Clothing Subscription Boxes: Yes or No?

Cheyenne: Uh, thank you for joining us for this episode of what the finance, there are a few things we like to mention at the top of each episode.

Rachel: First, if you want to get in touch with us, you can email what_the_finance@protonmail.com or join the what the finance discord server.

Cheyenne: Second. It would mean a lot to us. If you could support our show through Patriots starting at $3 a month, you can get episode shout outs, access to topic polls, and get to listen to some pretty hilarious out to.

Rachel: And, third, as we seek to be a more inclusive show, we want to acknowledge that colonialism is an ongoing process and capitalism, which we regularly decry is part of this process. We are recording this episode on the ancestral land of the Dakota and Ojibwe people, and we recognize our sovereignty and express our gratitude at being here.

So are you ready to talk about closing subscription boxes? Yeah,

Cheyenne: yes. Yeah. I think I'm recalling correctly. This was the first morning episode we did. And so my brain was still not quite all that.

Rachel: Yeah. I think we did. Maybe I have to, I always have to check our trailer board to like, remember what we actually talked about it.

Show week. I think we did do one other, so inquiring minds want to know clothing, subscription boxes. Yes or no.

Cheyenne: I feel like as with everything also, With everything. Our answer is pretty much, it depends. And as long as you budget for it. Yeah,

Rachel: yeah, yeah. You, our listeners might notice that. I said again, and this is because we have previously recorded this and I lost the file, but I did have another thought about them.

Like one of my own, particularly vulnerable closed buying time. Has been when I was pregnant and I feel like there might actually be an, a special benefit to subscribing to those boxes when you are growing a life human in your body, because then if the clothes don't fit, you can just solve uncontrollably in the privacy of your own bedroom.

Instead of at the maternity store at the mall, where there might be. Many other people listening to you and then looking at you as you leave the store.

Uh, anyway, so that was a thought that I had in the, in the yes, category,

Cheyenne: like my positives on the clothing subscription boxes. We'll do, we'll do it pro con style. We never really do that. So we'll do what we can. Yeah. That seems like it was just gonna say, it seems like something fun and new and exciting.

Let's do it. So even when you're not growing a human, it can be really convenient to try on clothes, uh, in your own home when you would maybe not be otherwise comfortable to do so out in public. For whatever reason. I, there are many reasons for it. One of which for me is I don't like to be cold. Stores tend to be colder than my, my houses.

And so I don't want to get undressed to get redressed, to get on dressed again. Yeah, that's totally fair. Another piece of it is depending on which clothing subscription service you go through, you can usually pretty concisely is the word that's coming to mind. I don't know if that's the right word, but you can, you can be very specific about the type of clothing that you want or the type of fabrics that you want.

So for instance, if you already have a pretty robust casual wardrobe, but you need to build your, your business wardrobe, you can be very specific to them and tell them that's really all they should send. Or if you are trying to. Build your athletic wear or something, you know, like there are entire boxes just for that.

So you can get very specific. You can also be very specific about your sizing needs. So when you say like, I wear a size medium top, but a large bottom and the bottom has to be extra long or extra short, or, you know, those types of things, you can be very, very specific. And then again, with the types of things, I use myself as an example, a lot.

I am very specific to what types of textures I will wear. If it is uncomfortable in any way, if it's scratchy or too tight to the point where it feels like restricting, I will not wear it. And so that was something that I really did appreciate. It took a little bit for my quote unquote stylists to really understand what I meant when I said scratchy.

I'm used to that because my version of scratching and most other peoples are very different.

Rachel: Yeah.

Cheyenne: Um, we'll say

Rachel: to your point about, um, like getting specific types of boxes that can also make it way easier to stay in a budget, right? Because you're not in an environment that's designed to make, you want to buy things, even if you were not intending on buying.

Cheyenne: Fuck capitalism yet another pro. Yes. Um, which for those of you who have been listening for a while, know that my mother was on one of these episodes and now my mother regularly says, fuck capitalism.

Yeah.

Rachel: Denise. All right. Right.

Cheyenne: I agree about the budget piece. That's that's definitely. That is definitely a piece of it that I think that if you find the right fit for like that subscription box, that is that's, that's a great benefit with that said, well, we'll talk about the flip side of that when we talk about the not so awesome side of such subscription boxes, clothing, subscription, subscription boxes specifically, because we couldn't even just talk about like subscription boxes in general.

Way too many. We had to be very specific and just, you know, open the world of possibilities for us. We could talk about subscription boxes some other time. Oh my gosh. Think of the market research we would have to do for these.

Rachel: If anybody wants to sponsor us,

Cheyenne: right. Happily. Yeah. Just, just know that every time one of the cons will be fuck capitalism

as you're okay

with that.

Um, I had one other, one other pro that I was thinking of at the top of this, and I don't remember what it was now.

It will. Um,

Rachel: now. The con side. I remember discussing this previously, you would assume, I think based on what you're spending, but the quality of the clothes would be better and it's not. So that can be really

Cheyenne: frustrating. Definitely. I remembered the pro.

