Thursday 1 August 2013

Shopbop review and experience

Before I get into my personal experience shopping at Shopbop, let me give you a little background information about the website. It is a online boutique owned by Amazon Inc. that carries over 300 designer women's fashion brands. The brands range mainly from contemporary designers such as Alexander Wang to Wildfox but you will see the occasional vintage Chanel on there as well.
just a fraction of the brands they carry

The selection on Shopbop is impeccable; I can spend hours on that site! Almost anything you see in large department stores such as Nordstrom or Saks, you will be able to find on here as long as they carry the brand. The simple layout of website is very user friendly with many options of categorizing your search which makes browsing so convenient and fun. They also offer very competitive prices as well as price matching if needed. What I especially love is the sale section, where these amazing designer items can be purchased 10-70% off. Also, they have additional 25% off promotions a couple of times a year. Another advantage of shopping on Shopbop is that they offer free EXPRESS INTERNATIONAL shipping over $100 (and they are not kidding about the express part). They do charge $10 for orders under $100 but realistically who comes on here to spend less than that amount. In terms of duties, they have the option of prepaid amount added to your total or COD. The prepaid charges are reasonable (and inevitable anyways at around 20% for Canada). They also have an amazing team of customer service reps that can be contacted by phone, email and even instant chat messaging. With all these reasons, I'm not surprised that it is always featured by the most popular online fashion bloggers such as Song of Style, and Wendy's Lookbook. Shopbop is without a doubt one of my favourite online stores to browse.

The product page is also extremely informative with everything from the weight and measurements to information about the designer. It also includes multiple photos of the product from different angles which is truly appreciate. I also love that there is always a modeled picture of the item (which a lot of website don't include for some reason that I fail to understand) and for some of the clothing items, it actually features an animation of it being modeled. There are also customer reviews on each product which is extremely helpful and something I look for in every online store that I shop at. Basically, each page has all the information you will ever need.

I love how clean and simple the layout of the website is 

I placed my order on yesterday (July 31st) in the afternoon. It was processed within a couple of hours and shipped out in the evening. What completely shocked me to almost beyond words is that it was delivered the today!!! Keep in mind that this package is coming from the USA so it is perfectly normal to take up to a week or even 2. Being such an experienced (and quite excessive) online shopper, I have become very picky about processing and shipping times. I was expecting that this would take minimum 3 days but I was surprised by it the day after. The packaging is perfect as it comes with a dustbag and authenticity cards.

                             

Of course a review is just not the same if I didn't have a bone to pick, even if its the smallest issue. As I mentioned, the package was delivered in the afternoon so  no one was home around that time. What I was kinda of annoyed about is that they left it in the front porch. I'm not sure if it was the decision of UPS or the mail man but how can you just leave something worth so much money just out there in the open. Luckily, I live in a small town so it was safely delivered. But I don't think this was under the discretion of Shopbop but rather just the carelessness of the delivery man.

Honestly, I have not had such a smooth, amazing experience with online shopping before. Maybe in another post, I will list my top online stores to shop at (Zara online comes in a close second). For those of you who shop regularly online will probably understand me when I say that I get very turned off if the customer service isn't at par or if processing/shipping takes forever. There are so many different online boutiques that you can shop at now that offer the same stuff so these small things do really make a difference. Overall, I cannot say enough good things about Shopbop and I will definitely be ordering from them again.

P.S. I just realized that I neglected to tell you guys what exactly I purchased from Shopbop. Well there is a huge hint in the post but if you are still curious, look out for my next blog post as it will be a reveal!