Tag Archives: clothing

My online shopping addiction makes it’s way to the UK

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A few weeks ago I decided to try a purchase from UK based store, New Look.  Their clothing’s a not really great, it looks quite cheap & ill-fitting BUT they have really nice shoes & bags.  Two of my favourite things in the world! :)

One really awesome perk is that they do FREE delivery worldwide for orders over £55.  Sweeeeeet.  I decided to test the waters with a small purchase, so I got two easy priced bags & some pretty undies.  According to their website my order was suppose to arrive within 5 – 7 working days, which seemed pretty good as my orders from Forever21.com in the US usually take about the same amount of time to arrive.  But then to my surprise, my order status changed to “dispatched” practically overnight… this got me very excited…

Sadly that excitement faded as each day passed… and eventually the days turned into weeks… and then by last week I had kinda prepared myself for my order never ever arriving.  I decided to email them to find out whether they could tell me where my parcel was as the tracking feature on the website wasn’t working with my tracking number.  This is when they told me that they actually can’t track international orders.  Interesting news as they certainly don’t explain that part on their Delivery & Returns help pages.  They told me that if my order hadn’t arrived by 20 Apr, I could proceed to officially log a request for them to find out what happened to it.  At that point I thought to myself… “Gawd, it’s been almost 4 weeks, I bet you someone from the SA postal service is already wearing my damn underwear!!!” ;)

Then on “D-day” I finally got a notice from the post office about an international parcel ready for collection.  Talk about cutting it fine.  I rushed over there and had to pay R15 to have the parcel released, but I wasn’t asked to pay any custom duties.  I couldn’t believe my luck as one would normally expect to be nailed with about 45% import tax (and that’s certainly what I had prepared myself for), but seems I was a very very lucky girl.  I’m not sure if they just decided to let the first order slide, or maybe the way it was packaged made sure it didn’t raise any eyebrows…  I mean, it did arrive in a bloody black bag! haha.  Check it out:

This parcel screams "this person has no money!"

I was a bit worried about what state my things would be in, but everything was cool.   Here’s my zig zag weave oversized clutch which I got for £12.99:

And then my black & white colour block satchel with a mock crock feel (£19.99):

And lastly my cute undies which were between £4.99 and £5.99 each:

Size wise, the UK is the same as SA. So if you're a size 8 here, you'll be a size 8 there. Easy peasy.

The undies aren’t the worlds best quality – I would say they’re kinda on par with Mr Price’s underwear.  So I wouldn’t say they were the best deal (pound to rand exchange rate sits at about 12.66 at the moment).  But I LOVE my two bags.

Oh and boys, they have a mens section as well.  I did a quick browse through their mens shoes & accessories section and they have some really nice things there.  Items which caught my eye included these funky Gola sneakers for £34.99:

And these fold over shoes which are on sale for only £15!

Perfect for winter guys...

Oh and my absolute favourite, check out this awesome moustache print wallet for £6.99:

Seriously, how cool is that?

So will I order from New Look again?  Yeah, it’s likely.  It loses big points on the instant gratification scale, but at least next time I’ll be prepared for the long wait.

I’m a bit sad that we’re now pretty much right into cold, miserable winter weather… cause I’ve kinda fallen in love with these babies:

Colour block strappy sandals - £19.99

But I guess it’s totally acceptable to be really prepared for next summer waaaaay ahead of time, right?

xxx

Mixed feelings about my first online purchase from Zando

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Over the past 3 months I’ve become totally addicted to online clothing shopping.  It’s just soooooo much easier than missioning for parking, schlepping around a busy shopping centre and standing in painful “kill-me-now” queues.  The small risk of getting the size or fit wrong has been 100% worth it for me personally.

So far I’ve made quite a few successful purchases from US website Forever21.com (I told you guys about it here and here).  But recently I decided I would give some local sites a bash too.

The first was relatively new venture, Zando.  I was lucky enough to be the proud new owner of a R100 Zando voucher, thanks to a lucky draw on total sweetheart, Saturday Girl SA‘s blog.  So it just made sense that I should give their online shopping experience a little test drive.

I had my heart set on a pair of simple Zoom pumps for only R229.  You see I’ve been on a mission to refresh my wardrobe basics, and a good pair of pumps that matches everything is a winter must have in my book.  But to use my R100 voucher, I had to spend a minimum of R300.  So to make up the difference I also added a pair of drop earrings and a pair of gym secret socks (yes yes I know… super boring… but mine’s forever going missing OK).

Things I liked about the site:

  • The product categories are well organised.
  • The site search option works like a charm.
  • You can filter by brand, shoe size, colour and price.
  • They have multiple images for each item so you can see it from every angle and then you can also zoom in to make sure you are happy with the quality.
  • The cart, checkout and payment process is quick & simple.
  • FREE delivery & FREE returns (only for exchanges/replacements) within SA for orders over R150.  Just read all the terms & conditions.

Things I did not like:

  • Once an item is in your cart, you can’t see what size you had selected.  This irritated me as I like checking, double checking & triple checking before I click on confirm.
  • The order confirmation email also doesn’t state your selected size.  Again, more worrying about whether you got it right…
  • The clothing section is a bit of a snooze fest.

