5 things that suck about internet shopping

As you know, I'm a passionate online shopper.  A couple of posts ago, I did a list of the top 5 things that make internet shopping awesome. However, I'm a balanced sort of person and I thought it would be best to be honest and share some of the less lovely things about clicking 'purchase' and waiting/hoping as a bunch of internet elves somewhere magically scrape money off your Visa debit...

1. Stuff doesn't fit

This is self-explanatory. Sometimes a brand is small or large for size, sometimes the cut is very small across the bust or roomy in the waist. Frustrating.

2.  Stuff doesn't look how you thought it would look

In this scenario, stuff does fit. In fact, it fits just fine. But the fabric or the cut or the embellishment or some detail that you would definitely have noticed had you been able to look at/try on this item in real life, makes you look bizarre or otherwise renders the garment unwearable.

One of the biggest factors at play here is the way products and clothes in particular, are presented to us for online consumption.  In order to maximise the realism of the internet shopping experience, Net-a-Porter does a superb job styling, modelling (including videos) and otherwise marketing individual pieces. They use real models who walk against a bland background so that the clothes really stand out.  You can see how the clothes look in front, back, profile and full length.  However, at the end of the day sometimes you still lift the clothes out of the box and think 'Ah. Well, if I'd known it really looked/felt/wore like THAT...' At the end of the day, I don't have the model's height/weight/modest bust. I'm short and curvy and that's the end of it. And some styles will never, ever look as good on me as they do on other people.

To be honest though, in my experience it is rarely the size or style that's 'wrong' (except when I'm going through my fantasy moments where I'm totally 5ft 10in and weigh 50kg.) It's far more likely that I will obsess over an item, stalk it madly, buy it, anticipate it, rip of the packaging when it arrives like a werewolf hacking into a butcher's delivery only to find the fabric is impossibly heavy and unwearable for the weather we really have in Brisbane 95% of the year - #sadface.

3. Orders get mixed up/partly delivered/can't be fulfilled

Most recently, a pair of shearling LK Bennett boots I had been obsessing over for my Chicago trip and that were on sale. Grrrrr...Again, it is rare but when this does happen, the foremost thought in your head is "Well, this wouldn't have happened if I'd bought it in store..."

4. Returns and refunds take time

The best e-tailers have their returns process down pat and make it as painless for the customer as possible.  Off the top of my head Matches and Net-a-Porter/Mr Porter/The Outnet all do returns very well. However, it still takes 3-4 days for the package to reach the return destination and then it will be a day until they process the return, then up to 3 days for the refund to appear in your account. Le sigh.

5. Internet shopping changes how you shop in real life.

At it's core, internet shopping is all about maximising information access and convenience. You shop when you want. You have all the information to compare prices at your fingertips.  You can access any number of reviews and feedback about the product and particular stores.  So the role of the sale assistant is essentially reduced to processing the transaction.

In most cases, this is all for the better - I've discussed poor customer service from sales assistants in bricks and mortar retail in previous posts and for those individuals, processing a transaction accurately, quickly and with minimal chit chat is probably the best way for them to earn their wage.  However, some sales assistants ARE knowledgable about their product. Some of them genuinely want to know what you're looking for and tell you what product they have that could best serve your needs.  For these people, internet shopping has the potential to render them obsolete - the customer can get all that info online. They just need someone to swipe the card.


At the end of the day, there are pros and cons to both forms of shopping.  I am undoubtedly a huge internet shopping proponent. But there are also things I greatly value advice from a human being sought face to face before I take the plunge and make my purchase.  I like to think that the advent of internet shopping and the competition between it and bricks and mortar retail effectively push each sphere of retail to improve on the gaps in service quality and performance.  Neither form will ever be the be-all and end-all.  There is absolutely a place for both :) xo

Surviving Chicago in winter - or lumpy dressing for the northern hemisphere :)

Woohoo, it is happening! As I write this, I am sitting in Chicago and I am freezing! It's below zero, quite a lot if you include windchill. I am assuming you get acclimatised to the cold, because a lot of people are walking around just dressed warmly but normally and don't appear to be tearing up because their face is freezing and their ears hurt...me, I am visualising 30 degree heat back home and returning to a land of t shirts all year round.

