Why I co-founded Boon + Gable
The easiest way to shop for clothes
This is the story of why I co-founded Boon + Gable, which publicly launched today. It’s a story for anyone who feels frustrated when they shop for clothes — and for those of us who know there is a more efficient and enjoyable way.
I hate shopping!
I love buying new clothes. I love looking good. I love it when clothes fit my body. I love being comfortable. I love the feeling I get after I buy a new pair of shoes or jeans or a blazer. I love wearing new clothes — I just hate the physical act of shopping itself. It’s exhausting!
Currently, we have three options when we shop for clothes.
- We can go to the store.
- We can order online.
- We can get a box of clothes shipped to us.
We can go to the store
Shopping in stores is physically exhausting. Going store to store, hitting up all the sections and floors of the store. Either you get bombarded by sales associates, or you can’t find anyone to help you check in the back for your size, or call another store to have them ship you the red shirt instead of the blue one.
And, you don’t have access to your closet while you’re shopping, so you end up buying the same things you already own without realizing it. Or you end up buying nothing because you couldn’t find anything you liked. And you wasted all that time — and came home empty handed. Or worse yet, you come home with something that you don’t love and you’ll never wear just because you felt like you needed to buy something.
We can order online
Sure, it solves some of the problems of in-store shopping, but it raises other dilemmas like — “What size am I in this particular, cut, material, style?” “Does it run big or true to size?” “Is it supposed to look boxy or is it just not the right fit for me?”
We try to solve the fit problem by ordering 3 pairs of the same shoe and get it right in one order. But time and time again, it turns out that none of those sizes actually fit. We think, “somehow if they had a size between 9.5 and 9, that one would fit perfectly”, but in reality the shoe just doesn’t fit my foot right and I have to return them all.
Ugh, returns. I don’t have a doorman. And I don’t have a porch to leave my returns on for the mailman, so I have to go to the post office. It took me over a week to mail back my last online shopping disaster because of how inconvenient the return process was.
Finally, there is so much variety online. It’s exhausting to sift through endless websites and pages on the Internet just to find a new shirt or a new pair of pants. Bloomingdales.com has 1,058 pairs of jeans. Just jeans. That’s too much variety.
We can get a box of clothes shipped to us
Again, this solves some of the in-store shopping problems by giving us a more manageable selection of clothes, but I still end up shipping back most of the clothes and then stopping the service because my “stylist” doesn’t really know what I want or need and I don’t really know how to articulate it to her on a feedback form, so after a couple of boxes that just didn’t hit the mark, I call it a day.
That was the current state of shopping.
Until now.
Enter Boon + Gable
My team and I knew there had to be a better way, so after a couple of revisions, we landed on the current solution: Boon + Gable.
We said, “what if we started from scratch?”
What if we sent a stylist to your home? (Super convenient — you don’t have to go anywhere. Personal — a real person to give you style advice. And you’d have access to your closet to pair with your new clothes.)
What if she came with 20 items of clothes? (More options than a clothing-in-a-box service sends you, but not as daunting as a department store.)
What if the visit only lasted one hour? (That’s a manageable amount of time to dedicate to shopping. You could do a visit after your kids go to bed. It sure beats the 4 hour Saturday afternoon mall trips).
What if…?
So we tested it. And it worked!
Men and women loved how easy it was (they didn’t have to go anywhere) and how they were being introduced to new brands and styles that they would have never picked out for themselves and how amazing our stylists were (pairing clothes they had in their closet with the new clothes they brought over).
We’ve spent the last couple of months in a private beta and today we’re launching publicly in San Francisco and the Peninsula.
Our goal at Boon + Gable is to make shopping easier. Outsource your clothes shopping to someone who actually likes it so you can be more efficient with your time.
I’d love to have you try Boon + Gable to solve your shopping needs. And then we can talk afterwards.
As the CEO, I’ve personally called every user after their first visit to find out what the best part of the experience was for them, and to get their feedback on ways that we can continue to delight them.
If you’d like to see what is inspiring our stylists or what we are up to, follow us on Instagram, and if you want to get in touch with us to give us your honest feedback, email us at hello@boonandgable.com.
