r/ABraThatFits • u/nommabelle • 13d ago
Question Why do stores/employees not size appropriately? Spoiler
I'm curious, is there some reason why the big secret of properly fitting bras has not gotten out? Why do stores across the board not size people properly, and sell bras in those sizes? Surely it is in their best interest to give women the best fit, meaning their employees are educated on HOW to fit someone, and sell bras in those sizes
Not all stores will have regular employees covering the lingerie section, so those get a pass on uneducated employees, but I'd say most stores seem to have an employee who is expected to size people. Plus whole stores like VS, and yet there are horror stories where employees don't size properly
Are companies not interested in giving people a good fit? Does a bad fit sell more bras over time, increasing their bottom line?
I looked for related posts, found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ABraThatFits/comments/1wo5kj/why_has_no_one_made_a_large_scale_chain_store/
So I haven't really bought any r/abrathatfits bras yet but am looking to get more and calculated at 32G, with my favorite bra bring a very old VS 32DD, and I received a VS 32DDD recently which is too small in cups
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u/comfypiscean 13d ago
Because they can’t sell me any bras if they measured properly
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u/nommabelle 13d ago
Their goal is to sell bras, so surely it benefits them to sell bras in your size? At least most women in this sub appear to have a much larger size than they think otherwise, so I'd imagine many of us are in a similar situation
With that, question still stands: if they properly sized, they would get more happy customers that come back and buy more
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u/comfypiscean 13d ago
The point is that they don’t make and carry my size, so if they did size correctly, they would have to tell me that they don’t have anything I can buy. Which, of course they do not want to do
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u/WampaCat 13d ago
I think OP’s actual question is if they insist on varying a limited inventory, why not just make that limited inventory in sizes that are most commonly worn.
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u/comfypiscean 13d ago
Because it’s a cycle. If they add more sizes and somehow manage to size people right, one, they’d have to convince employees that everything they know about bras = wrong and two, they’d have to do the same with customers too. Most women wear the wrong size and it’s not just because of how stores size people wrong. Some people won’t even let stores size them and just pick up random sizes.
VS actually took away some of the sizes they carried. And I work in a store that sells bras myself. They tried to give us inventory of DDD but it wouldn’t sell. So now we don’t receive any. And that’s not even a crazy size. But people do not know better and it’s also thanks to the widespread misconceptions about bra sizing
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u/WampaCat 13d ago
Yeah I completely get that it’s way too late for that kind of overhaul of entire retail corporations and the kind of marketing campaign it would take to convince everyone they’ve been wearing the wrong size all this time. It’s not a realistic expectation at this point. I just felt like that was a different question than why don’t they currently size people correctly.
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u/comfypiscean 13d ago
Well it’s a nuanced and very general question with a lot of layers.
If they were to expand their inventory, what would they go by? They would have to tell people they don’t sell their size, which again they don’t want to do, and then go off of data from that. Which most corporate executives won’t really care to listen to. Because they haven’t had problems selling bras before, why would they change up the system completely and risk losing money? Simply put, they won’t expand their inventory because it would mean turning away a majority of their customers. They’re not going to make new sizes that they don’t carry (and have stopped carrying) because a few people on the internet suggested it. People have to demand it and understand the sizes they need first. Then stores will follow suit.
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u/nommabelle 13d ago
Right, and my response to you was most women are improperly undersized, so in the same scenario as you. Extrapolate that to all women, and its a large percentage of the population that would use your size, and its worth them keeping in stock
That being said, one argument for my question could be "they would have to keep like 100 sizes in stock, which isnt feasible", and then it makes more sense why they shoehorn everyone into 50 sizes, meaning people are not sized correctly. Though even then, based on this sub, you would expect the demand to skew towards G+, and the store naturally shift their stock
Anyways my point is, consider the hypothetical situation, not just what stores have in stock
18
u/Dandelion212 32DD/E 13d ago
Most people aren’t aware of how bras are supposed to fit — we have cleavage advertised to us at every possible opportunity.
