Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

Most of us don’t stay awake at night thinking about dressing rooms, but I do.  It’s not because I have a fetish for dressing rooms or anything – I just don’t like what stores have done to them, and need to point some things out.

Many stores do not realize just how valuable customer perception is at the dressing room level.  The dressing room is not just a place to try on clothing.  It is an area that shoppers use for privacy, as well as a momentary serene oasis to get away from the madness in a mall.  This can be understood better if you look at the way a hotel operates, which also is supposed to provide you with an “oasis”.  If you checked into a small hotel room, which had things thrown all over the place, inadequate lighting, and a pesky attendant constantly checking your door, how comfortable would you feel?

What, you say? “This is different. You are paying to stay at the hotel.” Well, I have news for you.  You are paying to be in the dressing room at your clothing store as well.  The prices you are paying for the clothes take everything into account – you are even paying for them to advertise to you.  So why shouldn’t you expect the same treatment?

Below is a list of conditions that can cause a customer to hate shopping at your clothing store.  Keep in mind, most of us aren’t always aware of why we are uncomfortable, we just don’t tend to come back.  This means that even surveys given out to shoppers asking for feedback won’t tap into all of the uncomfortable conditions they are experiencing – only a few.

Pins & Needles

Ever walk into a dressing room and get stuck with a needle or pin?  You aren’t the only one.  Many stores stock clothing (particularly dress shirts) that are packaged with pins.  The only way to try them on is to remove them…and when was the last time you saw a trash can in a dressing room?  These pins usually end up on the floor and cause cuts and pricks.  Shouldn’t shopping be safe?

Midget World

I take particular delight in the irony.  You walk into a store, even a big men’s store, and you want to try something on.  You end up struggling to get yourself and your intended try-ons into the miniature dressing room.  Some of these dressing rooms are as small as 3 feet by 5 feet…you have more room in a compact bathroom.  Looking at myself in a mirror that is 6 inches away from my face doesn’t really give me a “real life” view of how I look in clothing, now does it? If you want to impress me, make your dressing room large enough for me to walk a bit, stretch out those jeans.  Try 10 feet by 8 feet, at the very least.

Lighting The Way

A major purpose of the dressing room is to give you a realistic idea of what you look like in the clothing you are trying on.  It is this principle which makes it utterly important to have proper lighting in the dressing room.  Dressing rooms generally operate under one of two extremes; Either the light is so bright that all you see is glare and a glow around you, or the light is so dim that you feel depressed just walking into your “cage” and you aren’t able to see the real color of your clothing.  Lighting should be coming from at least two different sources, and should be as close to natural lighting as possible.  This will ensure that the colors and textures you see in the mirror will in fact appear close to the real way it will look out in the world when you wear it. 

Full Of Hot Air

Let’s face it – trying on clothing is a good form of exercise.  Does this fit? I guess I should try these pants with those shirts; I’ll try these sweaters with those jeans, and so on. It is perfectly normal to try on 10 to 15 items before you make a decision (especially if you are a female).  At around the fifth item, you start feeling a bit dizzy from the heat and stuffy air in the dressing room.  By the eighth item, you are sweating profusely and just can’t wait to get out of the “torture box”.  People will tolerate colder air in a shopping area better than they will tolerate heat.  Don’t be afraid to keep the temperature decent, and keep in mind that we are working out in there.

Have A Seat, I’ll Be Right In

Many dressing rooms don’t have seats, and that is a major issue.  How can you expect someone to stand for the entire time they are trying items on?  The dressing room is their only opportunity to sit down for a few minutes and enjoy looking at themselves in mirror.  That’s human nature, there’s no point in denying it.  So why not spring a few extra bucks and give us something more impressive than a “park bench” to sit on while we try on clothing?

Social Shopping

Ever gone shopping with a female?  Odds are, you have.  Odds are also that you need to stand around waiting for her (sometimes for hours) while she obsessively picks at each item she is trying on.  And then, to top it all off, the dressing room area doesn’t even have a place for you to sit down and read something while you wait for the female to finish trying on everything in the store.  What’s that about?  The designers of these areas clearly don’t have any social lives or they would be making arcades, magazine racks, and TVs readily accessible. For one thing, it would keep us men occupied instead of shouting into the dressing room for our companion to speed things up.

True, very few fitting rooms have all of these problems, but most have at least a handful.  The issue here is the people making decisions on dressing room design are not thinking about the buying process – they are thinking about the bottom line.

My personal solution to this is similar to what many men do – I don’t waste my time trying items on.  I buy what looks like it might fit, and then I try it on in the comfort of my own home.  Whatever doesn’t look right, I return.

There you have it clothing stores – if you don’t build comfortable dressing rooms, we end up using our own homes instead!

Bookmark It