So this trip is for work, we attend a big radiology congress for my company and it's held in Chicago at the same time every year.  Unfortunately, as much as everyone kept saying 'Have a fun trip!' before I left, in reality, it's a long flight, I am at the conference every day and then we fly straight home on Saturday so it's not really a holiday and there's not much time for sightseeing. However, it's still lovely to go and see a different part of the world, especially as it's preparing for a proper white Christmas.

Getting away from work is always tricky and, despite my best efforts, I always seem to end up packing the night before, which goes like this:

That suitcase is going to look super packed once I finish this...

In the end, I packed:

- lots of sweaters/knits
- three pairs of pants (jeans and my Country Road black technical pants, super warm and comfy)
- tights to go under pants and tank tops to go under sweaters
- a pair of black ankle boots and a pair of black patent pointed toe pumps
- exercise gear including trainers, jammies, a couple of t shirts
- one dress
- one very large black shearling coat

Which looked like this:

I woke up early for the flight out of sheer nerves mostly and tried to settle them with a good healthy proper breakfast (my grandad would be so proud of me)...

Breakfast of jet-setting champions

The challenge in going from southern hemisphere to northern hemisphere at peak seasons is you leave in 30 degrees and arrive in snow. I ended up deciding to carry my shearling on the plane, while wearing a more warm-climate suitable white t-shirt and jeans with my lovely new boots for the flight. I accessorised with a navy Hermes scarf and took my trust Chloe tote:

We boarded Qantas business class headed for LA, drank a celebratory champagne on boarding, had a couple of glasses of red with the splendid lunch they provided, then popped on Bose noise-cancelling headphones and watched a bit of Underworld on my iPad mini before sleeping.

So far, this post makes me look quite the drinker...oh well...

On arrival in LA, we had a 3 hour connection which gave us plenty of time to collect bags, negotiate customs/immigration, drop off bags again and proceed to the AA Admirals Club lounge for a brief recheck of Viber on the free wifi before heading off for the connecting flight to Chicago.  It has to be said, first class American Airlines is NOT the same as Qantas business class.  Not. Even. Close.  But I was happy enough that everything was on time and we flew into Chicago around 3pm on Saturday afternoon.

At this point, we had been awake for around 24 hours so we obviously wasted no time checking into the hotel, showering, unpacking then collapsing into bed.

On Sunday, the weather was comparatively warm and so we ended up walking for about 40 minutes to the McCormack Centre to register for the conference.  I did a fairly extensive tour through the technical exhibits halls before a lecture, then headed back to the hotel to drop off conference papers. Then we headed out to eat this amazingness at Acanto:

On that first day, it was about 11 degrees, so I was comfortable enough to go out without a coat and just a jumper, pants, well layered with tights and singlets etc plus a scarf and gloves:

Since then however, the weather has gotten quite cold and bitter, with the windchill taking temperatures well below freezing. It's been fascinating for me, as a warm-weather resident, to work out how best to put an outfit together driven solely by comfort.  It's also one of those things unique to when you're traveling that you have to get by with very little choice in how you dress on any particular day - you only have one bag, two or three pairs of shoes etc. Mostly my traveling wardrobe seems to have worked out well - I'm a bit lumpier than I usually would like but that's ok as long as I've been warm:

Jumper: Maxmara
Pants: Country Road
Boots: Guiseppe Zanotti
Bag Chloe

Jumper: Maxmara
Jeans: JBrand
Boots: Guiseppe Zanotti
Bag: Chloe

We've mostly been working but there has been time to head out into the cold and take some pretty shots of the city as it comes into the Christmas season:

Biggest coat ever...

