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The Crafty Crowd

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1



In previous posts I've been focusing on the group of people with size constraints for Zip Strip, and in those interviews I came across the idea of Zip Strip as an accessory to customize clothes for anyone. To explore this possibility I interviewed three people why customize their clothes and like adding smaller accessories and see if the Zip Strip would interest them.


Interview #1: Zahriah, Student
  • She liked to customize clothes, both for style and fitting. She especially liked personalization options that let her put her initials or name. Most of her customizing is done without a particular outfit in mind, but more to (literally) put her name on clothes and make them unique.
  • She liked the idea of bright colorful Zip Strips to add to normal jackets.
  • Thought that people would ask about it if they saw.
  • Buys most of her clothes on line and liked that I planned to sell on a website. 
  • She thought that the different options would be good (size/length, color, zipper type).
  • She does have problems with clothing sizes, but usually pants. her fixes fr that are to get pants that she can roll up the ankles of and to weak shoes with heals that change how she stands to "pick up slack" in her thighs ( I had no experience with how that works and respectfully took her word for it). She said that most sizing problems come from her height, 5' 3.
Interview #2: Anna, Student
  • Enjoyed customizing clothes, especially with bright colors.
  • Immediately brought up a bright pink Zip Stip and seemed to like that a lot.
  • She personalizes clothes as needed when making an outfit.
  • She shops for clothes online, and liked the website.
  • Belts and pins were her normal add on's to clothing.
  • Has trouble with sizes mostly because she shops online and can't try things on. She has found one brand that she exclusively orders pants from.
Interview #3: Rosa, Student
  • She did not customize clothes, but did use accessories as needed to add to outfits.
  • Liked the different colors for the Zip Strip and would use them to add color, but then realized she didn't have any jackets with zippers.
  • Shopped online for most clothes, and had trouble with not being able to try things on.

Conclusions:
I think this round of interviews showed that there is more interest in the Zip Strip as a style choice than I originally thought. Everyone I spoke to said that they could see it adding a fun element and getting people to ask you about it. All three people I spoke to also shopped online so if I can somehow bring attention to the website I should be able to sell to the market. I think that this group will not be seeking out the Zip Strip unless I make it trendy/visible to them somehow, and they will have to be convinced simply on cosmetic customization without the utility I had in mind for the original group I made Zip Strip for.

I also noticed that I have more success interviewing girls apparently, the guys did not seem to want to talk to me, had less to say, and didn't warm up as fast. It might just have been that I was speaking about clothing customization and men aren't always the best at using accessories. I have been trying to improve and take note of how I'm interviewing so these longer ones made me think about my success rate. I had a much higher amount of people that didn't want to talk or were too busy this time, but I think that was probably just that it was a larger time commitment. 

How would you see the Zip Strip as an accessory? Would you ask someone in a class with you for an explanation if you saw a strip of bright colors or patterns in the center of their jacket? Is a line of random color in a hoodie tacky or fun?

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