Former SF stylist here. So I'm super new to this reddit community so I'm not sure what some of you already know and what you don't know, but I'm just here sharing a behind the scenes look for customers who are curious.
- We are forced to partner with an algorithm when styling you. There's currently a tiktok going around where a customer asks “Are stylists real”, and while technically yes, we are real, SF has built an automation system that we must use (we have no other option) when styling you. One of the facets of this system is a search engine that is very incoherent, and an algorithm that helps select your pieces in your preview, which we are unable to view or edit before it sends it to you. This automation is the reason why you'll sometimes get 10 sweaters in your preview when you live in Florida. There's been rumors that SF is only keeping stylists around to help better train the algorithm (which I believe, we have mandatory hours each week dedicated specifically to training it) and that their goal is to eventually rely on the algorithm to send you Fixes and get rid of us. They're just not quite able to do it yet because the algorithm is still pretty new and incoherent. So because it's not a human, it also can't yet tell the difference between what you want and what you don't want. Which is why if you ask for “NO SWEATERS” you'll sometimes get a preview full of sweaters. We are also told not to let you know that we use this in our notes to you, and if anyone finds us talking about it in our notes, they have someone change what you wrote. I know this from personally going back to read notes I wrote where I went ahead and let customers know what was going on, and I looked back like “wait, I didn't write that.”
- We are given 6-11 minutes to style each client. Yes, you read that correctly. Minutes. To create most of your previews, we are given around 3 and a half minutes. This is because they force us to use the algorithm to select 5 pieces, and then we select 5 pieces. That's why some of your styles make sense in your preview and some of them don't. Once you're done with your preview, depending on how many items you select, we have between 6-7 minutes to pick the rest of your pieces, and about 3 to 4 minutes to write your note. If you don't select any pieces from your preview, we have about 10-12 minutes to figure it out and find 5 new items for you, and then 2-3 minutes to write your note. So when people say things like ” did you not read all of my feedback? Please look at all of my past purchases! Believe me, while most of us actually signed up for SF because we care about style and what we do, we soon found that it was nothing but a productivity obsessed rat race kind of a job. If we do not style you within the 11 minute time frame and write that note within 3-4 minutes, our numbers will slip and we will be reprimanded by our supervisiors. I personally reached a 98% when it came to how fast I was working. You may think “That's amazing!” No. Because I stayed at a 98% for weeks on end, I was signed up for several mandatory meetings with upper management where I had to be reprimanded and threatened to be “put on a plan” which is one of the steps before potentially getting fired, if my numbers did not increase and maintain at 100% at all times. I literally had two panic attacks about it because I really needed this job at the time. So when you're wondering why it sometimes just looks like your Fix was thrown together, it's probably because the stylist was panicking in a time crunch, and also had no new styles to send you, which brings me to my next point.
- SF hasn't given most stylists new inventory to send in over 3 years. I can say this because I've worked with the company for over 3 years, and I AM NOT EXAGGERATING when I say I am literally styling the same collection as my very first day at this company. It's to the point where I know the names of most of the pieces I'm sending by heart, because that's how little we have and how long we've had them. You may say “that's impossible, they have so many customers.” But think about it, haven't you basically been receiving the same floral blouses, floral dresses and skinny jeans?? It's to the point that I panicked when a client asks for something with no floral print or no skinny jeans because that's like 80% of our inventory. While they may send new units of the SAME items, they have not updated the actual designs of most of the items in years, making it impossible for most stylists to send you “unique, trendy” pieces because they basically make the same blouse, dress, and jeans in a different color or pattern and call it a day. The only thing left outside of that is left over athleisure styles from the quarantine era, which they bought too much of and are trying to force us to help get rid of. They even gaslight the employees by telling us that they did a poll and you as our customers. “do not like trends”……. which is quite odd because while I was employed at the company, most of my customers specifically asked me for trendier pieces.
