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That's why Alight.com was born. "Plus-size women are women first," says Norman G. Weiss, the site's chief strategic officer and a longtime retail professional. "They needed a place to find fashion that they can't find elsewhere." Since August, in the wake of a massive marketing campaign, Alight.com has been averaging 10,000 visits a day. What helps drive traffic is Alight's simple design. The homepage isn't filled with superfluous stuff. Besides a few marketing promotions, visitors can zero straight in on four distinct categories: Work, Play, Party, and Renew. SLEEK AND CHIC. Like a lot of community sites, each channel blends magazine-style articles with shopping suggestions for work, playtime, and so on. The simplicity is a relief after all those too-busy sites that dot the Web. To see what I mean, visit Alight's competitor "ShopCurvie" (www.shopcurvie.modestyle.com), which is the shopping destination for Mode magazine, the leader in the plus-size publishing market. At ShopCurvie, you don't know where to begin. Alight exudes a fun, hip feel from top to bottom. One of the first visible messages is a greeting that its target market must find very comforting. "Hi," it says. "For sizes 14-26, you're in clothes heaven." Indeed, they are. The site treats visitors to the brands women love -- including lines from Ellen Tracy, Tamotsu, Eileen Fisher, Donna Ricco, and Emme. At first, I found Alight's categories odd. Where do you find pants, skirts, shoes? Don't shoppers generally look for these categories when they browse retail outlets? Well, yes and no. Fans of Nordstrom might make a beeline to shoes. But many consumers -- and this seems to apply especially women -- shop by brand or fashion niche. In offline stores, young, hip designs are rarely mixed with conservative, professional ones. But most e-commerce sites make you browse through pull-down menus listing everything from hats to boots. BARGAIN BIN. Organizing Alight.com according to the clothes that suit different occasions -- from the office to weekend wear -- lets surfers shop for precisely what they want. Once visitors launch into a particular style of clothing, they can browse without wasting their time. Once they're in "Work," for example, they can search for items by type of clothing, by designer, or they can pick by style -- luxe, hip, or classic. Registered members can even define their own custom style by filling out a questionnaire. "Doing it by lifestyle is a major change as an approach to e-commerce," Weiss says. I agree. Alight.com also connects with its kind of women because it has promoted the right personalities. Forget Tyra Banks and Elle McPherson. Alight is headlined by talk-show diva Star Jones -- a beautiful, plus-size woman. I have tiny quibbles: The clearance area is behind a tiny link from the homepage, making the sort of discounts that many Web shoppers look for hard to find. Still, for the most part, the prices looked fair. All in all, Alight.com is a beacon to an underserved audience. Crockett covers Web demographics from Business Week's Chicago bureau |
