Thursday, November 17, 2011

sammydress.com order review, october 2011


I stumbled upon SammyDress, a Shenzhen-based wholesale clothing supplier, in a Google shopping search in October while looking for a certain style of cute OP for wintertime (and seeing if I couldn't bag one for cheaper than a shopping session at YesStyle.) According to the website, their stock includes "Wedding Dresses, Special Casual Dresses, Women’s Clothing, Cosplay Costumes, Intimate Lingerie, Cosplay Wigs and Spandex Zentai suits** etc."
In case you were wondering, THISis a zentai suit. Your arduous search for a shiny, full-body S&M mermaid suit is officially at an end.
 Along with the dress I found some other cute stuff, so I decided to try my luck with an order. Unfortunately, throughout the painful and lengthy order process, I was faced with some sketchy customer service/language barrier issues AND one of my items arrived reeking as if it had been sitting in a moldy warehouse since last season by the smell of it (and it probably was.) By the time it was all over I was too exasperated to lodge any complaints. It wasn't what I'd call a hellacious shopping experience, but to save myself the trouble I'll be keeping my distance from now on.

Product Name
Price
Qty
Subtotal
USD 6.36
1
USD 6.36
USD 8.57
1
USD 8.57
Color:Blue
USD 1.83
2
USD 3.66
USD 11.02
1
USD 11.02
Color:White
USD 7.92
1
USD 7.92
USD 8.13
1
USD 8.13
USD 2.51
1
USD 2.51
         Commodity price :USD 48.17


Packaging EMS plastic envelope
Total Cost Commodity price : 48.17 + Delivery costs: 39.00 + Insurance: 1.96 = USD 89.13
REFUND-POST TRANSACTION  - 33.45 = $55.68 USD TOTAL


Selection 3/5
There is a good amount of cute stuff to wade through, but the best things seem to sold out or sell quickly. The items are not frequently updated on whether or not they've sold out. The staff failed to communicate to me regarding the items that were sold out -- the items that were crossed out, above -- and asked me to choose new ones after they had taken my money! We were able to settle this after a long and drawn out chain of messages, where I asked for a refund and we finally agreed to put the extra money toward shipping costs.


Price 5/5
Wholesale prices. Nothing to complain about here!! Shipping is what you'd expect for EMS.


Quality 2/5
This is where it starts to get dicey. I had some issues with the products I got--

Holes in seams were annoying, but easily fixable with quick n' dirty hand-sewing magic. Plenty of loose strings. 

Large hole on the v-neck dress' side seam, right out of the box
& the neckline seam was unraveling.

The shoulder seams on the pleated dress were also coming apart.

The built-in slip on both dresses I bought seems way too short and awkward, in each case about a hand and a half's length shorter than the hem. This is probably nitpicky of me, but since both dresses are translucent you can easily see the discrepancy between the dress and slip hems, and I wasn't so happy about that. The lighting and photoshop magic in the stock photos doesn't reveal this, of course.





Note how in the above photo, just by being worn normally, the slip most obviously rode up, causing super sloppiness to ensue Aughhhhh!!!!! The dress is pretty much unwearable without another slip worn underneath.



I lucked out more with the pleated dress -- the slip is not entirely obvious, or at least doesn't take away from the overall look of the dress (it seems to be of heavier material, so it stays in place well) but shorts or bloomers still have to be worn underneath because of its translucence.


The item I was most looking forward to receiving, the strawberry sweater, was MOLDY, despite being individually packaged in plastic. I opened the wrapper and the pungent stench of moldy basement bowled me over. It had probably been sitting in a dank warehouse for months, if not years. For someone who is terribly allergic to mold, this was not an ideal scenario. I dropped it in the washing machine immediately and it took three washes to finally get the smell out, and one more still because after the third wash I tried it on and then broke out in some awesome hives before I had to drop it back into the washer again.

Overall, not shining examples of workmanship, but not too unexpected, either, considering the price. I was only truly upset about the mold issue, for all reasons stated above.


