Dear Avenue.com: I Hate You. I Really, Really Hate You.
Oh Avenue. ALL I WANT TO DO IS GIVE YOU MONEY IN EXCHANGE FOR GOODS. That’s all! I don’t want us to be friends. I don’t even care if we’re barely civil to one another, given that I loathe probably 85% of what’s on your website at any given moment and I resent that you occupy a goodly portion of the already-limited map of plus-size options that go up to a 5X, sprawling all over territory I am inclined to think would be better employed by a greater diversity of non-floral apparel options. We don’t have to like each other. BUT, given that you are supposed to be a STORE (whence people MAKE PURCHASES, just to be clear) I don’t expect that buying things from you should be met with apparently willful obstruction at every bloody turn. In fact, I’d be happiest if my experience with you went so smoothly that I barely noticed the transaction had taken place. Unfortunately, this is not how things tend to go.
Every once in a great while, I’ll need to buy one of the items you do well. Such as your seamless bike shorts, or your high-cut underpants, or your swimwear (truly, two of my favorite swimsuits of the past couple years came from you). You’ll note here that I am not linking to any of these items’ product pages on your website. I would LIKE to link to these items, as I am a blogger and links are what bloggers thrive on. That’s just one small example of why your website is such an unmitigated disaster. A person cannot link to any individual product page. This is essentially the philosophical antithesis of usefulness. Do you realize how idiotic your unlinking website is? Without functioning links, why have a website at all? Why not just draw pictures of your garments using lampblack on papyrus and distribute them by carrier pigeon to the fat people of the world?
Furthermore: I cannot honestly tell you how many times in recent months I have selected a number of garments, placed them in the shopping cart on your site, and attempted to make my purchase, only to run into so many difficulties that I inevitably throw up my hands and close the browser window, flinging an array of expletives at both you at your parentage as I do so.
Avenue, if you were a person, the following have been the conversation we had this morning. Though this is a dramatized version, everything I describe attempting here in my failed efforts to make my purchase is 100% true.
Lesley and Avenue sit across from one another at a table. The only light onstage issues from a laptop sitting between them.
Me: “Hey Avenue, I’d like to make a purchase. I need some bras and tanks and have put them in your shopping bag thingy. The trouble is, I’ve forgotten my password. Luckily you have a ‘forgot your password?’ link here.”
Avenue: “Oh, I’m sorry. That doesn’t actually work. But I hope this error message is helpful to you!”
Me: “It’s not, actually. Um. I guess I’ll use the ‘checkout as a guest’ option.”
Avenue: “Great! Hi stranger! What’s your billing address?”
Me: [Enters billing address.]
Avenue: “Excellent! What’s your shipping address?”
Me: [Enters shipping address.]
Avenue: “Thank you! Now very important, this: would you like to receive thrice-daily emails from us about nothing?”
Me: [Ticks ‘no’ box.]
Avenue: “Hey, ARE YOU REALLY SURE ABOUT THAT? Mightn’t there be some confusing language I could use here to trick you into signing up?”
Me: “Yes, I am sure. No, there is not.”
Avenue: “Fabulous! Here’s your order confirmation screen! We’ll be shipping to [billing address] and thanks for signing up for our email list!”
Me: “Wait, no, I wanted to ship to [shipping address].”
Avenue: “Oh! Uh, then you can go back and edit, I think.”
Me: “You THINK?”
Avenue: “Sure! Give it a try!”
Me: [Goes back to address information screen, fixes shipping address, clicks ‘continue’.]
Avenue: “Here, again, is your order confirmation screen! We’ll be shipping to [billing address], and thanks ever so much for signing up for our email list! We’re already savagely beating your inbox to death, even as we speak!”
Me: “NO. I wanted to ship to [shipping address].”
Avenue: “Yes, [billing address].”
Me: “NO. I… ugh, maybe this is a browser problem, I’ll try it again in IE.”
Me: [Opens Internet Explorer. Puts selections into shopping cart again.]
Avenue: “Hi stranger! Would you like to sign up for our completely not overbearing email list? It’ll change your life!”
Me: “No, I am just trying to recreate my shopping cart so I can try my purchase again. Uh, why is this product page suddenly not loading?”
Avenue: “What are you talking about?”
Me: “Well, look, this page only loads halfway and then stops. How am I supposed to add this to my cart? Is it out of stock?”
Avenue: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It must be your browser.”
Me: “I’ve tried to load this page on three browsers, two computers, and an iPhone. The same partial page is loading on all of them.”
Avenue: “You are mistaken. There is no product page.”
Me: “But..”
Avenue: “THERE IS NO PRODUCT PAGE.”
Me: “Okay, fine, I guess I’ll skip that item.”
Avenue: “GREAT.”
Me: “I’m going to try checking out as a guest again, since the forgot password link is still resulting in a singularly non-helpful error message.”
Avenue: “Hi stranger! What’s your billing address?”
Me: [Enters billing address, enters shipping address, ticks ‘no’ box under email signup.]
Avenue: “Awesome! Here’s your order confirmation screen! We’ll be shipping to [billing address], and thanks ever so much for signing up for our email list!”
Me: “OH MY FUCKING GOD. Fine, maybe the problem is with the guest checkout. I’ll sign up for a new account and try to checkout.”
Avenue: “Hi stranger! Give me all your delicious personal information now!”
Me: “Uh, okay.” [Creates new account.]
Avenue: “Oh, hi Lesley! Let’s verify your address and shipping information before you check out!”
Me: “Looks good.”
Avenue: “You’re sure I can’t change your mind about the email list? You enjoy getting notices about floral-print tunics four or five times an hour, yes?”
