Rent the Runway is a fashion company built on the principle of leasing designer dresses to ordinary women.
This way, customers can look and feel their best for any occasion, according to RentTheRunway.com.
RTR's shopping technique is designed to be easy to use. The four steps of buying, as described by the company, are to find the right dress, book it, wear it and return it.
With each purchase the customer may keep the dress for either a four -or eight-day period. Once the rental is up, the client puts the dress in a pre-paid envelope provided by the company for easy return.
Customers have more than 200 designers and 50,000 dresses and accessories to choose from. These designers vary from Vera Wang to Lilly Pulitzer, and accessories range from sunglasses to Spanx.
"It was the easiest process ever," said Breanna Ingram, freshman in media studies. "They sent me not only the dress I ordered, but also a dress one size up in case the one I got was too small."
Once the moment is over, each customer is encouraged to upload a photo of themselves in the rented dress onto the website to give other viewers a chance to see the dress before they rent it themselves.
"I used Rent the Runway to order my dress for my sorority's formal last year," said Lauren Lundy, junior in finance. "I felt amazing because I was wearing a dress that was worth over $800, but I didn't have to pay anything close to that."
According to RentTheRunway.com, as of February 2014, the company has grown to 4 million members worldwide while only being managed by a staff of 287 employees.
This extensive growth is the reason the company shut down its marketing internship campaigns on college campuses this past year. This includes the flagship on Auburn's campus, according to Brooke Josepher, senior in marketing.
"I was a campus representative for the company along with six other girls," Josepher said. "We put up a travel show during Hey Day this past year and made goody bags for potential customers on behalf of RTR."
The girls also gave out promotional codes to various students to redeem discounts on the website.
Josepher said the workers themselves also received large promotional discounts; this was her favorite part of working for the program.
RTR's business model is a new kind of e-commerce that is seen in other new companies, such as the online streaming business, Netflix.
In fact, The New York Times described the company as "A Netflix model for haute couture."
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