Friday, October 07, 2011

Sizing Issues of Buying Clothes Online



Sizing is one of the difficulties for buying fashion clothes online. As different countries adopt different sizing system for their people, it is very difficult to communicate effectively in sizing. The LARGE size in asian countries may be equivalent to the MEDIUM or SMALL size in western countries. Even the sizes stated by different brands may also vary a bit due to different designs, manufacturing requirements and vanity sizing.


Vanity sizing has been one of the major sizing problems for women buying clothes online. According to Wikipedia, vanity sizing, also known as size inflation is used to refer to the phenomenon of ready-to-wear clothing of the same nominal size becoming larger over time. The purpose of clothing manufacturers in creating vanity sizing is commonly thought to satisfy buyers' wishes to appear thin and feel better about themselves. A survey by Which? has revealed that around 90% of women find the unpredictability caused by vanity sizing annoying especially when buying clothes online becoming part of our life.


To cope with this issue, we have developed our own measuring system by measuring the actual lying flat measurements of various parts of clothes and stated these information clearly with illustrations in our clothes listings. By comparing the measurements stated with their own well fitted clothes, customers can clearly know whether the clothes will fit them or not. This method has been proved to be effective for most of the time but there are still some discrepencies happened on and off as some customers may not have actually done the comparisons.


Sometimes, some common senses can also help a lot in finding the right size clothes for you by finding out the following information :


1. Is the design is loosely fit? Loose fit design will have a wider range of fitting. Your own idea of fitting also matters. You want to dress it in tightly fit or loosely fit?


2. Is the fabric stretchy? Same design can fit more people with stretchy fabric.


3. If the clothes is presented on a mannequin, ask the seller what size is the mannequin such that you will have a better idea.

After all, a unified sizing system will be very useful and helpful for the developement of garment industry selling online. To make this happen, the governments of different countries should work more closely to tackle the trading barrier problems between countries such that people all around the world can enjoy the best design and fitted clothes.