- We cannot see your saved items, or items in your cart. When you leave comments saying “please look at what I saved, or check out what's already in my cart.” While we would love to, we can't see it. We can only really see your past purchases, profile notes, sizing, your Pinterest link (only if it's linked properly, a lot of customers links tend to be broken when you click on it), and your Fix Inspiration Board, but only styles on there that have been posted in the last 6 months. So, if you don't update your profile often, we really don't have much to go on, which is part of the reason your Fix doesn't always seem personalized.
- It is EXTREMELY difficult and rare to be able to send you specific items, even if you've seen them on social media or on an ad. What has always bothered me the most about this company, is their ability to shamelessly gaslight both customers and stylists and share skewed truths. I'll often see someone on instagram comment “need that dress!” and someone from the SF team will actually comment back “Send us your profile info and we'll let your stylist know!” Knowing damn well that it's virtually impossible for us to send that! If you ask most stylists, they'll tell you we've actually never seen most of the clothing on social media actually at Stitch Fix. It's because most of those clothes are available exclusively in the Freestyle shop. As a bandaid to their extremely limited and outdated inventory, they made a shop called Freestyle, where the customer can shop recommended items on their own. I always thought this was really stupid because customers come to SF to work with a Stylist, otherwise they'd just shop online like everyone else. But this is a publicly traded company, and it was probably easier financially to just come up with this, than to actually fix their inventory problem. But the problem with that is now people are looking at stylists crazy like “Why can't you send me the cute stuff I see in ads?” because it's ONLY in freestyle. So far, they refuse to make it available to us for fixes in the warehouses we shop for you from. Which brings me to my next point…
- We are not ignoring you. We can only send you what's available in ONE warehouse. This one is pretty simple. When we pick items for you, we're not actually walking around a luxurious department store, or a cute Stitch Fix branded boutique,lol. We are behind our computers, scrambling and scrolling through a few outdated styles from one warehouse. We are only allowed to work from one warehouse per client, and we don't get to choose that warehouse. It's automatically chosen for us by the algorithm. It usually selects whichever warehouse you live the closest to. So if you ask for a certain blouse or dress and that warehouse doesn't have it (which it rarely ever does lol) then we simply cannot send it. We are told not to tell you it wasn't available, but to say things like “I saw this super cute top instead!” When you get frustrated with the outdated styles and you don't keep as many of the pieces, then here come the supervisors in our emails “What can you do better as a stylist to make this experience better for them? If your numbers don't increase, we will have to put you on a performance plan! Your clients should definitely be keeping more items than this!”
- The company has a weird, cult like toxic positivity culture. If you've ever seen the LulaRoe Documentary, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Anytime that you want to speak respectfully but candidly on any of the issues I've listed, you WILL get reprimanded. You can either get told something like “Let's have a meeting to discuss why your words aren't aligning with the SF values” (I've been forced to participate in several of those for simply asking about when we'll be getting new inventory), or you could get it flipped on you like, “well let's take a look at your numbers and see why clients aren't keeping what you send.” HELLO. It's the TRASH ASS INVENTORY. But they don't want to hear anything negative. You are to use your creativity and “Stitch Fix Grit” to turn out results day in and day out, without questioning any of the systems, even if it negatively affects your numbers. If our keep rate from customers is anything less than a 3/5 , we are being warned. If our speed is anything less than a 100, we are being warned, And all of our stats are publicly shared so any one of our colleagues can check them out and see how we're doing, after a new system was put in place (right before the mass layoff, I guess they didn't need as many managers with the new system that automatically reprimands us) They also secretly install extensions on browsers to monitor their employees' behavior and speed as much as possible. (We have to use our own personal computers, NOT supplied by them, so they're installing surveillance materials on people's personal computers without them knowing.)
So why do we stay?? Simple. The economy is trash right now, most stylists need to keep that cash flow coming in to take care of ourselves until we find something better, many people have unique situations that require them to have to have a flexible work schedule, which is basically the only thing that SF has going for them, that and health benefits, which people desperately need right now.