Closet Child Guide & Review

♥ Overview
This is a review of Closet Child, a Japanese fashion shopping website. This was my first time ordering from them. It all started when I came across this dress:

Additional Photos:

 

Here is the full screenshot of the original listing (Link here).
Unfortunately this dress set didn't come with the matching headpiece, but hopefully I will find it someday. In this post I will provide a brief guide/tutorial with screenshots of my ordering process as well as an overall review of ClosetChild (and of course, my dress!)

♥ Overseas Order
ClosetChild provides a guide filled with screenshots for overseas orders (Link here). Although the guide contains screenshots, it looks a little bit different than their current design since they have a different website layout. You can order from them by adding your item(s) to your cart and then either checking out with or without an account. I chose to check out without an account, because I didn't really care to make an account at the time I'm lazy. I included screenshots of my ordering process below.

Adding to cart:

Buying without an account (bottom right button):

Step 1 (Full screenshot) Shipping Address:

Step 2 (Full Screenshot) Shipping Information:

Step 3 (Full Screenshot) Payment Selection:

Step 4 (Full Screenshot) Order Summary:

Step 5 (Full Screenshot) Go to Paypal:

Paypal

♥ Communication
While I didn't Email them directly, I did receive 3 consecutive Emails after ordering. Each Email included an order summary (that I didn't screenshot).

The first Email (dated April 25th) was an automatic order confirmation Email.

The second Email (dated April 26th) was an automatic payment received/order confirmed Email.

The third Email (dated April 27th) let me know they shipped and had a tracking number.

♥ Shipping
I had placed my order on Friday night (or midnight Saturday), April 24th/April 25th, 2015. From the date they shipped (April 27th, 2015), it took 3 days for the parcel to arrive to my doorstep (April 30th, 2015). Although they provided a website for tracking (http://www.track-trace.com/post), I always prefer just going to USPS.com for a more detailed and updated tracking log.

♥ Package

Inside of the package also had a printed invoice (Link here)

♥ Summary

Communication: I don't feel like I could grade them on this as I didn't have any direct contact with them. I did appreciate the automatic emails which let me know that they received my order, my payment, and that they had finally shipped my parcel. All of this took place in 3 consecutive days, so the automatic emails were quick. 5/5

Cost: I paid 24,800yen for this dress set not including shipping. Given the current exchange rate with the yen being so low, I don't feel bad about what I paid. I generally consider anything around $200 USD to be 'average' pricing whereas anything around $100 USD to be extremely cheap (when it comes to dresses). 5/5

Shipping: I paid 1680yen total for the shipping. The actual postage (according to the label on my parcel) turned out to be 2040yen, however I didn't have to compensate them for that. As I made my order on a weekend day, they shipped on the next business day, and I received my parcel in 3 days. Very fast, as expected with EMS shipping. I just wish they offered cheaper methods, such as SAL or airmail -- but really, they ship internationally without the use of a shopping service so, what more could you ask for? 5/5

Packaging: The actual dress was shipped in a bubble mailer and wrapped neatly inside of plastic. Whenever I ship garments, I always wrap in plastic and then stuff it inside of a box or bubbled envelope. No issues with their packaging. 5/5

Quality: While Closet Child did have a picture with a red circle indicating a flaw, I did not notice any flaws with this dress. However, I don't tend to notice minor flaws like a tiny mark or a loose thread. The rating was 2/5 which they label as 'good.' They start their scaling with 1 being fair/acceptable rather than 1 being unwearable. The dress was wrinkled, but I think that's normal for a dress to be wrinkled after being shoved into an envelope or box for shipment. 5/5

Overall, I would definitely buy from Closet Child again the next time I see a dress I like. I'm really happy to be able to buy from them easily, and without a shopping service. Lastly, I appreciate that online purchases are updated as out of stock automatically, however they may not update their in-store stock on their website immediately after something is sold.