Great range of plus size fashions and shoes for reasonable prices.
Written: Dec 21 '02 (Updated Jan 19 '03)
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WHAT THEY SELL: Women’s Clothes sizes 14W & up – Footwear up to size 12WW
Knit Tops & Tees, Sweaters , Shirts & Blouses , Bottoms , Jackets & Blazers , Outerwear, Dresses, Suits , Special Occasion , Sets , Swimwear , Robes & Sleepwear , Intimate Apparel, Shoes, Accessories , Petites , and Talls.
ASSOCIATED WITH: This is a family of businesses under the Brylane umbrella—others include Jessica London, Brylane Home, BrylandHome Kitchen, Roaman’s, Chadwick’s, Lerner Catalog, and KingSize Direcet. This company is NOT associated with the Lane Bryant stores (therefore returns cannot be done at a store if purchased through the lbcatalog site).
The lbcatalog.com site seems to be their most inclusive site—the selection is better, the site functions well without most of the problems seen in the others in this group (broken links, invalid catalog items, etc. – see my review of JessicaLondon.com http://www.epinions.com/content_83817762436 for details).
SIZING & SELECTION: They offer petite and extended sizes which includes talls. There is a detailed sizing chart to help you choose the right size for you. Some items go to size 6x, the range isn’t a great as the JessicaLondon.com site in the extended sizes, however.
SHOPPING EXPERIENCE: Basically the site works as intended. The navigation is clear and the search does function. At the bottom of every page is a detailed site map so there’s no question about where to find important information. They use the standard shopping cart system—select the size, the color and click to add to your shopping cart. If the item isn’t available you’ll have the opportunity to select another item or wait list if they expect additional shipments.
PRICING: Great sales (discounts, web-only offers, free shipping at times, etc.) and online coupons (type “Lane Bryant Coupon” in any search engine and you’ll find many sites which offer free coupons—keep looking until you find the one right for you) make shopping here worth the look.
ACCOUNT: You must have an account to order, but not to browse. Sign up is fast and easy and pretty standard—no surprises here.
PRIVACY POLICY: The do share your information with 3rd party (currently DoubleClick), but they’re very up front about it and tell you exactly how it’s used. They also offer links to be removed for each of their subsidiaries (see above) from one convenient location.
SHIPPING: Regular shipping takes 6-10 days—standard in my book and is based on total cost of the order, not weight. Shipping starts out a little steep at $5.99 for up to $19.00 considering we’re mailing clothes for the most part, but a $59.00 order ships for $7.99—more reasonable. I’d save up until I had one larger order rather than several smaller ones to save on shipping. They do offer express shipping as well for a steeper fee. All fees are clearly stated on their site – before you order! I hate not being able to see what the shipping is until I’ve gotten my cart full.
SALES TAX: Residents in Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, will have the appropriate sales tax added to their order. Not paying tax is a big plus for me so I like knowing up front whether or not I’ll be charged it.
GUARANTEE: “Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason you are not satisfied with your purchase, simply return it for an exchange, credit or refund.” They do not refund shipping & handling or return shipping—just be aware. Should an item be defective, I would certainly press the issue with them and insist they refund.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: 24-hour telephone service as well as contact by e-mail makes this an easy place to shop, even at midnight. They do have a comprehensive “Help” section if you want to go it alone. I’ve never needed to use the help or their customer service since everything on the site has been self-explanatory and reasonably described.
RETURNS & EXCHANGES: I’ve never returned an item—they’ve always arrived on time and the sizing has been accurate so I’m not able to comment on this.
MY EXPERIENCE: I’ve ordered several times—each time the items arrived in multiple shipments. No problems there as they charged only the price of the item shipped plus the appropriate shipping for that item. When the additional items arrived I was charged a second time for the new items plus the remainder of the shipping (to equal the full order). I wasn’t overcharged as has happened a few times by other vendors when sending in multiple shipments.
I appreciated getting the items that were available quickly and being notified of the waitlisted items—with the opportunity to cancel or exchange at that time. It would have been more helpful if that had happened during the ordering process, however, I understand “real-time” inventory is sometimes difficult and shortages do happen.
They could greatly improve their site if they offered multiple views of the item and in the additional colors. Currently they offer a tiny electronic swatch of color to choose from—not an easy thing to do. Many sites are offering virtual models, alternate views, 360 degree views, and color changes which allow you to see exactly how the new color would look. I’d also like to see measurements such as the length of the garment listed—especially shirts.
I would recommend signing up for their catalog (you can sign up for the whole group of catalogs from their main page) so that you’ll have alternate views from the site and can make a better determination if the item is right for you.
PERSONAL NOTE:
Of the entire suite of sites, this is the most reliable, however, I shop them all as they carry different items. I’ve not been able to figure out their reasoning for the multiple sites, rather than one large one, but it must be style. Perhaps one is targeted at a younger, hipper, crowd and one for us older ladies, but I really can’t pick it out. Plus, I wear a wide-range of styles so maybe I’m part of the target audience for all of them. I suspect the truth is that they have different buyers for each site as well as different warehouses. The webs seem to be identical; in fact, you can jump from one to the other and not really notice you’ve changed. The look and feel of each is the same (which is comforting as you already know how to navigate), but it also means the problems on one are probably repeated on the others. The benefit to one large site would be combined shipping,
SPECIALTY: Plus size Women’s clothes and shoes at reasonable prices.
URL:http://www.lbcatalog.com
DATE: The information in this review was accurate on Saturday, December 21, 2002
Here are some additional reviews I've done on Plus Size online stores:
Roamans Online Store - http://www.epinions.com/content_84455165572
Jessica London Online Store - http://www.epinions.com/content_83817762436
Just My Size - http://www.epinions.com/content_83743313540
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
briandalsmom
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Member: Mom
Location: USA
Reviews written: 249
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