Online Shopping for Ladies Clothing Saved My Sanity

I’m not a person who’s big on ‘shopperism’ in physical stores. Too tiresome and exhausting. That’s one of the things my husband says he loves most about me. He brags to his friends that I am most definitely not like many other women.

The fact is that I find shopping or mall crawling tedious. You can never find anything that looks decent and finding help is nearly impossible. After several hours of tedium and frustration, I usually end up picking something that is really second best and returning home exhausted and, sometimes, a little more broke than I intended.

Mall “jaunts”… enough already! LOL! This was something I hated so much that I would limit the experience to when absolutely necessary. I try to limit the experience to once a year and, if I should actually finally find something passable that fits, I will often buying one of every color of whatever I had found so I wouldn’t have to return for while. That is until I found the card catalogue to the world, aka the internet and shopping online.

Now I’m an online shopping girl.

Online shopping for womens clothing was a little pleasure I never expected. If you would have told me I would be perusing ladies’ apparel while in my fuzzy bunny slippers I would have declared you cracked. I must admit that my card-carrying status as a woman has been restored in the online arena. It is, quite easily, a luscious secret pleasure. Well, okay, it’s not quite that bad—it’s not a secret. But I love it!

I must admit that I enjoy not having to fight for parking, dig through a limited selection, satisfy myself with half-decent unoriginal pieces, and overpay some crabby woman who barely tolerates my presence.

Online shopping has enchanted me for precisely the reason mall crawling has disgusted me. I love the selection, the ease, the value, and quite ironically, the attentiveness of the online supplier. Yes, it would seem counter-intuitive to associate online shopping with customer service, but the fact is that online merchants often outperform the face-to-face experience when it comes to servicing their customers, a fact I never expected, but thoroughly enjoy.

My first online experience was an accident. I had just had my first child and was a big, exhausted, nursing mom mess. I was visited by what my hero friend, Vickie Iovine, would lovingly call the Endowment Fairy. Overly well-endowed, I was in pain and nothing I tried would fit. Exhausted beyond tears and wearing my husband’s sweats for far longer than I care to admit, my husband, in a move that would grant him wishes for the next five years, whisked away our precious bundle to grant me a few hours of mommy alone time.

After an extended nap, I trundled through the house. Disinterested in the piles of laundry and dishes that had accrued from days of baby stupor, I ventured toward my computer, just to check in on my work email and see if anyone still knew I was alive. That lasted about ten minutes. For giggles, I googled nursing bras. Eureka. 384,000 types of endowment fairy relief. Every size, color, and texture and I would never have to leave my house. Giddy with delight, I grabbed my credit card and went to town. It was an estatic, delightful shopping frenzy that lasted for about an hour and granted me a delightful moment of bliss that lasted for quite a while longer. I had accomplished something and I never had to leave the house or, worse yet, strap in my baby and gear and head outdoors. I’ll never forget it.

What surprised me most about that first ladies’ apparel online shopping expedition wasn’t the selection, but the savings. Here, I had been visiting specialty stores (even before our precious bundle, I had always been fairly well endowed, making off the rack bras a bit of an impossibility).

You just haven’t lived until you go to a brick and mortar store, and encounter some young thing who has never been above a B cup in her life. My husband used to chuckle at my antics. Frustrated by the fact that few store bras would fit me, I used to pick out a half dozen of the most expensive bras at a retailer, whose name I won’t mention, that prides itself in fitting voluptuous women with beautiful bras.

The salesgirl, some slip of thing, would follow me around dutifully, finally asking the obligatory, “What size will you need?”

I’d half hold my breath, knowing what would follow. I’d inform her calmly of my size, only to see her turn a couple shades of pink.

“We don’t carry bras in that size,” she’d inform me politely, usually recommending I check their catalogue online, because they might carry other sizes there.

I don’t know why I never did previously. A virtual department store of womens fashion inside my computer.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered I had erroneously been forking over way too much money for stuff I always settled for.

I discovered that, online, there were tons of savings to be had. My budget was able to be maintained, but the selections and volume increased almost immediately, once I realized that  online was the way to go.

I remember once wistfully fingering a beautiful one-of-a-kind skirt in an upscale store one day.

I really wanted that skirt, but, as the decision became car payment or skirt, I decided I liked being able to get to work conveniently and did the grown up thing and walked away from the skirt.

One of my secret delights is being able to find those beautiful one-of-a-kind numbers at a price that allows me to select several pieces.

While there are tons of fashion discounters online, you would never expect that such top name brands are among them until you have tried.  Even more fun is discovering an unknown names as among my favorite ladies clothing style-makers. Think about all the young designs and designers at Target, and you’ll have a vision of the trendy clothing I’m talking about.

That expensive and exquisite skirt I held in my finger tips years ago was at a very expensive mall.

Online, I was able to find many such items at a fraction of the cost. And I grabs more than one.

Some might expect that the price of shipping negates any savings I might find online. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes you save on paying city and county sales tax.

