The updated clothing rental program will give customers a chance to subscribe for $89 a month — as opposed to $139 (the price on the plan rolled out about a year ago) — and will give them access to four items of women’s fashion, excluding some designers.
According to CEO and Co-Founder, Jennifer Hyman, the new plan aims to draw in more price-sensitive shoppers outside the site’s normal base of affluent professionals who make up most of Rent the Runway’s existing subscribers.
“It’s unrealistic to assume that at a price point of over $100 a month that you’re ever going to touch people who are making less than $100,000 a year,” she said.
We’d love to be your preferred source for news.
Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!
The four pieces in the monthly haul can include dresses, coats or handbags, from labels such as Tory Burch, Vince and Diane von Furstenberg.
But will customers — en masse — want to rent clothes instead of buy them?
Advertisement: Scroll to Continue
“Getting people to change their behavior is difficult,” said David Bell, a marketing professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
The math people do in a renting vs. buying situation, he noted, is hard to quantify, as is the degree to which people will feel uncomfortable wearing a pre-worn dress.
Subscriptions now make up one-third of Rent the Runway’s retail revenue; one-time fashion rentals are the rest of its business. Subscription 2.0 offers 200 women’s fashion brands. The original program, of course, remains on offer, which gives shoppers access to high-end labels like Oscar de la Renta and unlimited exchanges throughout the month; the service will increase from three retail items at a time to four, bumping the cost to $159 per month for new customers.
Under both plans, more women’s fashion items can be rented for an additional charge.
Add as Preferred Source
