Welcome to part 2 of my online shopping experience. Are you curious to see how the following web stores score? Just follow me!
Let’s start with:
When it comes to online shopping, my new obsession is the ability to click and collect. This basically means that you fill your basket up with beautiful things. You pay online and then from 24 hours to 5 days later you pick up your parcel of dreams or nightmares, depending on sizing or the picture looking better than the actual item.
On the “New Look” website you need to spend a minimum of £20 to be able to click and collect. This might be a pain in the bum, especially if you have student discount as you end up buying more stuff to get over the discount cut of your order.
The delivery time however has become a lot quicker than it used to be. From the moment that you have placed your order, It usually becomes available for pick up within 72 hours. “New Looks”’s pictures of items tend to look better than the actual item and colours are not the same. The materials can also be very cheap quality and sizing is terrible. Make sure you try on in store to save yourself the hassle of going back for a refund.
Debenhams
I have bought from Debenhams a few times. The items I bought were mainly sports clothing, such as sports bras. Price and quality is very important when you work out (or when everything jiggling about in an insanity class). I have also bought shoes online but make sure you try them on as sizing is terrible. Previously I bought “Faith” which is a highly considered designer brand here in the UK. When ordering my size (and waiting nearly 7 days for them to arrive) I found that they were massive. Now delivery time to store is well within the 72 hour limit I expect to wait. The quality of the garments are good, some materials used are better than others it depends on the designer.
If you buy clothes from the “Henry Holland” range, go a size up. The brand is a very small fit. Other designers, such as Julian MacDonald, are a great fit. I would advise caution with bras. Especially the sports bras “under amour” and “Shock Absorber” are very small sizes. Debenhams do deliver worldwide for a fee, however not the entire website is available. I have checked with Katerina, and for instance the beauty section was not available when she selected Belgium as country to deliver the goods to. There is no spend limit of online orders. However some items not be available for store collection, look out for that when you go to pay.
Marks and Spencer
Buying online is so simple with Marks and Spencer. If your order is submitted to them by 5pm it will be available the next day in store after 1pm. You can’t get quicker than that.
They deliver all the way across the world. Shipping fees differ on where you live.They are opening shops in the EU and recently Turkey gained its' first branch of M&S.
Score out of 10 for Marks and Spencer: 10
Sports direct
In the past I have refused to buy online at "Sports Direct" because of their shipping fees. If you want your parcel to be shipped to the store you need to pay £5 or if you want to have it sent to any local shop near you or to your home you have to pay £5.99. It’s a total rip off.
However I fell for it in the hunt for some white converse trainers. I found a bargain for the Triple tongue white Converse. In their store they charged £10 on top. This is the first thing you learn about Sports Direct: prices online do not in slightest bit reflect the store prices.
Quality and fit of products depends on the brands (size up for Nike, same you are for Adidas, cheaper brands are cheaper quality fabrics and fit is anybody guess). Their trainers tend not to be the new releases from companies. They may be a few seasons old, especially sale items they could be 3 years old.
Score out of ten for Sports Direct: 2
Stay tuned for part 2 next week!
Earlier this month it was National Glamour Day. If you don’t live in Belgium or in the Netherlands you might wonder what I am talking about. Let me tell you.
Welcome back to The Freckled Soul! Yay!
About a month ago, we put the site on a hiatus in order to give our offline lives a little breathing moment. But now we are back. At this point there isn’t a fix posting schedule yet. However I want to try, together with my co-blogger to get two-three posts out each week. This way we can keep up with posting as well as our real life obligations. Plus summer is coming, and face it when you life in Belgium and there is just a little bit of sun out, you have to grab that moment with both your hands, because the next two weeks it might be raining as if all hell broke loose. I hope you will enjoy your stay here and keep looking out for our posts! (Pssss Our first post will be coming in one hour)