I placed my order just after 7pm on Tue, 27 Mar.  By the next day, I got a call asking whether they could deliver between 2pm and 4pm.  I was really surprised & impressed, I mean that was less than 24hrs.  That’s pretty damn good for online purchases of any kind.

The box arrived looking like so:

The problem was that the box only contained my shoes.  There was no sign of the earrings & gym socks. Hmmmm…

I called their call centre.  The guy who assisted me promised that he would find out what happened and call me back immediately.  The aftenoon passed, but nobody got back to me.   So I decided to also email them that evening, explaining the problem.

The next day (Wed), someone got back to me via email.  The lady stated that the socks were actually out of stock and that they would be giving me a R50 voucher to make up for it.  The earrings were apparently due to arrive that afternoon.  I told her that I did not want yet another voucher, because then you’re just locked into making another purchase you don’t actually need or want.  So she said she would therefore submit a request to refund me for the socks.  I also informed them that the shoes actually seemed to be a very small fit and that I’d need to swap the size 5′s I ordered for a size 6.

Wed passed without receiving the earrings and I also did not get any further feedback on the refund.  On Thu though, they did come to collect my size 5 shoes.

On Fri morning I sent off another email to follow up.  Nobody got back to me.  But then later on that day reception called and said that there was another Zando package for me.  This time the box contained the size 6 shoes, the earrings and the socks.  Finally we had everything sorted.

My goodies - the earrings turned out to be much bigger than I anticipated. But I've done a DIY job on them, taking off 3 of the pieces on each and now it works.

In the end I didn’t need the refund and everything was finally sorted, but I must admit that the multiple deliveries were really annoying.  Especially because the delivery guy would just rock up without giving you a heads up.  That first shoe delivery was the only one where they actually called me beforehand.  Also I though the swapping of the shoes could have been done in one step – ie. pick up & give me the other pair at the same time. Seems pretty simple to me…

Obviously the free delivery & returns helped a lot.  If I was footing the bill for it, I would have been seriously p’d off.  But if their deliveries come through in drips & drabs in general, I’m sure they are losing money.

Will I buy from them again?  Well also in my box was yet another R100 voucher (on a minimum R300 spend), so I might be tempted again…  But I’m hoping that they are working on fine-tuning their processes, otherwise I’ll just avoid multiple item purchases. ;)

xxx

I finally get my A-List fix

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So I’ve already told you guys about my shameless A-List addiction here.  Well last week I got another one of those tempting little SMSs:

“A-LIST launches a HOT new collection today! AMAZING pieces for AMAZING people! Get the best of next seasons key international looks only at A-LIST. Hurry!!!”

I was panic-stricken… you see A-List is in Long St in town and I work all the way out in the dullsville northern suburbs!  Aaarggh…  I was gonna have to wait for the weekend, but by then lots of beautiful goodies would have been snatched up by fashion addicts like myself, but who are lucky enough to work in the city bowl.  Bitches… :)

I finally managed to make it over there on Saturday and I was glad to see that there were still lots of awesome stuff for me to work my way through!  My new golden rule when it comes to shopping is: “If you’re not sure about something, try it on!!!  You might just love it…”  So usually, thanks to that rule, I snatch up a whole bunch of items to try on.

A-List has got you covered on pretty much all the key spring/summer trends:

Lots of brights...

Brights and colour-blocking are going to be huge – most of the stuff I bought in Italy are super bright.  Then they also have lots of options for the monochromatic trend:

Who doesn't look good in these shades? I will ALWAYS love black...

Romantic freaks and girly girls are totally in luck! Pretty is in, and in a BIG way.  Soft fabrics, feminine styling, floral prints, frilly and lacy bits here and there…

Pretty in pink!

I also found quite a few items that work for the “70s inspired” look that is also pinned to be massively popular.  See the lovely “ink” colours below and flowy blouses, that’s very on trend.

Luckily most of these trends are also super comfy & very flattering...

Then A-List also stocks fabulous accessories – think belts, scarves, head gear and more:

I need all of it... seriously! ;)

And some one-of-a-kind jewellery pieces:

I looooove shiny things!

I also couldn’t resist taking a snap of the mannequin – her name is Anna.  They dress her up in different outfits every day… lucky girl!

Looking faaaabulous dahling!

I tried on a bunch of really cool things, but finally settled on two dresses at only R495 each.  The first has a seriously fun print and is short and flowy with pockets! I love pockets…

I added the belt. But it's also a previous A-List purchase.

Here’s a close-up of the print:

Baby elephants! How freakin' cute is that?!

The second is a sexy little black & white number:

This print also has some seriously cool detail... think trees, birds, temples and more!

But the real deal-clincher was the awesome heart cut-out on the back:

Ta da!!! :) Not the best shot - I had to do it myself, but you get the idea...

OK, so by now my male readers are probably passed out or ready to puke at all the girliness on this blog post.  Sorry guys!  I’ll look out for something dirrrrty to write about soon… I promise.  But for girls, this is pretty much like porn. So let us have our moments every now and again. haha.

Right, gotta run. Chat soon. xxx

PS:  Boys, remember there is a mens collection at their 2nd store at 221 Long Street.  Go check it out!