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Shopping by Color

10 Nov 2003 by Jason Fried

So, J.Crew now lets you shop by color. For example, here are brown or grey or green sweaters. I’ve noticed that most large thrift stores (or at least the ones I’ve been to in Chicago) organize their merchandise by kind first (jackets, pants, shirts) and then color. It’s really useful to see 100+ft racks of clothes organized by color. You like browns? Then go to the brown section and start your search there. I’ve always found it a natural way to shop. I recognize that it’s probably not the best way to merchandise in upscale, smaller physical store environments, but I wonder why it’s taken so long for a major retailer to make it easy to shop by color online (where physical space limitations don’t exist). Or have I missed this feature elsewhere?

28 comments so far (Post a Comment)

10 Nov 2003 | Benjy said...

Another color-related merchandising oversight is the lack of color listed on most labels. As somebody who is partially colorblind, there are times that I have difficulty distinguishing among some of the colors--particularly the fall browns, deep reds, greens, etc. My first instinct is to check the price tag to decipher the color, but often it is either not listed at all or is listed as a number code. If I can't figure out for certain which color it is, I won't buy it because I'm not going to embarass myself by asking somebody. I'll find something similar elsehwere, so it's their loss.

And on a related point, why do clothing companies pick names for colors which have no reference to the actual color? Anybody know what color hybrid is without looking?

10 Nov 2003 | Darrel said...

I'm still waiting for Garanimals for adults.

10 Nov 2003 | Chris from Scottsdale said...

Wow, the post about being color blind is huge. Imagine if a big-name clothing outlet became color-blind friendly and posted info like this on everything. The buzz you'd generate among a population of people could be incredible.

10 Nov 2003 | Ben from Chicago said...

Shopping by color is quite common in Paris (Europe?). Younger brother bought me a shirt while living in Versailles, and claims shopping this way is much better.

10 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Seems like there are 2 user groups (with multiple sub-groups to be sure) to support here...

1) Task-oriented. "It's cold and I need a new sweater."

2) Feeling-oriented. "It's fall and time for browns, oranges, and reds, or other such fashion trend."

Supporting task-oriented buyers seems like it would be easier to manage, but I suppose part of the customer experience (for some) is going to a place that keeps up with the trends.

I fall into category 1. And I do need a new sweater.

10 Nov 2003 | Dr_God (fka Tibloto) said...

I'd rather not shop by either kind or color. My choice would be size. This would instantly filter out the vast majority of clothes that just get in your way. It would be so nice to just walk to the "Large" section, and know that whatever I'm looking at would fit. (This is in the theoretical world where I am a size large in every brand, of course.) No more flipping through piles of smalls and XXLs on the sale racks.

This is mostly a solution for physical retail stores, not online. Online shopping is where the shopping by color thing comes in handy.

10 Nov 2003 | Peter-dash-flash said...

Browse by color:
http://www.istockpro.com/browse.php

Pretty cool.

10 Nov 2003 | peterme said...

It's about time someone exposed the color facet in the browse path, and not just on a product page.

J Crew's implementation is frustrating, though, since it seems limited to sweaters.

In our workshops, we have people think up how to classify/organize/categorize a kitchen appliances website. One of the things that people always come up with is allowing people to look at all kitchen products by color. This resonates with my user testing watching, where people are always looking for "stainless steel."

I think the reason it's not being done online is that it's not the way we do it 'in-stores.' Website stores, particularly for catalog-based stores like J Crew, are still run by the "merchants" -- people who have been exalted as Knowing How People Buy. And while they might understand how people by in a physical store, they often don't know how they buy online. But no one questions their wisdom, and so you get the same old-same old.

Since we know "color" is a facet already in the database, it would be dumb simple to expose it in a browse path -- websites just have to bother to do so.

( Sears.com does let you use color as a filter, but only after you've chosen a specific kind of product. Such as a top-freezer refrigerator. (We'll see if Broadvision lets that link work.)

10 Nov 2003 | megnut said...

Actually, the by-size filtering seems much easier to do online than in a store. What I'd like to be able to apply is a series of filters, first only show me by size (where I can put in multiples like "s", "2", 4", "xs", etc.). Then from that group, only return what's in stock. There's nothing worse than seeing something I can't get (though obviously give me the option to see "all" since maybe I don't need my new sweater for another month). Then once I've got "my clothes", let me navigate by color, type of clothing, season, sale, price, etc. That would be handy. Oh, and of course, let me save those preferences so when I return to Banana or J. Crew, I don't have to go entering my size info all again.

10 Nov 2003 | Trei Brundrett said...

We built a Browse By Color feature into the Westpoint Stevens website. Not a true retailer site since it lacks ecommerce functionality, but both finding products by color and viewing available product colors was a priority set by the client for designing the interface and backend. Based on raw traffic stats over 20% of the visitors browsed Westpoint Stevens products by color. And the 'Browse By Color' link was the first choice of 5% of visitors. Unfortunately I have no stats on how many people agreed with the naming of the colors. Of course there is no 'hybrid' in the Westpoint Stevens color universe.

10 Nov 2003 | JF said...

Bluefly lets you filter by size. Unfortunately their URLs are a mess so I can't send you to a page where you can see this in action, but if you navigate to a product category where size would matter (sweaters, for example), you'll eventually see a pulldown that says "search for my size."

10 Nov 2003 | Trei Brundrett said...

Hmm, previewing my post seems to have mangled the URL. Once again..... Browse By Color

10 Nov 2003 | Mike said...

Bluefly also filters by color, its a great site too... thanks JF!

10 Nov 2003 | Graham Hicks said...

I think part of the reason thrift stores sort by color is the nature of their inventory. A thrift store will have (generally) just one of each item, making the ranibow t-shirt rack a much more impressive sight.

What's really weird is that I bought a J.Crew sweater just yesterday (and I'm wearing it now) and I had trouble deciding whether to get the blue one or the brown one. eeerie.

10 Nov 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

Filtering by size is very important for some of us. I'm tall and wear size 14 shoes, and have wasted a lot of time looking at shoes that turn out to be available only up to size 13.

REI has, for years, allowed you to filter by size when searching their site for clothing or footwear, and it's a godsend. I really wish more apparel sites had that feature.

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24 Nov 2003 | Gesundheit said...

I think ist like everywhere in the nature. First is the size (strongest) and then the color. See Goethe
Bye Gesundheit

12 Dec 2003 | Todd said...

In case anyone is wondering, the Beverly Hills Pimps n Hos site does not let you browse by color.

;)

Comments on this post are closed

 
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