Let’s face it. Sometimes I’m just too busy to shop. I hate to say it because I love going out shopping, but when you have to factor in the drive time, waiting your turn for a dressing room, not being able to find your size and then waiting in line to pay, sometimes it’s more appealing to shop on the couch from your pj’s. If you think this might be something you’re interested in but don’t know where to start, check out my list below of some of my favorite places to buy clothing and accessories online.
Jeans and Casual Wear
American Eagle Outfitters, www.ae.com
I absolutely love this store! AE has everything from cute jeans to quirky t-shirts to worn-in sweatshirts at reasonable prices. My current favorite item is the Women’s Artist jeans. Their website offers extended sizes that you can’t find in the stores and some web-only items. Check out the Clearance section-you can commonly find items at 50% or more off the regular price. Be sure to set up an account on the website. Not only can you store your billing and shipping information, but you can request to be on their e-mail list. You’ll get special promotions like 15% off your order, free shipping or even both offers when you spend a certain amount! And the best thing is you can take all items you order online back to any store near you, so don’t worry if those jeans are a little too tight!
Career Wear
New York & Co., www.nyandcompany.com
Offers many choices in career clothing. You can find pants, skirts, capris, button-up shirts and sweaters in line with some of the latest trends at low prices. For your first online shopping purchase, make sure you sign up for the promotional e-mails-you’ll get one in your inbox immediately in which you can redeem 20% of your purchase. You’ll also get e-mails notifying you of sales both online and in the stores, giving you coupons for your next purchase and reminding you of upcoming sale and clearance events. If you have your sights set on a certain item at regular price, you may want to wait a week or two before purchasing-items go on sale pretty frequently and you might get a better deal.
Old Navy, www.oldnavy.com
Tons of options in career wear. Old Navy offers dress pants in a variety of colors, lengths, sizes and cuts. Also great to stock up on the basics like white button-up shirts, camisoles or tees. You can find many online exclusives and it’s a lot easier to find an item in your size and in the color you want on the website. Old Navy frequently offers quantity break discounts when you buy multiples of the same type of item. Order as much – or as little – as you want and only pay $5 shipping.
Dresses
Target, www.target.com
Target now has many designers making clothing lines exclusively for Target, including Isaac Mizrahi, Liz Lange (for maternity), Mossimo® and Proenza Schouler. Isaac Mizrahi makes beautiful dresses for almost any occasions. I’ve purchased a number of dresses for weddings I’ve attended-in fact I just purchased a bridesmaid’s dress for my sisters wedding for only $31.99! The dress was by Isaac Mizrahi and you just can’t beat the quality for the price you pay. You can read customer reviews about each item to find out quality concerns, sizing tips and just overall comments about the items. A number of the dresses on the website are online exclusives that you can’t find in the store. Be careful when ordering…some items have to be returned by mail and NOT to the store. Most purchases $50 and over will qualify for free shipping to you, but is not covered when shipping returns. Don’t forget to check the clearance!
Accessories and Shoes
Forever 21, www.forever21.com
Great store to stock up on your costume jewelry. You can find necklaces sometimes as cheap as $4 or $5 each and earrings as cheap as $2 or $3. The jewelry is sometimes wild and sometimes over-the-top, but when you can buy multiple pieces for under $10 total, does it really matter? I love buying trendy items here-if they go out of style in a few months I won’t mind donating or throwing those out. Be sure to check out the purses too. You can find designer look-alikes for fractions of what you’d pay in department stores.
Nine West, www.ninewest.com
Literally hundreds of pairs of shoes at your fingertips. Use the search function to search by a specific size, color and heel height. You can continue to narrow your search by looking at shoes from lowest to highest priced or by most popular. Features a “Sale” category so that you can go directly to shoes and accessories with savings off of the normal price. For even deeper discounts, make sure you check out the “Last Dibs” category. Sizes and colors are limited, but you can save sometimes more than 50% off the original price.
Zappos, www.zappos.com
Over 1100 brands, 150,000 styles and 3 million products on their website almost guarantees that you’ll find the shoe you’re looking for! Free overnight shipping (with certain restrictions) means you’ll get your shoe lightning fast. The return policy is awesome-you can ship the shoes back to Zappos for free and you can take a full year to send them back if need be! I’ve been able to find pairs of shoes long after they’ve been pulled from the departments stores and shoes that aren’t normally available to me because of where I live. Each product page gives you customer reviews, tons of sizing tips, shoe measurements and even lets you submit your e-mail to notify you if a certain size and color combination becomes available. Tons of products and user-friendly options makes this website a great place for online shopping.
No matter what you’re shopping for, you can probably find it online. Most stores you can visit will have an online store that allows you to make purchases from their website. If you’re not sure, you can always do a Google (www.google.com) search for the stores name. For more general browsing, you can always check out Yahoo!Shopping (www.yahoo.com) and enter in broad search terms to get popular results.
