Why Clothing Subscription Boxes Are Basically Pointless

One struggle shared by just about every adult is buying clothes. It comes in different forms. Some folks are very fashion-forward but struggle with their clothing budget; others developed a personal style during four inebriated years of high school and have no clue how to actually dress as an adult. But whatever your specific clothing-related challenge is, there’s a subscription box that claims to solve it. The only problem? They really don’t work for a lot of people.

The pros of clothing subscription boxes

From Trunk Club to Stitch Fix, Wantable to Trendy Butler, these services all work in a similar way: You answer a detailed questionnaire regarding your taste, size, and desired style, supply some links to socials if applicable, and a personal shopper and/or stylist chooses a few items each month to ship to you, along with some notes on how to wear them or combine them with other pieces.

Simple! And in theory, it’s a great idea: Not everyone can afford the time to shop or the cost of a personal stylist. For a monthly fee and some up-front effort, you get a curated selection of clothes picked just for you. Sometimes there’s a fee for the stylist’s work, which is applied to your purchases if you keep the items and forfeited if you don’t, and the service usually claims there’s a baked-in discount for the clothes that guarantees you’re getting a deal. You always have the option of sending everything back, along with feedback designed to improve the selection next time.

The cons of clothing subscription boxes

Clothing subscription boxes can work for some people. They’re most effective for people who already have a sharp sense of fashion and an evolved personal style, because those are the people who will be able to give the company very specific, useful feedback to guide them in choosing items for their box. If you’re someone who is totally lost when it comes to picking out outfits and isn’t sure what their personal style is, the chances you continuously send back everything in the box (and forfeit those stylist fees, if any) is going to be high.

Even a professional personal shopper like Alison Gary struggled to make a subscription box work—she received one for a year, offering detailed feedback each time, and considered the whole experience a failure. If someone who does this for a living can’t make these boxes work, the rest of us are doomed to frustration.

The potential problems are pretty obvious once you think about it:

Costs. Obviously, these services cost more than just shopping for clothes—despite claims of discounts and bargains. That’s because you’re paying extra fees—the stylist fees and the subscription fee—on top of paying for the clothing. And you’re usually on a deadline to return those clothes, and if you miss it, you’re stuck paying for them. And the markups can be startling—Gary received one blouse priced at $70 she was certain she could find elsewhere for less than $20. There are also time costs, because unless you keep everything sent to you, there will be an investment of time in packing everything up and arranging to send it back, not to mention more time spent filling out feedback forms and adjusting your profile to (hopefully) improve the selection next time. Impersonal touch. While there might be real human beings working to pick out clothes for you each month, increasingly this is the work of algorithms and artificial intelligence, with humans providing support and supervision (maybe). Choosing clothes is more than just massaging data points through an algorithm, however, and these services provide clothing that should work for you more often than clothing that does work for you. Plus, subscription boxes only work with a limited number of brands and partners, so you’re only going to see a limited range of pieces. Over-shopping. Not only do subscription boxes show up month after month whether you need clothes or not, they also don’t necessarily offer you the items you need. Even if you like the things you’re keeping from them, you may wind up buying even more in order to have the staples every wardrobe needs. There’s also an addictive aspect to these boxes, since you don’t know what’s in them until they arrive—that “reward uncertainty” is similar to the jolt of dopamine experienced by gamblers. No learning. One often-overlooked downside of relying on a subscription box to make you look stylish? You learn nothing from the experience. If you have no idea why the faceless algorithm picked out that coat or sweater for you based on the questions you answered, you’re not evolving toward knowing your own style and being able to shop for yourself in the same way doing the work yourself can be an education. Negative emotions. Clothing subscription boxes can take away your confidence and inspire feelings of guilt. Sometimes there’s guilt because you rejected all of the suggested items, sometimes there’s guilt because you kept something that you later decide you hate, or guilt because you spent more than you intended.

Some people love clothing subscriptions, of course, but they’re not for everyone. Unless you have a strong sense of style already, a clothing subscription won’t be a one-click solution for transforming your wardrobe—and it comes with a lot of downsides.