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FORTUNE.COM // NOVEMBER 2019
IN JUST EIGHT YEARS, online retailer
Stitch Fix has created a flourishing
business. More than 3.2 million shoppers use
its service annually to buy merchandise from
jeans to wool sweaters to bracelets.
Unlike with conventional online retailers,
customers subscribe to Stitch Fix to receive
boxes of apparel and accessories, or “fixes,” as
often as they want. When signing up, clients
answer a long list of questions about the kind of
clothes they like and their body type—informa-
tion that the company’s algorithms and human
stylists use to choose which items to send.
Customers keep and pay for what they like, and
send the rest back.
Now Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake is lay-
STITCH FIX
THINKS OUTSIDE
THE BOX
TECH
The personal shopping service is focusing on
data crunching in a quest for continued
growth—and to counter rivals like Amazon.
By Phil Wahba
Stitch Fix’s algo-
rithm highlights
products based on
customers’ taste—
blue for items
they’ll probably
like; red for items
they’ll dislike.
