Power Merchant Tip: Size Does Matter

As a retailer, one of the things you should be avoiding is getting a request for an item return and a credit card chargeback. It’s bad for business and it takes up time and costs you money. This does not mean that you should not have a return policy though. On the contrary, it would be best if you do as potential buyers/retailers of your product would be more likely to purchase from you if you have one.

What you need is to have accurate descriptions that truly represent the product for what it is. We’ve created an article guiding you on how to make good product descriptions (found here: http://blog.shopster.com/shoptalk/2010/03/creating-good-product-descriptions.html). So the next description-related item on the agenda is sizes.

This tip is particularly useful for fashion/clothing/garment suppliers and retailers. Remember, your potential buyers are unable to see the products for themselves and rely solely on your accurate descriptions before they purchase an item.

For both shoes and clothes, different countries follow different sizing and there really is no standard.

Let’s talk about shoes first. In the UK, they use English sizes. This is based on the length and is measured in barleycorn (about 1/3 of an inch). It starts with the smallest practical size, which is zero. The general formula followed is child shoe size = 3 x last length in inches – 12. For adults, on the other hand, one is the lowest size and it continues in progression in barleycorns. As such, adult shoe size = 3 x last length in inches – 25. In Australia, on the other hand, the calculation is male shoe size = 3 x last length in inches – 22.5, while for female shoe size = 3 x last length in inches – 20.5. For the US and Canada, it is similar to English sizes but the count starts at one. So for male shoe size=3 x last length in inches – 24, while female shoe size = 3 x last length in inches – 22.5

Given these calculations, a shoe measuring 9 inches with a mondopoint of 228 will measure in UK at 3 under the men’s shoe size and would be 2 ½ for women. In Australia, it would be Size 3 for men and 3 ½ for women. Meanwhile, in Canada and the US, the same shoe would measure 3 ½ for men and 5 for women.

Now on to clothing. Below is a guide which shows letter size and it’s equivalent in number sizes. It may vary slightly among manufacturers.

Size	Men	Women
XS	--	2 to 4
S	34 to 36	6
M	38 to 40	8 to 10
L	42 to 44	12 to 14
XL	46 to 48	16
2XL	50 to 52	18

To make things more complicated, there is also a difference between Italian size and US size. The US size 2 is an XS, but for Italian size, this is an M, size 36. A size 6 is S in the US, but the same size is already an L in size 40 in Italian size. To avoid difficult explanation of sizes, you can provide a simple chart which lists the corresponding sizes for each country. It would be awesome if you can detail it such that you show the letter size, the US number size for females, the US number size for males, the Italian number size for females, the Italian number size for males and the corresponding measurements in inches. It will take a lot of work to be able to plot it all as a table, but doing so would benefit both you and your buyers and avoid the hassles of misunderstanding and product returns.

Comments

[Christian Audigier]

The first one is very nice.. I like it very much..