You seriously expect me to spend money here?

It seems that they've taken pages from their catalog, scanned them and made complicated imagemaps out of them. So if you don't have a catalog right there, you're out of luck in terms of finding anything. You click on the item to get to the order information. Now, the details one needs to order are pulled from a database, and yet it is still possible to try to order something that's not exactly in stock in the color and size you want, because apparently nobody updates the records after they are created. I would not be at all surprised to find that this contraption runs on Access.

So, say I'm interested in a sweater in size small, I like the green. I make my selection only to get a message telling me to make another selection, mine is not available. Couldn't they have told me that before I went to all that trouble? Lands' End can.

In any case, I finally managed to select some things that were actually available. Sort of. You see, most of them were back ordered, except for some shoes. The shoes were a key item, because they are exactly like my favorite shoes ever. Literally they are the same model, and I was going to buy three pair. Those were in stock, because it seems that I'm the only person on the planet who likes the semi-clogs from Born. Even though I get compliments on them all the time. (Well, from people who work in the medical field, and they have to wear shoes like that.)

So when you're planning to buy three pair of shoes, your're planning to spend a little bit of money. The way J. Jill works its shipping is that the rate is based not on the weight of the things you ordered, but on the total cost of those things. My total was at their top level, for which they want $17.95 for standard shipping. I assume they use UPS, and that they get a volume discount. If not they should use the USPS and get free boxes. (Nordstrom does that for its online operations. Priority Mail gets stuff from a warehouse in Washington State to me here in Washington D.C. in three to four days. No big deal, but that saves me and the company a chunk of change on shipping.)

So I cancelled my order. There's a J.Jill store in Tyson's Corner, and since I have to go out there anyway later this week, I will reluctantly stop there to see if they have my shoes. If they do, I will reluctantly buy them, but only because I know the shoes already. I will not buy the really cute sweaters, even though I liked them and I need sweaters.

I am just that stubborn. Of course, maybe if I spent some money there, they could afford a real web site. You never know.

before - after