Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Case For Shopping Online For Women's Clothes

Women shoppers seem to be in one camp or the other:

They love to shop online;

They absolutely will not shop online.

I am in the "absolutely not" camp although there is a good case to be made for shopping online for women's business suits. See if you agree with my research.

Efficiency. You can find your favorite websites, shop for the women's suits you want, and request them to be shipped home all with just a couple of clicks on the Internet. Add in a few more keystrokes to enter in your credit card number and you are done.

Rain Rain,...Who Cares. If your weather activity includes rain, sleet, snow, or hail, it won't matter at all. Shopping from home protects you from unfavorable weather conditions while you snuggle up to your computer to do all the shopping for women's business clothes you can stand.

What gas prices? If you do not live near quality women's clothes stores, you will have to use your precious gas to do any shopping at all. No gas needed to get to the stores online.

No strollers needed. Young children are a challenge on a shopping excursion. Unfortunately, strollers may be part of the equation of shopping. The quality of strollers has improved a great deal yet they are still equipment that requires loading and unloading into the car. What an energy sapper!

Sweetheart salespeople. If you are annoyed like I am at sales people who follow you around and hassle you, rest assured the sales people online will seem like sweethearts. When I am out shopping for a women's business suit or other apparel, I only want help from someone who knows her merchandise. That doesn't seem to be the norm. In retail, the pay for sales people is embarrassingly low which speaks directly to their incentives to work extra hard to be completely familiar with all the merchandise they sell and how it will work for me. I propose that any company selling clothing, provide training sessions that specifically teach their sales people How to Really Help Your Customer Without Annoying Them.

Has my catalogue arrived? Catalogues have been gracing our mailboxes for decades. Many shoppers got used to flipping through the magazines, finding women's clothes they want and placing those important phone calls to purchase something. For those women, doing their shopping online was not a big adjustment. These shoppers are already well informed about the clothes offered by their favorite vendors. Many of the companies that have already been in the catalogue business, only sell online. They have not invested in physical facilities.

Time returned. You will save a lot of time shopping even if you take a long time to visit many websites and clothing items online. That amount of time will beat the time you would have spent driving to and walking in and out of stores. It could conceivably give you back a whole lot of time.

Who is the fairest of them all? The point when many women lose their zest for shopping is when they have to stand in front of the mirrors. Online, no mirrors!

No messy fitting rooms. Even in the high quality stores selling business suits for women, the fitting rooms need attention. There is usually someone else's trash, pins, gum, and leftover hangers. It's definitely not home.

Customer service. Retail stores have a reputation for not providing high quality customer care. The more enlightened stores, such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstroms have done an outstanding job of providing great customer service. They get it. Other retail clothes stores seem to think it's not important enough or that the merchandise will sell itself. Shopping online can be a much better experience in customer service. It may not get high marks for being pleasant but it is generally positive.

No distractions. When I go shopping, I often run into food or items that persuade me to get off my plan. For instance, until I smelled the cinnamon rolls, I didn't want one. Until I saw the ice cream, I didn't want any. When I shop on the Internet, I do not encounter those distractions.

Return policies. The online retail community has done a superb job at learning how to handle merchandise returns. Sending the goods back still has some hassles yet, the online store's attitude on serving the customer is notably better than the retail stores served by those annoying sales people I mentioned earlier. Many stores provide easy ways to return merchandise - and for any reason. Lands End and Coldwater Creek, for instance, jump through hoops to let you return merchandise. They make it easy to print an online return order if those pants I bought turned out to be way too small. Lands End offers free shipping on items you select as replacements. What a great deal!

Did I make the case for shopping online instead of driving your car to shop? There are many benefits of shopping online to find excellent customer service as opposed to visiting shops to make those purchases in person.