Ease of Shopping/Webshop organization 2/5
The shopping interface is not well organized.
As I said eariler, the crossed out items I listed above are items I bought and paid for before I was told they were out of stock, and then was told by the customer service rep to choose different items. There was no indication they were out of stock on the item pages -- they just don't seem to be updated often, and the staff don't seem to have a good grasp of the stock (it might come from elsewhere and be ordered or made on a case-by-case basis? I really have no idea.)


Shipping 3/5
Once the package was sent out it arrived quickly, but it took ages for it to be shipped in the first place. The items were plastic wrapped and hastily packaged, and I mentioned the issue with the sweater.


Customer Service 2/5
I was not blown away by the professionalism of the staff. There is an extremely slow response time and staff seem to not be able to communicate without the aid of translation software, which makes for some interesting lapses in communication (responses sometimes come across as brusque or rude due to language barriers/lack of nuance.)  The communication barriers are navigable, but the fact that it takes them so long to respond to any sort of inquiries is frustrating.

After having this experience, I wouldn't shop here again. The whole transaction was just a barrel of awkward, disappointing, inconvenience, and made me extremely wary of purchasing anything from shady wholesaler sites like this one. I do freaking love my strawberry sweater -- which is now free of moldiness -- and it's become a cold weather staple for me these days, so I at least came away with a happy souvenir for my troubles!!

Who doesn't wanna look like a giant strawberry?!
 

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

lovelyshoes.net haul review!!





My order from LovelyShoes.net came about a week or so ago!!!!!!!!!!!
 キタ━━━━━━(・∀・)━━━━━━!!!!
For four pairs of shoes, I paid a total of : $ 46.25 + Shipping: $ 56.22 = US $ 102.40 -- not bad at all!!









Upon arrival, everything was SUPER cute in person and looks just like the stock images on the site, so I have no complaints in that regard
The quality is what I was expecting for the price, though, really, they seem about on-par with F21 footwear. So far I've worn all of them once, and they're holding up relatively well.

I have no complaints with customer service and the purchasing process was relatively smooth. The biggest issue I had with the entire shipment was it absolutely reeked of chemical factory. When I opened the box up, the smell on the shoes was so strong that I my eyes started watering (nail polish remover, turpentine, industrial cleaner, antifreeze deadly concoction cocktail?! I DON'T EVEN KNOW)

It was this evil, all-consuming cloud of effluvia   It was so bad that I had to toss the shoes in the garage and air them out for five days before I could even go near them, much less wear them. I nearly got sick just opening the box; I fear for the health and safety of the workers who crafted these shoes, if they are exposed to such foul-smelling chemicals on an everyday basis. Seriously, it was that bad.




**UPDATE 2012/2/21
So, 4 months have transpired since I bought these shoes. How about an update to see if they're still hanging in there





Pink heels
I'm still kickin' it in these, so to speak, but the plastic heel caps have fallen off. No big deal, but it's definitely hard to sneak around when I'm loudly clopping everywhere I go.



Over the knee boots
I mourn the loss of these boots, but their unfortunate fate was my fault, because I used them for purposes they were most definitely not intended for: for lack of a better alternative I wore these in deep snow hiking in the Himalayas in December and they just fell apart -- the fabric came almost completely loose from the rubber sole. I tried, but not even shoe cement could bring them back from the brink.





Bow flats
But where are the bows, you ask?! I wore 3 times and the bows came off (who knows, maybe they are still floating around somewhere in the Chicago O'Hare Airport...) I sewed the bows back on and they came off again. Tried glue. Bows fell off, again. Stapled the bows back on and they both fell off, never to be seen again, leaving staples in their wake.





Moccasin-style Ankle Boots
Last, but not least: my star-crossed loves!! These were so comfy, and yet so unstructured that they lost shape very quickly. The flimsy heel became pressed in with normal walking, and the fabric on the heel then began to scuff and a large hole formed, then the sole began coming apart from the fabric of the boot. These ended up being my favorite, so I mourn their loss. I have yet to fill the hole they've left in my shoe collection.


Final Verdict:
If you're looking for a cheap and adorable pair of shoes for a one-time occasion, LovelyShoes has you covered; just have your gas mask at the ready when it's time to open the box. If you're looking for something that will last more than a week's worth of normal activity, look elsewhere. This is a textbook example of "you get what you pay for."

Other reviews to consider:
Ekiblog
Chaigyaru
Ushishi