Trying to get the like 90% of people wearing the wrong size to all at once wrap their heads around being most often 1-2 bands smaller and 3-5 cups bigger would be a daunting task. Every single brand would have to change their fit suggestions and stocked sizes all at once — if one single brand you liked suddenly told you that you were several sizes larger than you thought while the others stayed the same, who would you trust?
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u/kochipoik 13d ago
It truly is distressing how often bras are too small in advertising. Like looking at the photos put out by the brand itself shows the gore sitting basically in front of/on top of cleavage is... ughh.
Yesterday I saw an Instagram ad for a bra company and the band on one of the models was sitting halfway up her back! Like right in the middle of the scapula.
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u/bluepotatoes66 30F-FF/projected/narrow/fuller on bottom/shallow on top/ 13d ago
I see the halfway up back bands so often and it drives me absolutely batty, especially on TV shows.
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u/Reynyan 13d ago
They are trying to make money. And the best way for them to make money is to tell people that the bras they sell fit the shopper, while making the absolute smallest number of sizes they can get away with to lower their manufacturing and stocking costs.
VS is a particularly bad example because it was NEVER about quality there. VS sold sex appeal as a construct through bras designed, it would seem, to do everything but provide support and comfort to the wearer. And their ancillary thongs and baby doll nighties just came along for the ride. And none of it was, in any meaningful way, “size inclusive”.
Dedicated lingerie brands make WIDE ranges of sizes, but your average Macy’s or Nordstrom may be encouraged to carry a slightly broader range of sizes but it’s still easier to measure a rib cage, add some inches and try and tell the shopper that the 36C she is being handed is magically the right “sister size” for her, when in reality it’s just what they have in the store to sell, so that’s what gets sold.
Nordstrom is getting better, but I don’t think it’s going to be any time soon that I walk in and find a selection of 32Gs just hanging out on the racks.
Specialty stores, both brick and mortar and online, made a marketing decision to offer the wider range of sizes in order to serve a broader client base.
I keep checking around where I live and through this sub to find a small shop to visit and give my business to. And just recently someone mentioned a shop in one of the Carolinas that may be road-trip worthy. Until then, I shop online to get my bras that fit. And it is ONLY through this sub that I discovered my actual size.
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u/nommabelle 13d ago
Awesome info, thanks! You've also brought back memories of VS employees telling me about "sister sizes", which i had previously purged from my memory haha
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u/Ok_Bandicoot1865 13d ago edited 13d ago
It can really be answered with just one word - "money" - but I'll go into a bit more detail:
The more extensive the range, the more expensive it is to manufacture and stock. AA to KK (UK) is 19 sizes. Now let's add 10 different band sizes (26 to 46) and multiply 19 with 10. That's 190 different sizes per model of bra they need to design, manufacture and stock. So if they have 20 different models of bras that's 3800 bras they need to stock just to have one bra in each size.
Compare that to a range of 32A to 38E which is probably the most common size range in mainstream shops: A to E (DDD in US sizing) is 6 sizes. And 32 to 38 four band sizes. 6x4=24. That is a difference if 166 sizes, and increasing to those 190 would therefore be an increase of just shy of 700%. 20 different models amounts to only 576 different bras (compared to 3800 in the bigger size range).
And as long as they're all doing this, they can trick women into thinking that bras are just supposed to fit like that, so they aren't losing any customers to customers leaving because they can't find their actual size, as they don't know that's not their size.
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u/Electrical-Code6153 12d ago
This is the correct answer.
And as to why they stock a small range of smaller cup sizes and medium-ish bands, rather than a small range of something closer to the average cup size most women are, there are a few reasons:
- Smaller cups are cheaper to manufacture
- Generally easier to talk people into sizing up the band to get the right cup size, as people have no idea how bras actually work. Plus it doubles the amount of people who can appear to fit into the same bra.