Um,

it was, it was just that sometimes, um, I don't know about anybody else, but in my household, returning items is actually a really difficult process for us because you have to find a box, print, a label, get set items, inbox, or packaging of whatever type put label on, then get it to drop off point it's it's a lot.

Right. All of the, all of the subscription boxes that we have had in our home have been really easy to return because the bag comes with it. The labels are already on it. You just put the stuff that you don't want in the bag, close it up, and then you either have to only get it just as far as the post office or schedule.

USBs pickup, which is super easy if you've never done now, not to say that that is always easy for everyone all the time, because there are definitely times that even that very simple process was difficult for us to do it is significantly easier than some other return options though.

Yes. Um,

so that was, that was the piece that I wanted to remember to, to mention.

I apologize. It's getting back to the cons. Yeah, you're good. You're good.

Um,

Rachel: but I feel like the, the time involved could also be a con, right? Like you get a box full of stuff, you try it all on with only like one thing.

Then it's the time involved and doing the repackaging and scheduling the pickup or, uh, you know, making it to the post office or whatever. Uh, and our time is valuable, so, yup. You know, in addition to the clothes falling apart, just as fast as they would, if you bought them in the store.

Cheyenne: Right. Right. Um, and we, the last time we did this and I'm actually a little bit thankful that we had to revisit this because, and I thought about this a little bit since I do think that we should do, um, an episode specifically on.

Clothing and sustainability because lumping it in also makes sense, but, but making it a follow up makes almost more sense to me just because there is so much to cover in that. Um, so I don't think I'll get into it as much as I did last time. And instead, just leave it at the clothing industry is not at all sustaining.

Yeah, and they're very well aware of it and they're doing nothing to change it. So it, it truly is like everything. When it comes to sustainability, it is on consumers to kind of drive that change a little bit, which sucks because. It shouldn't be, but it is. And there's a whole lot of other stuff that goes into the sustainability of clothing, but,

well,

Rachel: yeah, it

Cheyenne: is.

So I think that the, the, the other piece that I want to talk about that I would consider to be a pretty. Con is sometimes, and it depends on the company you go through. And now I would say that a lot of the larger name companies are pretty good about being a little bit more customer oriented. One of the ones that I tried not as customer focused, um, and canceling was a little bit more difficult than it needed.

And very frustrating and like incredibly so, um, as always, we don't, we don't name products or services that we do not fully support. So I won't name it here, but if you are curious about which one I'm talking about and want to know more, feel free to tweet us or chat with us on discord, I will happily tell you in either of those places.

Any other way, you know, to get ahold of us, but the big ones, those are, we are most active on our discord. Yes, highly recommend joining. We are hilarious and we have some really awesome conversations. Um, and that's a supportive

Rachel: group. It is people

Cheyenne: which is great. It really is. Yeah. So I was in another one of the cons of clothing and subscription by.

Can be that once it gets to a point where, again, it depends on which one you go with. Once your stylist gets to know you pretty well, they send you things. They know that you're going to like, which was great, but it's, I wish that's like, there was a little bit more of a focus on like, when they sent you, like, even in one box, like if you could make more than one outfit with the like four or five items, But they send you, I feel like what ends up happening is you have like one top that will go with one of the bottoms that they send you.

And then maybe two others that match. But there's not a lot of mix and match going on in there. And that maybe that doesn't bother anybody else. Maybe that's just me struggled with throw together outfits sometimes. So maybe that's just a me thing. The

Rachel: challenge is a salad. So marketing idea, if you want to put together.

A subscription box. That's designed around like a capsule wardrobe. I think it's fair to say that both of us would subscribe

Cheyenne: to your box. It's true. You would, you would have, uh, two people to try it out. If you take away one thing that I have to like factor into my day, like one decision I have to make in my day.

Yeah. I would be willing to, I'd be willing to give that a shot.

Rachel: All right. So yeah, in our last couple of minutes

here, Like

we said at the outset clothing, subscription boxes, morally neutral if you budget for them, but there are some things to think about when you're determining whether it's actually worth your money or not.

Cheyenne: Yeah, definitely. Um, and as usual, follow us on Twitter and join our discord server where we are for sure the most are active. Without a doubt and somewhere that we're starting to put more updates is Patrion. I have typed up a couple, one went live last week. I think another one's going to go live in the next couple of days where we're putting the updates out there.

And I want to, I wanted to mention that also because you don't have to pay to get the updates. Like I set them to go. Um, public a couple of days after the early access. So if you don't want to pay, you don't have to, you can still get all the great updates. You won't get the bloopers though. Sorry.

It's true. Say some ridiculous shit.

And I swear just as much as you think I do.

Rachel: And if you think that seems like grateful, I'm sweating more lately, if your observation is

correct,

Cheyenne: is that on purpose?

Rachel: I think I'm just getting increasingly frustrated with the state of the world we all are. And that is how, that is one of several ways that it does manifest in 90 days here.

Cheyenne: Yeah. Swear. It makes you feel better. Psychology has proven. That's where he makes me feel better. So .