At Banana Republic and Anthropologie, the exchange rates used for the UK stores and websites seem quite fair. Take this Map of the World skirt, which I like but wouldn't buy. In the US, it's $178, whereas in the UK, it retails for £148. You then only have to pay £4 or £5 postage and packaging and no taxes. Meanwhile, at J. Crew, the grey blazer I like costs £172.75 (compared with a US price of $188), which is nearly pounds-for-dollars pricing. If I made it as far as checkout, I probably would have found out that they would have to add another 20% for VAT (so another £35) and then, because the item costs more than $200 (via the UK website, anyway), I'd have to pay customs duty, which could be another £30. Oh, and the £9.95 shipping. All of this wouldn't be so bad if I really loved the jacket and knew it would fit but I'm fussy about blazer fit, and I really don't know how small the 00P would come up.
I say if I made it as far as checkout because I tried to get to that stage to see how much tax and customs I'd have to pay but although I could add the item to my basket, after entering my delivery address, the site came up with an error message: "52589 : This product was not found in our international database. Please remove this item from your shopping cart and try again." I did try again and it still didn't work, so I guess it's lucky I'd already decided to wait until my trip to New York next month.
The pink skirt I like costs £78 ($85 in the US), or about £105 including taxes and shipping. This is still very expensive (for comparison, when I ordered an $88 skirt from the US J. Crew last year using Bundlebox, the total cost was $117, or about £71) but it is a pretty skirt and I know the size 00 will probably fit me. I might have been tempted but the expected shipping date is September 12, which is the day before I fly to NYC...
Can you believe it's still cheaper to do it yourself with Bundlebox?
ReplyDeleteJust left a comment on this already below.
I know, it's really disappointing. I'm lucky enough to be going to the US in a few weeks so at least I can buy the J. Crew things I'd been getting excited about. But after such a long wait, I can't believe their prices are so harsh...
ReplyDelete