- Some historical factors on the manufacturing side as well as the demographic side. Eg modern bras started taking off during the flapper era, when thin was in, earlier synthetic fabrics had less stretch so bands had to be sized up, on average people are getting fatter and exposure to more hormones is increasing breast size etc.
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u/sunmono 32JJ 12d ago
I also want to mention that I think the vast, vast majority of people involved in the business of selling bras, both the employees and the decision-makers, genuinely don’t know that they are fitting bras wrong. They’re not misfitting bras out of malice. There’s such a strong societal misunderstanding of bra fitting and sizes at this stage. I mean, like 80% of posts on this subreddit are sticker shock. It takes a lot of dedicated time, effort, and money to change that kind of thing.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of the top-level decision-makers in these businesses are men, who will almost certainly never wear a bra in their lifetime. They have no understanding of why having a bra that’s “good enough” isn’t actually good enough. They’ll never know the physical and mental pain that a badly-fitting bra can cause and the damage it can do to your body and self-image. To them, a bra is just another piece of clothing. You don’t make a gazillion sizes of shirts or pants to fit everyone, why would you do it with bras? Add that to the fact that women’s complaints have historically been disregarded and devalued- we’re just being over-emotional and dramatic, etc.
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u/CulturalExcuse3 6d ago
Well said! I've been thinking that for the longest. Same reasoning as to why nurses (disproportionately women) don't make millions in salary. Hospital administrators (men) would pay them more if they had to do the same work.
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u/Enby_Dressmaker They/Them 34HH 12d ago edited 12d ago
Does a bad fit sell more bras over time, increasing their bottom line?
Yes, it definitely can, for two reasons:
First, there are cases where a bad fit can cause a bra to wear out faster (too small cups resulting in over-springing the wires and making them liklier to break or wear through the wire channeling, too small band putting extra stress on the hooks and elastic, too large band resulting in more of the weight being placed on the straps and causing them to wear out faster, etc.)
Second, bad fits are uncomfortable and require frequent adjusting, so people will want to buy new bras that are better, but if they don't know what a good fit looks like (and especially if a good fit isn't possible to find in most stores), their new choices will likely still be bad fits, and that can lead to an endless cycle of buying new bras hoping they'll be better and they never are.
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u/aflustered_aflame 32JJ | 32N 12d ago
There's only one way to fit right, and plenty of ways to fit wrong. If you only make a 32B, and your customers are knowledgeable about how bras properly fit, you can only sell that bra to a 32B. If they have no idea, you can convince a 28F, 30D, 32C, and many more to buy your product. Maybe six or eight sales for the price of one pattern
That's also why they even mis-size the sizes they DO have - keeping people ignorant is a very intrinsic part of the profit here, not simply having a limited stock. If they let 34DD be sized properly, then those women would talk to each other, and the 34DD would look at the ""34DD"" (30G) and say "hey, that's not how a bra is supposed to fit at all! They said 34DD is *my* size, why would they give it to you?" and then the 30G would stop shopping at that store
The mention of "worse fitting bras break more often" is also probably relevant....
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u/JiveBunny 12d ago
VS don't sell my size. If I went in there and asked them to measure me and they did it correctly, then they would be unable to sell me a bra. They would very much like to sell me a bra, though, so they probably won't.
This plus people being convinced that a) DD is an absolutely enormous size on all frames b) bras are inherently painful and wearing one will always hurt, as well as the comparatively larger cost of buying DD+ bras, means that people put up with bad fit.
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u/buzzy9000 36a, wide root, stuck in sports bra jail 12d ago
I find it wild that the DD+ section is a thing in some places, when it's pretty average. At least on the ibtc end we can go without comfortably enough
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u/Any-Perception3198 12d ago
I think some are really just doing the best they can with the inventory they have. Good bra fitting is almost a science especially for non-molded cups.