I hope everyone is having great weeks, whatever the temperature where you are :) xo

Things I'm looking forward to: December

So this is a tiny bit late because I flew into Chicago late on Saturday and have been working since then and also dealing with dodgy wifi and a fair whack of jet lag but here it IS! December's list of things I'm looking forward to :)

1. Christmas!!!

I'm so excited. I have my Christmas playlist on repeat on my iPhone, my gift list is almost complete and my Christmas party plans are well and truly in hand. It's one of my favourite times of the year, full of sun, beach, prawns and Christmas ham and naps in the air con after far too much food :)

2. Presents

I love giving gifts, especially when they're a surprise. My sister, for example, has no idea about the piece of jewellery my mother and I are getting her. My mum does know about the very special oil painting I'm getting from one of her favourite artists (think it's hard to do surprise 'art', what if the recipient hates it?).

M however is impossible to surprise. He's very picky and hates wasting money so I kind of have to run presents past him before I actually take the plunge. Worst gift-receiving trait ever. However, this year I have managed quite the coup: he is getting a new iPhone 6 with his stamp of approval however I have also managed to pick out a little surprise something for him

I received a 100GBP  gift card from the lovely people at Net-a-Porter to spend at Mr Porter. It came quite out of the blue and I was immediately intrigued. I haven't spent much time on Mr Porter since it launched (M is not exactly a fashion hipster so there's precious little point trying to buy him clothes there).

Given I had 100 pounds to spend, I thought it would be a great opportunity to buy a little surprise gift for M - something that he will enjoy but that I'll also enjoy giving him because he has no idea about it.

I was a little anxious about the exercise, given Net-a-Porter's general luxury price range: would there be anything there that was a suitable 'stocking-filler' type gift?

Honestly ladies, I was very pleasantly surprised. There are obviously some really extravagant items (Dunhill Poker set anyone?) but also some quite fun and relatively inexpensive gift ideas.  I dithered for a while over a bluetooth speaker which you can sync with your phone to play music when you go on picnics...but then we don't picnic #fantasylife #reelitin

In the end, I went with Monopoly and Cluedo vintage box games:

I'm quite excited to bust these out come Christmas Day: the perfect time-passer for the afternoon while older relatives get their nap on...

3. Christmas dinner party

We have a group of friends coming for dinner on Saturday night after I return from Chicago - it's a great opportunity for everyone to catch up and share some Christmas cheer before we all scatter for the break.

I've got the menu mainly sorted: classic French Tarragon roast chickens with roasted carrots and onions and a witloff mustard salad. I'll probably do some smoked salmon and dill creme fraiche canapés to start with, and a cheese board with fruits and Viennese almonds to finish (if it was just M and I, I'd wrap the meal up with a litre of connoisseur ice cream and two spoons but my friends are a bit 'no dessert for me, thanks')

I love the idea of a little Kris Kringle-type gift to hand out randomly to my guests and I found these Luxe City Guides on Net-a-Porter.

4. Making jam

My Christmas gifts this year include amazing homemade raspberry jam courtesy of the domestic goddess herself, Nigella.  I've bought about a thousand jam jars from Wheel & Barrow and am so looking forward to a weekend of jam-making somewhere in the time between now and Christmas...

5. The best vanilla malt milkshake ever - Ribs and Burgers - James St

One thing I am really looking forward to when we get back to Brisbane is a fabulous vanilla
milkshake from Ribs and Burgers on James St...

This beauty awaits me back in sunny Brisbane :) 

Flat shoes are having a moment...

I'm probably quite late on this one but flats are clearly having a moment. I've been stalking a pair on Net-a-Porter all season and when a sneaky 25% sale popped up, I swooped:

Black patent leather pointed toe flats are the absolute dream, no? I'm already fantasising about pairing these with skinny jeans and an ivory blouse, topped with a classic smart beige trench. Perfection!!

