Being a plus sized girl can be very frustrating at times. Finding clothes that fit and work with your body type can be very difficult. This is even more true for young women who want to wear alt clothing. It can be a nightmare to find something that fits you body type and your personal style. Finding is about a size 10 can be an even bigger challenge. However, Hot Topic and her sister store Torrid can be great sources for you.
Yes I know. Hot Topic is not exactly a store that you would think is plus size friendly. Lets face it, the store by all appearances caters to the body fat challenged crowd, but give the store a chance. Hot Topic regular sizes go up to XXL. Admittedly, some brands run small, but you will find that in any store. Plus Hot Topic does have what they call “extended” sizes. These sizes go up to a 4x. It might not always easy to find the bigger sizes in the store. They almost always are carried in smaller numbers and sell out quickly. However, there is always the option of ordering online. The website usually has a pretty good selection of these sizes in stock.
Many people have not heard of a little store called Torrid. Torrid is Hot Topic’s little sister. The store sells plus sized clothing for women. It carries a wide variety of styles and cuts that makes it easy for women to find the perfect fit for them. Of course, Torrid has a darker edge to some of its lines. However, they also have formal wear and career wear too. The down side is that Torrid is still growing. There are major US cities that do not have a brick and mortar store for hundreds of miles. That leaves customers bound to buy online.
I have ordered from both sites, and both have their up and down sides. I have been quite lucky with Torrid. My biggest complaint is since I do not have a store locally, I do not get to try the clothes on first. My first few orders always resulted in at least one item that just didn’t fit right. It was the right size, and on the webpage it looked amazing. However, when I got the item, it look horrid on me. That was a learning curve. Plus I often buy things on clearance, and clearance items cannot be returned. This made me learn how to order better. I still am a little worried at times, but I have not had any bad orders in a few years. Torrid is a newer store, and as such has fewer published complaints and issues on the web. My research only found the usual online store type complaints. That doesn’t mean mistakes do not happen, but it seems when it does their customer service takes care of things quite well.
Hot Topic is another story. You can go on most review sites and find scores of complaints ranging from orders not being processed and customers never being notified, to poor customer service, to the wrong item being shipped. While I think some of these complaints may be exaggeration and exceptions to the rule, I can see how that perception happens. I recently had a bad experience with Hot Topic myself. I bought a corset on sale. It said the one I wanted was available in my size. I placed my order and thought nothing more about it. Three days later I receive this weird e-mail telling me if I have any questions about my order to contact them. I am a little confused, and my item is still “processing” when it should have been shipped. I went on to this wonderful thing called live chat. You can speak to a rep via a chat dialogue. I love this format. Both Hot Topic and Torrid have it and I love that it is the real time of a phone conversation and you can have the chat transcript sent to you via e-mail so you still have the hard copy of who said what. A very nice rep (all the reps I have ever talked to on live chat have been very helpful) told me that my order was cancelled because the item was no longer in stock. I told her that was funny because obviously I was able to order it and the website still said my order was processing, and I never received e-mail notification. After the rep helped me as much as she could, she asked if a lead (someone above her) could call me. I really do not like handling customer service items over the phone. I like having that paper trail to back me (especially since I’m the little consumer advocate and I write a lot of these little articles. I like to keep my facts straight.), and I just find e-mail and live chat to be more effective. Against my better judgment, I agree to this. Then I am greeted by a condescending and rude lead rep (who’s name I will withhold) . She basically treats me like an idiot for not understanding how the system worked and many times told me they couldn’t send me something they didn’t have. She then insists that I just pick something else, and they will give me free shipping. She keeps on me just to pick another item. Like somehow that will make it better. I tried explaining to her that now, all my other options are sold out of my size too. Not to mention, I had ordered the corset I wanted on a holiday weekend. Both Torrid and Hot Topic usually have take an additional 50% off clearance items on holiday weekends. Even if I picked something else, I would still end up paying double what I did before. Somehow that doesn’t seem right. She even went as far as to say well we have it in a 3 and 4x, would those work? No! The size I bought was the one I wanted and really who wants a two size too big corset? Finally, she got my point, told me to keep my order number and call once I placed another order to get my free shipping and just about hung up on me.
You see the free shipping was a ploy. It was her one ditch effort to appease me and shut me up. Had she not been so rude, it probably would have worked. Yes, I still would have been disappointed and upset, but I would have taken as a token of goodwill. The store really wasn’t obligated to give me anything or any special treatment. I just wanted someone to explain things to me. Instead she had to be condescending, and that just did not set well with me.
Upset, I called the customer service line and got the e-mail address to file a formal complaint. I tried sending my complaint to the e-mail address, but it kept getting sent back to me as undeliverable. I called customer service again to let them know, and they had me submit my complaint via the Hot Topic website. After 24 hours had passed, I had three auto replies, but no real response from Hot Topic. I contacted the live chat people again. This rep is kind enough to check the queue for my e-mail. She reports that my e-mail was never received. Now I am livid. The website said it went through, I have auto replies galore, but they insist the e-mail was never received. Now I am beginning to think that the e-mail was deleted. I don’t want to believe that they would bury customer complaints like that, but it wasn’t looking good. This time the rep suggested that I try to send it to some office services e-mail instead. I do that on a Friday by Monday there is still no reply and the supervisor that was supposed to call me Friday still hasn’t called. I do the live chat thing again. This rep tells me the supervisor in question is in, and she will make sure she gets my information. Later that day I did speak with her. The conversation went well. I explained the situation and she looked into from her end. I told her that I just wanted to understand what had happened and to report the lead for being unprofessional and rude. Apparently, the e-mail the one rep said was never received had been. She wasn’t sure why it wasn’t responded to, but it was something she said she would look into. She explained to me how the system there works. Even when I asked how my item that was “sold out” was suddenly back in stock, she gave me a couple different options on how that could have happened. She showed the same professionalism and helpfulness I saw in the live chat reps. She even went above and beyond to see if maybe I could secure the one item that is listed in stock. Granted, she made me no promises, but she did go above and beyond to help restore my faith in the company.
What this little nightmare happened to me is probably the biggest drawback to ordering from Torrid and Hot Topic online. The inventory showed on the website is not updated in real time. The way the supervisor explained it to me was that if they have one of a particular item in the warehouse, it shows as in stock. That means if four of us all see that it is available, and we each order it, only one of us will get said item. The other three are out of luck. This is something you have to keep in mind especially if you are ordering a clearance item. Those items will most likely never be restocked (hence the fact that they are on clearance), so do not celebrate that purchase until you know it has been shipped. Another thing to know is just because they are sister stores, does not mean shipping “coupons” are transferrable. If you are given free shipping for a Hot Topic order, you cannot use it for a Torrid order. I’m not sure why, but that is how the policy stands.
The other issues: no notification that the order was cancelled, the e-mail disappearing and reappearing, the fact that still on one has responded to my last e-mail, I still can’t explain. The supervisor didn’t have any immediate answers for me either, but at least she was going to take care of it. As for the other complaints I found online, I’m not sure if I have found enough evidence to consider them fact. I think that over all the people at these online stores are helpful. I do think on occasion one of us customers get a raw deal, but if you pursue it, the company makes it right. At least that is the stance I am taking for now, and I hope neither company makes me regret it in the future.
