here.

jlindenbaum• 14 years ago

Sharing this with the girlfriend. Go go brownie points. She loves new clothes and has tonnes. What a fantastic idea!

nullflux• 14 years ago

I am afraid of how this will actually turn out. I think the biggest problem is going to be sorting the signal to noise ratio: women's fashion is ephemeral as well as seasonal. Items people want will be in perennially short supply, and items that fall "out" are going to jam up search results. How do they plan on keeping the most relevant content in stock? If they know, tell them how to get F21/Zara/H&M to do it as well, because they sell out of a lot of things quickly.

The user experience for this could get bad fast when a new user signs on to trade their month-old H&M+<insert expensive designer> collaboration and finds nothing but a bunch last summer's Forever 21 shirts with cheeky slogans. That doesn't look so good. It's like going to the video rental store ten years ago and having them say "Whoops, we're all out of that new release, but we've got a few copies of Groundhog Day!"

nicolethenerd• 14 years ago

"... Durkin decided to shut down the Australian site and give the US market a go — So she applied to Y Combinator, and got accepted. ..."

Doesn't it bother any of you that she abandoned her entire Australian userbase?

rodh257• 14 years ago

exactly what I came here to say.. What happened to all the virtual buttons? Whoever currently had a dress keeps it and those who didn't ended up with nothing? Or did she pay them out for their buttons?

'She says the site was so beloved in Australia that women still email her asking when it will be back up, “I’ve proven the model in Oz."' If it was proven in Australia, why shut it down? Did she need to shut it down for investors to take a look? Is there some YC criteria that wont let you have a successful product already?

marquis3• 14 years ago

She may not have been making a lot of money, and I'm sure she did the best she could for her customers (returned dresses or money). If it was her full-time job, Y-Combinator isn't going to work well for her if she has to also manage a company in Australia. I'm all for her giving it a good go in a bigger market and either a competitor will spring up in her place in Australia or she'll come back with better tools and support to her home country.

djb_hackernews2• 14 years ago

I started hacking on this idea a while ago but lost interest, and didn't really think I could execute being a male with no sense for what women want online or fashion. However, my idea was a bit different, and I hope 99dresses can read this and ponder it.

Basically, my killer feature was piggy backing on Facebook. Women love to upload photos, the photos are usually of them looking good in their dresses, the social network is already there to provide viral growth. So basically all a user would have to do is select from photos they've already uploaded, and describe the dress. Then their friends could see who has what dress available and see what it looked like actually being worn on a dress model they personally know.

My model really only worked with immediate friends, and was based on borrowing. Monetization I imagined would come from advertising shoes, accessories, and other dresses etc. But who knows, maybe women are willing to buy dresses from their friends?

Au_Lona3• 14 years ago

I had the same exact idea as you but unfortunately could not find the right technical co-founder. As some of the comments mentioned, most technical males do not get very excited when it comes to fashion :)

I think it can still be done though, so the best of luck to Nikki and all the other sites that are trying to solve this problem. It is a big market and someone is bound to find the right solution that will work for the masses.

djb_hackernews2• 14 years ago

Who are the others? Got any links? Maybe we should talk.

astrofinch3• 14 years ago

The brick-and-mortar version of this business, clothing exchange stores, have lower transaction costs because they don't have to deal with shipping and also let customers try clothing on before buying it.

It's still a good business though, because an online store can have a bigger selection and serve people in areas without exchange stores.

mildweed• 14 years ago

BuyMyCloset.com

lien• 14 years ago

I really love this, but I think paying for shipping is the one problem you will have to solve. Shipping costs at minimum $15. Maybe could focus on listing designer clothes, hard-to-get items first, and then once you get a sizable user base you could negotiate a shipping rate for your users

nazgulnarsil• 14 years ago

Immediately compelling and fills an obvious need. Really liking this one and hope it succeeds.

angryasian• 14 years ago

I don't understand why someone would use this system over ebay.

gosub• 14 years ago

I would like to suggest an algorithmic alternative to the "buttons" virtual currency for the assignment of the dresses. It may not be monetizable in the same way, but it could be interesting none the less.

Let's say every user of the system has karma points. Karma points cannot be bought with real money. They are gained mostly putting unused dresses in the system, but also reddit-style, via comments, reviews, helping people and generally being a good citizen of the community.

1) Let every user list the dresses they would like in order of preference.

2) Suppose that every dress has a list of favourite users, based on karma.

3) Assign a dress via Gale-Shapley algorithm[1] or a variation, generally solving the stable marriage problem.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem

amilanez4• 14 years ago

I prefer eBay for two reasons: (1) Selling. eBay gives me cash (minus fee). Buttons only have value if there's a dress I want. (2) Buying. Lots more inventory to choose from, both high end and low.

tlrobinson• 14 years ago

My favorite line from this demo day: "I've created crack for women"

onan_barbarian• 14 years ago

It's hard to see how the linked TechCrunch article and this article:

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/cash-flow/99dresses-shuts-dow...

... can both possibly refer to the same company. At the very least, the prior shut-down of 99dresses has been given a quite a thick layer of spin.

99Dresses (YC W12) wants to give women an infinite closet

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