Digital Sizing Battles #1: MatchesFashion

Welcome to our new series of Digital Sizing Battles! Each article will deep dive into one of the top fashion sites and rank how their ding in terms of providing a digital sizing experience to their customers. Want us to cover your brand? Reach out to us and we’d be happy to add it to the list! Got feedback? We’d be happy to hear from you 🙂

Have you ever purchased an item from a clothing store online and waited a few days or even weeks to receive it in the mail just to find out that the size isn’t right? As a consumer, I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling. As an e-commerce, brand, or digital manager – this is the one thing you’re trying to spare your customers from.

There are many fashion brands with a prominent e-commerce presence and digital sizing experiences that just don’t correspond to the needs of their customers. In order to provide a top-notch digital sizing experience, retailers need to be sure they are taking all the possible steps to help their customers find the right size. This starts with listing accurate measurements and specs of the garments so shoppers can accurately find what fits them best and also ideally enabling a virtual fitting experience or at least a size calculator. Once consumers know they’re getting the right size up front, they’ll have more confidence in purchasing anything from the store because they know there’s a high chance the item would actually fit them once it’s received.

At Sizer, we specialize in helping brands help their customers find the right size online. We thought it would be valuable for us to look into leading fashion e-commerce sites and evaluate their digital sizing experience. To do so, we created the ultimate digital sizing experience checklist to assess and score such websites according to the level of information and tools they provide customers that assist in finding the right size online.

For this first article in the series of Digital Sizing Battles, we chose to focus on Matches Fashion – one of the fastest-growing fashion e-commerce marketplaces in the UK. We will review the digital sizing experience provided by the site according to the checklist with the hopes that you can also take examples of these do’s and don’ts to improve the digital sizing experience you provide for your own customers.

Company Background:

• Location: United Kingdom
• Monthly site visits: Approx. 4.4 Million
• Store revenue: 200M – 1B
• CEO: Nick Beighton

Matches Fashion is a multi-brand fashion retailer that offers the latest fashion from over 650 designer brands such as Prada, Gucci, Saint Laurent, and many more.

They aim to be the most personal luxury shopping experience in the world and a modern luxury shopping destination for the confident global fashion customer.

Matches Fashion is working to place responsible business practices at the heart of their company. They worked with sustainability consultancy Eco-Age to improve their performance ​​across their business and throughout their supply chains. 

Now let’s dig into their digital sizing experience:

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: Basic Size Guides

The size guide is easy to find because it’s placed right next to the size selection box and the measurements are available in both centimeters and inches.

Good: At first click on the size guide a window pops up with all of the information on the specific item, including exact model measurements and details about the fit of the item. The model measurements are important because they provide valuable context to the information provided by the size guide.

Could be better: Adding a fit finder quiz to the website would add a fun interactive way to guide the shopper in finding the correct size.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: Additional Information

Good: The size chart is very specific, it displays the exact measurements of the product.

Could be better: Adding international size conversions to the size chart would have been helpful for shoppers from a variety of different countries.

Good: Matches Fashion provides specific size charts per product type. Instead of the size guide being a general “one size fits all” chart, it’s tailored to each individual product type. There’s a specific size chart for tops, bottoms, jackets, and more.

Good: The measuring guide is conveniently placed underneath the model/product measurements and size guide. It includes the exact measurements of the garment in centimeters and inches. Providing a measuring guide is crucial as it assists shoppers in knowing exactly how they should be measuring their size when ordering an item online.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: Inclusivity

Good: Sizes from extra small to extra large are provided, providing inclusive sizing rather than an unrealistic “one size fits all” so that shoppers of all different shapes and sizes can purchase the item and feel comfortable with its size.

Good: The models in the images are of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Most shoppers appreciate model diversity, as it makes them feel more confident to purchase an item when they see many different people wearing it.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: Garment Specs

Good: Specifications about the fit of the garment – including details about the garment such as: fits true to size, stretches, close fit, and comfortable fit, allows the shopper to truly understand the feel of the item. It’s extremely helpful to have this information online because it’s one of the major losses that a shopper experiences by shopping online rather than in-store. This assists in understanding the fit of the item even further than just its size. For example, if the item is stretchy and the shopper is in between sizes, the shopper may be inclined to buy the smaller size.

Could be better: Including customer reviews would have helped the shopper receive even more information about the fit of the item by reading what all different kinds of shoppers had to say about the specific item.

Good: Details about the fabric composition of the item – this provides the shopper with more context for the actual fit of the item rather than just the size. For example, if the material is made of 100% cotton it may cause the shopper to purchase a size larger, as it’s known that cotton items usually shrink in the wash.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: Notifications

Good: If a shopper’s size is sold out, the Matches Fashion website offers an option to “Add to Wishlist”, which prompts the shopper to sign in/create an account and receive a notification when the specific size becomes available. This is a very effective practice in that it encourages shoppers to revisit the website and reminds them of the item they wanted. Without this, the shopper would most likely forget to check if the size became available and the sale would therefore be lost.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: What’s missing?

MatchesFashion is doing a reasonable job providing basic and even product specific size guides, as well as garment specs and a relatively nice range of sizes. However, they don’t do the extra work of showing different body type models or providing assisting tools such as a digital sizing tool, a 3D body measuring option, or even a size calculator. To make sure customers have everything they need to find the right size for them, these types of tools are essential.

MatchesFashion Digital Sizing: How They Rank?

Overall, MatchesFshion did quite well on our digital sizing battle!

They are ranked 6.5/10 points according to our ultimate digital sizing experience checklist. The website consists of some strong size guide practices. The size charts are very specific, clear, and detail-oriented, including model measurements and details about the fit and material of the item. The size charts are tailored to each individual product type which creates even more accuracy and likelihood for the shopper to choose their correct size. There is a range of different size options and the models in the images are of diverse backgrounds and sizes, which provides that overall inclusive and comfortable feel for the shopper.

A shopper might choose their correct size on the Matches Fashion website, but a few things could be added to create an even better shopping experience. Additions such as an interactive fit finder quiz, adding international size conversions for shoppers from different countries, and including customer reviews would be recommended. These practices may seem minor but are very effective in creating a more personalized shopping experience and ultimately getting the shopper to choose their correct size. Of course, to help shoppers get the ultimate digital sizing experience, the site can consider adding a digital sizing tool.