How This Online Lingerie Shop Is Letting Customers Try Before They Buy

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True Co. has thrived as an online-only lingerie company, but it had a hard-to-shake handicap: Many women want to try on a bra before they buy. The company didn’t want to bog itself down with brick-and-mortar stores, so it launched the Try-On Truck, currently fitting women on a coast-to-coast tour. “This is not a marketing campaign for us but a full retail experience with revenue goals and sales targets,” says CEO Michelle Lam. Customers make an appointment and fill out a questionnaire, so that when they arrive, a “fit therapist” is waiting with a personalized selection of products. And it works: The average order on the truck is much higher than it is online. Here’s how the shop rolls. 

1. The shop’s first roof was made of heavy wood, and it leaked. The architect redesigned it using movable, 20-pound panels made out of Sunbrella fabric. 

2. On the street-facing side of the truck, a checkerboard-like series of wall tiles lets in natural light, and gives passersby a tantalizing peek into the store and its products.

3. The truck is for custom fittings, not customer browsing, so all product is stored in a cascade of trays. “We designed a way for our bras to be easily accessed by our fit therapists in the middle of an appointment,” Lam says.

4. Two fitting rooms on each side are lit with four sets of LED bulbs, to provide a more natural (and flattering) light.

5. The shop is built on a 24-foot trailer, and can change based on customer flow: The center converts from a two-bench seating area to a two-counter checkout area, or a combo of each.

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This Lingerie Brand’s Fit Guide Is Innovative (& Pretty Inspiring, Too)

The Fit Guide currently features four women (that have four different bra sizes, ranging from a 32A to a 38D) and it will be continually updated with new women and, thus, a wider range of sizes. Of course, there are a slew of different breast shapes, so there’s plenty of variation even within a single cup-band combo. It’s still helpful (and could widen your bra-donning horizons) to see someone with roughly the same chest dimensions rocking, say, a sheer bralette if you’ve fastidiously avoided anything wireless forever. “With this guide, we wanted the experience of buying bras online to feel empowering and accessible,” Grant explained.

It sounds simple, but seeing someone with the same (or similar) cup size to you wearing a variety of styles — versus a professional model whose proportions might be drastically different than yours — could make a pretty big difference in the ever-evolving process of buying a bra online. Hopefully, more lingerie brands will take a page from Lively’s decidedly democratic approach to fit guidance.

“The idea of driving our open casting solely through our social media platforms came from the kind of engagement we were seeing there,” said Grant. “Our followers became brand lovers first, customers second, and we would receive inquiries daily from girls wanting to be a part of the brand in some capacity.”

That’s a pretty impressive amount of interest for a label that just debuted a little over one month ago. Check out a behind-the-scenes video of the Fit Guide, below.

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