Online stores and online discount retailers may occasionally give discounts for volume and free shipping (often with inexpensive “minimum order” requirements). So, not only do I not have to waste time and burn gas fighting off traffic to the mall, my order comes right to me. What’s more, often, online retailers will have unannounced specials or a sale area of the online store.

My hatred for traditional shopping is probably my sister’s fault. Being the oldest teen in my family and possessing a driver’s license, I was often the designated chauffeur. My sister adored shopping or, more correctly, looking. She wanted selection, even if that meant fifteen stores in five hours. To add insult to injury, at the end of a grueling tour, she would usually ask to be returned to the first store we visited to purchase the first item she saw.

My online experiences are so much more rewarding.

My choices in clothing for women now is, virtually (no pun intended) without limit. The really cool part is that, once I find something I really like, the online store index allows me to click several different areas of the website if I need to for the same item (socks in Teens and socks in Ladies, for instance).

In this way, I can comparison shop within a few clicks, usually allowing me to save a ton of money without sacrificing the item I really wanted.

I have shopped for in foreign goods with the click of a few buttons and only my imagination is my limit.

I guarantee that I have never shown up at a party wearing the same outfit as another woman. From India to Peru, I have made certain of that. Nobody else looks like me and my outfit.

It is a scream that something so beautiful can be so reasonable in price. Many of these unique women’s dresses start at under $20 sometimes.

Try doing that at the mall!

I know that mall crawling has left me disappointed with prices. I had noticed in the last few years that it really didn’t matter which department store I visited. Often, it looked like the exact same versions of the same item with different mark-ups.

Now, I can truly choose between styles, but also materials.

My favorite items are the silk selections that I would never be able to afford if I were shopping traditionally.

Now, that is not to say that there aren’t expensive quality choices available online! I still have my eye on a gorgeous dress, that sells for about $800. I do have it bookmarked and I check it every so often. My affection for ladies clothing knows no bounds.

The moment it comes down in price, I have my data stored electronically and I will probably splurge and have it sent to me, all within a couple of clicks. It’s hand-brushed blue and mauve and even hand embroidered and I would have never found it at a mall.

Customer service is not sacrificed with online shopping. Don’t get me wrong. I am a visual person, so I enjoy being able to see what I’m getting, but online selection has never led me astray. Okay, maybe once. I made the mistake of not double checking a size chart, but even that didn’t end badly. Most online merchants are sensitive to the things that can go wrong. Many provide easy returns or exchanges.

Some retailers have expanded to online marketing because they realize that is where the business is. Sears, formerly the king of catalogue shopping, realized about a decade ago that catalogue shopping was a dying field. Knowing its market, Sears branched out and purchased J Crew, resuscitating its floundering market. It became the bests of both worlds. One could shop online and, if needed, exchange or return items at a local Sears. As a result, business expanded and online shoppers had yet another option.

That is not to say that our options online were ever bad. Good online merchants know that, in a world of thousands of sellers, buyers will go back to merchants who provided them top-notch service.

Anyone who has ever haunted aisles looking for the ever-elusive sales assistant will appreciate the little button on a website that allows you to speak with a real-live person, regardless of time of day. It seems like magic. I push a button and a message pops on my screen, “Hi, this is Sandy. How may I assist you?”  No snootiness, no “that’s not my department.”

My last experience included a person who graciously sent me a replacement, even before I uttered the words, “How do I send this back?” What do you know? It took online retailing to bring back customer service.

It never ceases to amaze me what is waiting for me inside that little electronic box (my computer). I often wonder how we functioned before the electrons and it still blows me away that so many of my friends still rely on the old stand-by of conventional shopping and haven’t yet explored what internet shopping has to offer.

I think fear of the unknown might keep them at bay. I know I recently held the hand of my friend, Gretchen, who, having undergone a mastectomy needed some attention and a little splurging without the prying eyes of a salesgirl who would have failed to understand the rawness of shopping without ones accustomed shape. We were able to find Gretchen some new bras (and, I’ll be honest, a little something artificial to fill them out without the embarrassment).

We even perused some of my favorite online haunts and found her some breathtaking silks that didn’t break either of our budgets. Have I turned Gretchen into an online shopping diva? Who knows. But I do know the virtual excursion did her a world of good. As Vickie would say, “If you can’t count on your girlfriends, who can you count on.”

Okay, so it’s not rocket science. It is easy to get it right the first time online shopping. Once you begin shopping and ordering, anyway! And, if you have any question marks in your head,  your shopper-expert girlfriends can be quite a help, and answer your ordering questions. Busy moms and busy business women can grow to appreciate the selection, the savings, and the general good taste that is available online without sacrificing customer service. Generally speaking, the customer service tends to be superior to service in the traditional sense, as many companies have cut back on sales floor staff, given the recent downturn in the market. Online, I have options that I wouldn’t customarily have, nor would I have the time to shop the world, shop the sales, or drive around town to get what I can get online. So, are you ready to become an online shopping lady, too??