Friday, February 21, 2014

The Ins and Outs of Online Shopping for Clothing

I will admit that I have developed a love for online shopping.
As a matter of fact, I can now say that I do most of my shopping from the comfort of my home.
I rarely have a need to get into my car and head off to the ubiquitous shopping mall anymore.

No need to... really.

My wardrobe, my skin cream, my everything....
it seems...
is available online.

So, what does that look like?
Well, it takes a bit of practice, if you have not yet honed your skills
and it requires a bit of research before you lay your card on the line.

For instance,
I made my first buy at ASOS with a single purchase to be sure that the sizing and quality was not going to be an issue.

I bought this simple brown gauze top that was on sale at the time for under 40$.
Looks really blah hanging here but
it is a very loose fit and looks great with straight leg jeans and flats.

But
it was a risky purchase, as all first ones are.
The site was reviewed as being one of the top sites for online purchases
so I felt a certain sense of comfort in knowing that other shoppers had not been disappointed.
SO.... I took the chance.

The biggest risk is sizing and given that many of these sites are overseas it is important to check the sizing chart and get out your tape measure to be sure.

Turned out that I was so happy with my first purchase 
 I turned around and bought another top that I saw in the sale section plus a cute sweater for my daughter's birthday.
Fast shipping, accurate sizing, good pricing, good quality = happy customer.
ASOS has been a good go-to site.


As is sometimes the case
one good thing does not necessarily lead to another
and
I stumbled upon the site SheInside.com 

I ordered one very cute, well, extremely cute 
coat.
The price...amazing. 
Perhaps, too amazing.
And, well, I got sloppy.
This time I did not necessarily use good judgment in studying the size guide 
and
 my love of the visual
 overrode my usual reliance on reviews.

What happened?
Well, cute was still cute
but delivery time was long and the coat
well, 
the coat was 
WAY TOO SMALL.... yep, at least 4 sizes too small.
And wonky. I could not even get my arm into the sleeve!

But fortunately the good seems to outweigh the bad
if you do your homework.

A fellow blogger had posted a reference to the NINE WEST sale site
so I headed over to check it out and saw a lot of great deals.
But since I have not bought a lot of shoes from them in the past
 I made an exception for online shoping
and dropped by Nine West to try on the shoes to be sure of the size.
The shoes I bought were on sale in the store for $99.00
marked down from 139$.
But
on the website they were $59!!

SCORE.

Another site that I am checking out is
Yoox.com
but no purchases as of yet.

There are loads of sites with a wide variety of options so it is quite
interesting and easy to do some comparison shopping.
Do your research.
Read as many reviews as you can.
Understand the sizing chart.
And try it out with a single purchase.

Let me know if you have any favourite online shopping sites for clothing.








 

6 comments:

  1. Ok Now you got me intrigued... Nine west shoes are true to size?? What is ASOS??

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    Replies
    1. asos.com is an online fashion site and they have been good for me as I have had no issues with sizing, mailing or quality. I wasn't sure about Nine west and since I have a large foot.... size 10.... I am always a bit nervous about sizing but there 10 is a 10. So, I guess so.

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  2. Hmmmm…..I only order online when I'm very familiar with the line. My oldest daughter is hard to fit so I rarely ever order her anything online, but I will my youngest because she's tall and everything I order her usually fits.

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  3. I've never bought clothes online because I figured the fit would be an issue. I'm going to test the waters with a single purchase as you have suggested. A friend just found us a face cream that we wanted to try online at a deep discount. The cream alone is $99 and she got us the whole line (7 face products) for $73, including shipping and tax.

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  4. I began very early as a young adult buying on a catalogue rather than in shop for lingerie... I was always too ashamed to ask for my very, vey small size in shops! So online shopping didn't worry me much: I went from turning pages in a catalogue to clicking on a website!

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  5. I have only bought stuff on Amazon or ebay, mostly craft stuff. I've never bought clothes from the internet as I just like to see and try stuff on first. I did once have a catalogue from French company La Redoute, and then I could order clothes and send them back if I didn't like them. The clothes looked great but didn't always last very long !

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