Red, navy and Hermes

I have meetings early this morning but after that I'm just clearing work and running some errands before my flight on Saturday - getting some scripts filled, getting some USD. I needed a bit of a boost so I went with this bright blouse that always makes me feel cheerful :) 

Top: LK Bennett
Jeans: Country Road
Heels: Bally
Bag: Chloe
Scarf: Hermes

Only two more days!! xo

5 things that make internet shopping awesome

Australians spend over $20 billion per year  shopping online.  As we're fast approaching Christmas, I thought I would do a quick recap on the top five reasons why this figure is so large and amazing :)

1. The range of products

I was about 14 years old when I started reading Vogue seriously, grabbing my copy every month, becoming familiar with sections of the publication, recognising recurring names of content contributors. It will sound hilarious (and some Gen Zs might have no idea what I'm talking about) but my favourite section was the 'stockists page', tucked away towards the end of the mag. This page had all the names and Australian contact numbers of the brands/designers of every item of clothing and accessory featured in the magazine's stories.  When I was reading Vogue and Bazaar, I would find dresses and shoes and the prices would usually be well out of my meagre school student range (natch). However, I started to get an idea of what these sorts of items cost and when I had saved enough money, I got out the stockists page and found the number for the store that apparently 'stocked' the particular Pierre Hardy black patent peeptoe pump I planned to buy as my very first pair of investment high heels (bless, look at me, the sophisticated 18 year old). I called the store and explained I was calling from Queensland and that I wished to buy an item over the phone that I had seen in Vogue using a credit card. The lady laughed so hard I was amazed she had the breath left to tell me that 'people don't buy things over the phone'. True story.

So Australian retail was a pretty woeful experience for fashion lovers in the late 90s/early millennium. It was a revelation when Net-a-Porter launched (sidebar: I was a Net-a-Porter subscriber so early on, it was when they still divided designers into the 'Salon' and the 'Boutique' - aw...). As internet retail expanded, the outraged squeals from local bricks-and-mortar retailers came in loud and clear: it's not fair, how can we possibly compete?!!

Answer: well, giving your customers what they want might be a novel idea. We don't want the bare minimum of any designer's collection. Oooooh, David Jones has finally stocked Christian Louboutin shoes? Wow, how exciting! Oh...so it's just two actual designs? And you got two in each size for, like, the entire country? That sounds intelligent. And they're um, $900 for why exactly, coz I can buy them online for about $450 with the exchange rate?

It may be impossible for people in Europe and the UK and US to understand but trust me ladies, this was the true retail picture in Australia for a very long time. Minimal range, snooty sales assistants who knew less about the product than most customers but thought we were lucky to be spending money in their stores and prices that were sometimes twice what we would pay overseas. And the worst part? The companies treated us, their customers, as though we should be grateful for it.

I'm now a firm internet buyer for anything high-end. Matches, Net-a-Porter and Browns are my poison as far as clothes are concerned. There's a clear UK-bias and I don't really know why, it's just that the edits just seems to speak to my personal aesthetic so well. Matches in particular seems to stock lots of really wearable classic investment pieces season after season, that enable me to step away from the reliable-but-boring world of black pants/pencil skirt plus two-button jacket *bleurrgh*.

Now, it's not all about giving Australian retail a toe up the clacker ;) I also prefer whenever possible to buy from local or domestic stores online as well, because...

2. Convenience!

I don't have to go into detail about this one. Shopping is a time-consuming activity. I'm an economist, time is my number-one valued commodity. I'm also a lawyer, and time is pretty damn expensive for those people too, ESPECIALLY if you're paying for it. I don't want to go out when it suits the shops to be open to me. I finish work usually around 6pm and then I'm off to walk my dog, exercise, cook, clean and heaven help me, spend some time with my soon-to-be husband.  Shopping is something I'm very happy to do when I'm sitting on my couch or in bed, with a glass of wine or cup of tea, on a lazy Sunday evening while dinner is cooking...you get the picture.

