When Sarah (Matos) Cincotta ’07 moved to Chicago in 2014 with her husband, Chris ’07, and their two young children, the former Finance major landed a position as head of styling and customer experience for online boutique Mac & Mia. The two-year-old company taps into the “curated box” phenomenon, which started with beauty products and now includes all manner of items. Here, the customers are busy, style-conscious parents who want quality clothes for tots sized up to 6T.
Making the Cut Our customers complete a style profile when they sign up. It’s very visual: “Do you like this look? Does this picture appeal to you?” From there, a stylist can see that they like a specific kind of look, and send pieces they think would appeal. We like to add surprises as well. We’ll send a piece outside the customer’s core style, but a fun piece they can try.
Selling Point I don’t have a ton of time to shop for my kids. But what they’re wearing and where it comes from is important for me. I still want to get quality clothing from emerging brands. That’s what Mac & Mia is giving to customers.
Fashion and Function We follow a lot of trends in fashion overall … something you’d buy for yourself, but in a mini version. This fall and winter season it was a lot of fringe, plaid and kind of an ode to the 1990s. Coming into spring and summer, it’s more bright prints. But we’re styling children, so choices are always a bit whimsical. And there are nuances with children’s clothing. We have clients whose children have sensory needs or are learning to crawl. So we consider these things when choosing items so the child will be comfortable. Our 25 stylists are trained on all the products. They educate customers on everything from the story behind the designer to how to care for the product.
Well Turned Out The box is the visual experience of our brand. When customers open it, we want it to be delightful in every way and it starts with fun packaging. Our customers will always see variety in their boxes and that the stylist is giving them what they want, combined with an element of surprise. They’re getting pieces to mix and match into different outfits, plus unique accessories that you won’t find at a big-box retailer.
Navigating a New Industry Mac & Mia is a new business operating in a new avenue for retail — the assisted-commerce industry. So a lot of the key performance indicators we’re creating ourselves. We don’t always have the answers and that’s part of the fun. We’re still figuring out what the future is going to look like.
From a Firm Foundation What I learned at Bentley as a Finance major serves as the foundation for all the analytics I do. When people hear that I work in kid’s fashion, they assume I play with tiny clothes all day. The truth is, I have my head in a spreadsheet for most of the day, and rely on data to drive my decisions.