Quality, Great Customer Service, and Free Exchanges Make Nordstrom Online a Winner!
Nordstrom
I believe an online store is only as good as its customer service. If I have a problem, I want to know it will be rectified with no hassles.
I never shopped at Nordstrom before for no reason other than I had no real reason to. I found a reason to when Lancôme sent me an email for a huge gift with a $39.50 purchase at Nordstrom.
Liking Lancôme, loving free gifts (This one was the best I ever saw!), and wanting to check out Nordstrom, I headed over there.
I came across a little glitch but the customer service reps were superb and I will definitely shop at Nordstrom again.
What They Sell
Men's, women, kid's, and babies clothing, accessories, footwear, jewelry, gifts for the home, wedding stuff, and lots of brand name beauty and skin care.
Navigation and Ordering
This is a classy site with easy navigation and searches. You can keyword search by category or browse categories.
Photos are good and all can be made very large to see details. Descriptions are ample.
Live Help is available often to help or answer questions. Otherwise, an onsite email will get you an answer the next day.
The site has $5.00 standard shipping all the time, which really rocks. No more guessing how much shipping will be! They also have free shipping specials and other promotions.
Check out is easy. You are not required to register with the site but I did. You just fill in your name and address as well as email address. If you register, you will pick a password for subsequent visits.
Pay with a major credit card and you are done. You will get a confirmation letter, but not immediately. I didn't get mine for a while (hours not days). You will get emails throughout the shipping process letting you know where your order is and how to track it.
It takes around five days for typical orders to arrive.
My Experience
Lured by the great gift with purchase, I went right to the Lancôme area and easily found $39.50 worth of products to buy. I saw that shipping was free with the purchase of any pair of shoes so I wandered over to the shoe area. Prices were somewhat high but I saw that a $2.49 Croc decoration (a little ying yang for one of the holes in my black Crocs) would qualify me for free shipping. That worked for me so I added it to my order.
There was no coupon code on my email and I saw no mention of the GWP at check out. Worried that I would not get the gift, I called the phone number on the site. This was in the middle of the night and I was surprised someone answered.
The woman was friendly and looked up the promotion. She didn't know why Lancôme didn't assign a code but made a note to make sure I got the gift. She warned me that there were only 160 of these gifts left and said she was glad I called and she had flagged the account and all should be well.
I hung up and completed my order.
As a seasoned online shopper, I just didn't feel like the problem was solved. So, I called back.
I got a nice man this time who looked up my info and verified that the gifts were very limited. He saw that the reason my promotion wasn't applied was because one of the Lancôme products was coming from the warehouse and one was coming from a store, making it look as if I didn't reach the $39.50 threshold.
I was ready for a fight but, instead, he said he would expedite the shipping of my gift and it would actually arrive before my order. He finished all the paper work while I waited and told me to watch for the gift the next day (not the day I called at 4 a.m.).
Sure enough, my gift was on my doorstep as promised and boy, what a steal.
My regular order came in two boxes. One was from a Nordstrom store in the middle of the country; the other was from the warehouse.
There was a return label in the boxes and all was fine. I was not charged shipping and my Croc decoration was cute as, well, a button. Haha.
I am very pleased with the service I received. I have been told one thing and then been completely swerved by customer service people who seem to have the gift of forgetting everything they say the second they hang up the phone.
Everything was exactly as promised and no one questioned my free shipping for a little button rather than a pair of shoes as stated on the site. (I didn't cheat; it was in the shoe department and it said it qualified for free shipping.)
In all, a very positive experience with Nordstom.com and I will shop there again. They are a bit expensive unless items are on sale so I will probably wait for a sale before I make another order.
Shipping and Returns
Standard shipping in the US is $5.00. Right now, they have a special of two-day delivery for $12.50 as well.
Tax is charged in states where there are Nordstrom stores.
Exchange postage is free using their enclosed label. I love that! You can make a phone exchange as well. They will send your exchange for no shipping and then credit your account when your original item is returned.
If you want a refund, use the label and they will deduct $5.00 from your refund. You can pay for shipping back yourself and they won't charge the $5.00.
Or you can exchange or return items at any Nordstrom store.
Conclusion
This is an honest, good site which I would not hesitate to shop from again. Although the items I looked at were somewhat pricey, they seem to have some good sales and they have a great selection of beauty products, some of which are very hard to find elsewhere.
Customer service is great. Although I don't know why there was no code to key in for my free gift, I don't blame Nordstrom's since the email came from Lancôme. Both reps I spoke to were professional, helpful, and very accommodating. It's such a relief to talk to people who don't act as if you're bothering them or breaking up their tabloid reading time by calling with a problem.
My order came as promised and I got a great deal all around.
I give this site 4 stars. It isn't perfect but it's one site I won't hesitate to return to — and put my confidence in.
Recommended:
Yes