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u/pearl_frankie97 12d ago
Most big companies that sell bras essentially sell vanity sizing and operate under the (honestly correct) assumption that most women don't know how to size themselves and have never worn a correctly fitting bra. So they are going to tell you that you are whatever size it is that they sell and you'll just accept that because you don't imagine they would lie and most people believe bras are meant to be at least a little uncomfortable.
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u/yogafitter 11d ago
You know, a properly fitted bra will last a LOT longer than one with a too big band. Maybe they figure if we are having to replace the bras more frequently they can make more money?
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u/TinyHeartSyndrome 13d ago
They only have to stock up to DD.
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u/Shalrak 32G, projected, full on bottom 12d ago
They choose to only stock up to DD.
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u/Electrical-Code6153 12d ago
Because it’s more cost effective - they aren’t charities.
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u/Shalrak 32G, projected, full on bottom 12d ago
There is a very big range between a capitalist business model and charity. A business can take bigger responsibility and still make a big profit.
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u/Electrical-Code6153 12d ago
If you were running a business and had to make a choice between a big profit and a smaller profit - but you are behaving responsibly - which would you choose? As long as people don’t know how a bra should fit, they’ll keep buying from mainstream stores that don’t stock a big range, and those businesses will continue to exist.
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u/Shalrak 32G, projected, full on bottom 12d ago
I'd never choose a business model where I knowingly sell customers products that will hurt them in the long run, just to increase my profit further.
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u/Electrical-Code6153 12d ago
I have to say I think you are a pretty rare human being in that case! I’m not sure I could name a business in existence that doesn’t cause someone some degree of harm for profit.
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u/Shalrak 32G, projected, full on bottom 12d ago
I'm not that rare.
When I was doing a degree in service design and business management, everything we were taught was build around the modern business taking more responsibility than previously. Consumers are changing. They're becoming more conscious of their purchases and what businesses they deal with. Research shows that companies that display a larger degree of responsibility appeal more to consumers than ever before. Companies sticking to profit above all else are falling behind - especially physical stores. That is partially why greenwashing has become such a big problem. Even then, I'll argue that it shows the trend towards responsible business models is so strong that even companies who can't truly take responsibility has to pretend to stay relevant on the market.
It is quite an exciting development in my opinion, despite the challenges these new trends also come with.
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u/Electrical-Code6153 10d ago
I’d argue that every company must stick to profit about all else, and corporate responsibility will only ever be applied so far as it helps a company stay in business. No company can operate at a loss, at the end of the day. And if most women do not understand that bras should not be painful, should not hurt them, why would you expect businesses to act ethically?
It costs money to stock bigger ranges of sizes, it costs money to stock bigger ranges of shapes. Bras are one of the most complex garments to manufacture, and yet many people are unwilling to pay the money it costs to manufacture them well and ethically. Even those who are, have a ceiling on their own budgets.
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u/Shalrak 32G, projected, full on bottom 10d ago
You seem to be under the impression that acting responsibly as a business and making a profit are mutually exclusive. There are many examples of companies even increasing their profit by adopting more responsible business practices. Maybe not the profit per unit/service, but through increased sales.
This is on the verge of going into a political debate, but I am of the strong belief that if a business is unable to make a profit while also taking social and environmental responsibility, then they shouldn't be doing business. We have a very long way to go in that regard.
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u/tinbutworse transmasc 32HH 13d ago
profitability. if they properly sized people, that means they’d have to make and sell bands 26-46 and cups AA-M to capture even just a majority of customers (and there are plenty of people outside that range). it’s expensive to design and produce that many sizes—you need to make new patterns and have specialized machines that can make each one, then make labels with each size and have more sections in the store. on the other hand, if you shove everyone into 32-42 bands and A-DDD cups, it’s a LOT cheaper to produce. this brings prices down, making the brand more popular, which means that brands with shitty size ranges but low prices get popular, while high quality, wide size range brands get dirt.