3374 Reluctant Shopper

Saturday, October 22, 2011

I love my country, but I fear my government.
-- Bumper sticker --

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Would you believe I have nothing to say?

Sigh.

Nothing happening.

Oh, something that did happen: In Thursday's mail I got a birthday gift coupon from Coldwater Creek. I don't need clothes! I haven't bought anything in ages, and had no plans to do any clothes shopping in the near future. Far future, either. But there was no minimum to use the coupon, and if I didn't use it soon it would expire, so I figured what the heck, I'll pick out something for the amount of the coupon and get it for free. Note that I've already bought so much from them that I'm a "onecreek elite shopper", which gets me an automatic 5% off all purchases, and free expedited shipping, so it wouldn't cost me anything. I'm too cheap to pass up free clothes.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!!!!!

So I went to the website, and clicked on the outlet, where stuff is 30-70% off.

Surprise. Thursday evening happened to be one of their big sales. 40% off everything, on top of the outlet discount! Holy crap!

So, outlet. 30-70% off list price. Then 40% plus my elite 5% off that reduced price, then the birthday gift amount off that total. And free shipping.

The order arrived today. I am now out of hangers.

It's official. I've hit the tipping point. I can never again lose or gain weight.

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One of my purchases was this jacket, in a size 8 (I get size 6 for summer, 8 for winter). What they sent instead was this skirt, in a size 42. Repeat, size 42.

I called customer service, and they're going to send me the jacket. They include pre-paid postage labels for returns (for elites), but if you don't want to package it for shipping, you can take it to any store.

I hadn't been to the local store yet, but I'd heard it was in an upscale enclave, so I went there this evening to return the skirt and check out the mall.

Two interesting things happened:
1. They'd never heard of OneCreek Elite. A quick check with corporate surprised and educated them. Apparently I'm the only elite in the area.
2. They accepted the returned skirt, and handed me a coupon for 40% off anything in the store.

Sheesh! I don't know how they're making any money on me!

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Coldwater has some very nice things. And if you can wait until an item hits the outlet, you can get some fabulous deals. But! They also have some pure crap. The kind of stuff that stretches out of shape by the third wearing, or is so thin it's chintzy, or so stiff it's like cardboard, or so badly made it sticks out in odd places and the buttons fall off. You have to get to know the inventory, the materials they use. I've made enough mistakes that I can look at the photo on the website and tell you whether it's quality or crap. I still get crap about 10% of the time, but they are very good about returns, and the other 90% is worth it.

But the main reason I buy from them is that once you've figured out your size, everything fits the same, which makes online (outlet!) shopping a breeze.
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