3. Customer service

Point 1 above doesn't exactly paint the world of retail sales assistants in a great light.  However, it seems to me that when you make your purchase through the framework of the internet, customer service can be brought to the fore.  It makes sense in a lot of ways: retail SAs standing around in shops are usually bored, tired and couldn't be bothered even trying to gloss over the fact that they are only turning up to work so they can still get paid.  Nothing about their work inspires them and you, their customer, are nothing more or less than an annoyance. However, email enquiries to customer service in my experience are invariably answered promptly. The best e-tailers include individuals' names and contact phone numbers so that you can go the old-fashioned route and speak to a person if you prefer to take your interaction out of the email arena. I've even had a customer service representative from the UK work with me to arrange a time to speak with her about a particular bespoke item, to make sure she (and I) understood completely what I was trying to purchase and there could be no disappointment.

Now I know that there are larger online traders that don't provide a great level of customer service, but then they probably wouldn't be great at customer service if they were in a bricks-and-mortar store either.  My experience has been that the entire framework of online retail is more readily geared towards providing a great customer service experience simply because there are written records of customer interactions and staff performance. There is no quibbling about how long it took for someone to get back to you about your enquiry - the times and dates are right there on the email for all to see.  There is no confusion about what the customer service rep did or didn't advise the customer. The entire process naturally provides far greater accountability for retail assistants. And the good companies (and good sales assistants) know it.

4. Getting parcels and packages delivered makes any random day like a birthday or Christmas

Call me sentimental, but parcels delivered by post are right up there with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens in my incredibly busy digital-heavy world of high-speed communication and instant decision-making. Frankly, it's just fun to receive something by post, open the boring cardboard box and find all the pretty wrapping inside. In fact, packaging has become something a lot of e-tailers are focusing more on, because the best ones recognise that there is still an 'experience' to be attached to shopping in the virtual world, if THEY choose to create it. I've received parcels with handwritten notes with nothing more than good wishes by the person who packed it and you know what? I like that. I would never get that shopping at a physical store, would I?

Happy Tuesday to me, happy Tuesday to me!

5. Participation

The modern world and particularly social media move at an incredibly fast pace. I obviously don't maintain an even vaguely-current social media presence (I'm working on it, I do have Twitter and Instagram accounts - yay me!). There is quite a disconnect between those of us who work in 'old' economies/industries and those who are moving almost exclusively into the 'new' industries where social media content and activity is either an essential support component of a product or service, or it is the product itself. I'm an old industry participant - I run a company that employs real human beings in real time and that sells services to real human beings in real time.  My real presence is non-negotiable and consequently, given there are only so many hours in the day, it would be possible for me to feel quite excluded from the virtual world where information moves so quickly.  Internet shopping however, allows me to maintain an (albeit) small level of interaction with the online industry. I might begin by browsing dresses somewhere but then be taken to an online publication such as The Style Report by Matches (one of my favourites). I might want some information about a product and go to my hands-down recommended source of genuine feedback on clothes and jewellery and accessories on the net - The Purse Forum - where I'll find reviews and be able to ask questions from other fashionably-minded individuals. I will also have the opportunity to find blogs, some of which have become firm favourites with posts from lovely women all over the world, all managing lives while keeping their fashion-fantasies alive. It makes me feel connected and I'd take that over Facebook's algorithm-generated, ad-heavy 'news' feed any day.

Maxmara navy perfection

So after blathering on about how much I love slim trousers for work, yesterday a cheeky Matches order arrived and hurrah for navy Maxmara crepe dresses:

Dress: Maxmara
Heels: Bally
Bag: Chloe

M left on a two-week trip for work yesterday and I head off to Chicago for a week on Saturday.  The house has that slightly frantic 'just washed and packed' feel and there are piles of clothes sitting out ready for packing. Fat dog is wandering around the house looking a bit skittish and uncertain because M's not here madly chasing him around the house after dinner. I've got so much work to clear before I go for the week, I'm just hoping I get to Saturday in reasonable shape because at the moment my head is running in a million different directions.

I hope you guys are having slightly less mad weeks all round :) xo