What is the definition of value to you when shopping for plus size clothing?

Friday, May 29, 2009 by Doug Edwards
commitment=p-head _fckxhtmljob="1555" _fckhtmljob="null">
Good Day Everyone and Happy Summer, it finally arrived.

At a meeting the other day we were discussing the word value for our plus women customers. I do not think value has a different definition if you are a plus woman but there may be additional dimensions to providing good value.
Is it more then low prices or competitive prices? Is it about good quality products that look great every time you put them on? Is it about about having the size of the item you want to buy all the time? Is it about providing one to one service?
Personally I think it is the combination of them all but I would love to hear your thoughts and definition of value when shopping for plus fashions and what value elements persuades you to become loyal to a store or a brand? What value must we provide to make you an Addition Elle , MXM or a Penningtons brand advocate?

Here are some examples that I think demonstrates value or actually the lack of it from a real plus shopper. (I took these from a blog post) 

"You go to the mall and visit the one store that carries sizes more than 1X. You browse the racks and find a nice pink blouse you'd really love to buy, and they DO have plus sizes, but YOUR SIZE PINK BLOUSE IS MISSING. ARRGH!"

"Or, you might find a pretty black bra that you'd love to have, but they are out of the 42DD. Plus size clothing can be Pure Frustration."

"At first glance it looks like the big and beautiful store has a lot of items, but when you take into account that each item probably is displayed with 4-6 sizes, there really isn't that much in one store. Even the big chain stores like Target, Walmart and K-Mart really have a limited supply of plus size clothing. And most of it isn't very stylish."

The last example is far too common where product or services are advertised and when you get to the store the reality is that there is no substance to their committment to have the product assortment. 



 

 

Comments for What is the definition of value to you when shopping for plus size clothing?

Sunday, July 19, 2009 by Crystal:
I have a few comments about value. I shop a lot in the US at Torrid, and I find that a lot of their clothing has very little quality, but it's also not very expensive. The value of Torrid's clothing is in the design. They are geared toward younger plus sized women so everything they sell is super stylish and lots of it is very sexy. If Addition-Elle could take some notes from Torrid's book, BUT make the clothing have more quality, AE's sales would skyrocket. I don't buy a lot of tops at AE because they aren't long enough. A lot of plus sized women want their tops to hit them below mid-hip because usually they will ride up. The longer the top, the better. This is why I particularly loved the long-top trend that broke. So those are some of my suggestions: reach out to a younger crowd with MORE slection in your MXM line (seriously, copy Torrid's collections...they would sell like mad in Canada!), and make tops in longer. Also, stretch fabrics always win over 100% cotton with plus sized women...cotton stretches out over the day, losing its shape. Stretch fabrics do not lose their shape.

Leave a comment





Captcha