February 13, 2014

RueLaLa vs HauteLook

So, it should come as no surprise to you by now that I am a serious lover of online shopping. Well, what could be better than having designer digs and luxury items all in one place at low prices? I really can't think of anything and that makes these two sites an online shopper's dream!

RueLaLa
RueLaLa is a site that holds daily boutiques of well, anything and everything pretty much, at "Members-only" prices (that means seriously on sale!). 
Featuring everything from vintage Louis Vuitton (I die!), Ray-Bans, Little Rue kids' boutiques, and the perfect weekend getaways RueLaLa holds the things dreams are made of. 
Their boutiques stay open anywhere from a few hours to a whole week and you can even get a sneak peak at what's coming soon and set reminders directly to your phone. 
I've gotten several items from RueLaLa over the years (mostly Lilly Pulitzer, they now send me reminders every time there's Lilly in a boutique) and I have to say that their customer service is by far the BEST I have ever encountered across the board. I'm just going to say it, there really is no one better than RueLaLa when it comes to customer satisfaction. Anytime I've ever had a problem with an order or needed a question answered my RueLaLa concierge (makes me feel so sophisticated just saying that) has been there to help almost immediately. That's a wonderful feeling and just adds to the luxury of RueLaLa.
Like a lot of invite-only shopping sites, RueLaLa will give you a credit every time someone you invite accepts and makes a purchase. That's like free money people, come on!
The only downside I've ever encountered with the site is...the shipping, but they've got a solution for that too.
As far as shipping goes, at $9.95 for basic 5-7 days, this site is kinda on the steep end, however, after paying shipping for your first order you get a period of free shipping for 30-days after known as The Rue 30.
Plus, they have really fast shipping. My items usually arrive before their estimated date and they're boxes always have cute sayings on the inside and sometimes you score stickers!

HauteLook
I was really excited to try out HauteLook after a friend mentioned that she got Urban Decay make-up for uber cheap on the site and I found out it's a branch of Nordstrom's. They have an awesome variety of items and boutiques at prices that are a little more user friendlier than other sites but also carry luxury goods like vintage Louis when you're in the mood to splurge.
Just like RueLaLa, HauteLook offers a credit for every new member purchase from someone you've invited. I'm not entirely certain but I believe HauteLook's boutiques stay open a shorter amount of time than other sites causing their items to be in higher demand which in turn creates a unique situation with their shopping cart feature. I have mixed feelings about this feature but I'll go ahead and explain it before diving into that.
Unlike most sites, HauteLook offers a hold on items you place in your cart, however, (and that's a big however!) the hold is only 15 minutes per item!
Uh, I don't know about you but I'm hard pressed to make any decision in that amount of time let alone one where my credit card is involved. Also, while you're only charged shipping once per order you're items are shipped by boutique so if you end up purchasing a bunch of items from different boutiques on the site then your items will come in different shipments which is a major inconvenience especially when shipping takes forever! By forever, I mean close to 3 weeks, which is ridiculous when you're so used to 5-7 business days and when the products finally arrive on your doorstep they sort of lack luster on the whole packing front.
How boring is it when you open up your package to find this?
However, unlike RueLaLa, the shipping is a lot more reasonable and they offer free shipping when you spend $100 so all that blah can be forgiven really.
I'm a huge fan of the variety of products and brands HauteLook offers. My first purchase on the site was from a Stila cosmetics boutique that was out of this world! I got some seriously great deals on some seriously amazing makeup!
Nothing was over $6 and because of that I was able to get a lot of shades to experiment with with!

Overall, my experiences with both sites have been really great and I hope this information has helped you out. If you like to sign up for either site just click the invite links below!


until next time, darlings.
xo
Merisa



No comments:

Post a Comment