Me: “NO.”
Avenue: “Alrighty! Here’s your order confirmation screen: we’ll be shipping to [shipping address], and though I am sad you didn’t sign up for the email list, I will get over it with time.”
Me: “FINALLY!” [Clicks ‘place order’ button.]
Avenue: “Oh, hi Lesley! Let’s verify your address and shipping information before you check out!”
Me: “Uh, didn’t we just do this, like two seconds ago?”
Avenue: “Nope! Let’s verify all this and then you’ll be checking out before you know it!”
Me: “Well… okay, it still looks correct to me.” [Clicks ‘continue’ button.]
Avenue: “Alrighty! Here’s your order confirmation screen: we’ll be shipping to [shipping address]. All that’s left for you to do is click that little ‘place order’ button down there on the right.”
Me: “Okay.” [Clicks ‘place order’ button.]
Avenue: “Oh, hi Lesley! Let’s verify your address and shipping information before you check out!”
Me: “DUDE, WE JUST DID THIS!”
Avenue: “No we didn’t.”
Me: “YES WE - oh fuck this. Fuck your website, and fuck your bras. I hate you. I have spent nearly an hour trying to make a purchase that should have taken less than ten minutes, and it still won’t go through. Since apparently I can’t buy anything, I am instead going to blog about this now. Goodbye.”
Avenue: “WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE EMAIL LI–”
Curtain.
Oh good lord. This is SO TOTALLY ACCURATE it’s not even funny. Okay, your rendering is a little funny. I haven’t been spammed so much since Move On. org; and I, too, said I didn’t want their damnable e-mails. My favorite part of Avenue’s online not-shopping experience is that it dumps out your cart at seemingly random if you check out other pages or a size chart or a policy page. There’s only so far I’m willing to go to beg you to take my money.
And then when I return the stuff that was pinned so beautifully in the pictures but turns out to be a bag on an actual customer, I decide to go to the store and save a 2nd shipping fee. Spectacularly unhelpful staff who could seem to care less whether or not their store survives to continue to employ them. And considering that I was the only customer in there on a Saturday, they may get to find out how much they actually care.
Internet win.
This is why I always call if possible.
At the bottom of their site: Have a question? Call us toll free at 1-800-441-1362 or email at avenue.customer.service@avenue.com
It’s worth a shot if you want the items bad enough. I hate ordering over the net. I think it runs in the family. My dad often gets triple orders if we let him do the ordering >.>
But hey, if you call, you can talk to a real person, complain about the site, and order what you want. Unless they are idiots that insist you use the site to order.
Yeah, I’ve been down that road before, and I STRONGLY prefer placing the order on the website, as I’ve never made a phone order that didn’t have some mistake.
Also, I tend to think why even have the website if you can’t order from it? I’m basically done with Avenue for the foreseeable future at this point.
I’ve had commensurate real-life experiences shopping in their brick and mortar stores. No, surly Avenue sales associate, I don’t want to give you my phone number, birthday, and address to pay cash for a tank top. And I don’t want to buy any rank perfume or house-brand make up, especially because this lip gloss you are encouraging me to buy has actually been opened and has a finger print in it. I would like a dressing room that is not currently doubly as a storage closet, and more than six inches of maneuvering room between racks of clothing, but I guess that is too much to ask. Also, I understand employing a security guard in the city, but if you could keep him from leering at customers, that would be really grand. Also, why aren’t you open on Sundays? THIS IS DOWNTOWN CHICAGO FFS.
All the local brick-and-mortar Avenue stores closed near me last year. I’m generally not a fan of ordering clothes online given that I have enough trouble finding the right fit in actual stores, so that means I no longer patronize Avenue at all. Even when I did shop there, which was rare, I found the quality of their jeans sadly lacking. The clerks at my local Avenue store were also never really visible or helpful. I’ve even had to go to the back room to get someone to unlock the dressing room once. But I will say this about the shilling of crap: My mother-in-law works for a bank and they require her to try and sell customers on a bunch of services. She hates it. The customers hate it. But if she doesn’t repeat the drill each time, she risks losing her job.
OMFG, how infuriating! Was your card charged 5 times?
Living in Canada, this is about how 95% of my attempted online shopping transactions go.
Needless to say, I laughed.
rachelr - I hear you about the crap shilling. I figure it’s like the employees at Lane Bryant who really, really, really, no really, no come on we mean it this time REALLY, want me to open a charge account. I’ve got a rich history of front-facing jobs (including clothing retail), so I try really hard to always be polite and pleasant.
I should have directed my comment to Avenue Corporate, and not the surly sales person. (But to be honest, I do get a little irked when people won’t take “I would rather not give you that information” for an answer when they ask for my phone number. When did it become so ubiquitous? I shit you not - I was trying to buy a Snickers bar at an Office Depot a few months ago (sudden, precipitous blood sugar drop and OD was the closest place that sold any food like substance), with cash, and the clerk would not continue with the transaction until I gave her a legitimate sounding phone number (as in, she was not having “555-1212″ or “867-5309″).)
@OTM: I hear ya. As an aside, I would never recommend anyone getting a Fashion Bug or Lane Bryant credit card. I used to work for the bank that serviced these accounts and let’s just say that there was some shady business going on, as well as the fact that they have unbelievably high interest rates for even folks with good credit.
“Why not just draw pictures of your garments using lampblack on papyrus and distribute them by carrier pigeon to the fat people of the world?”
This made me cackle. I recently went into the B&M store to buy a sundress and had a lovely experience, except for the fact that they didn’t open until noon. NOON. I mean, seriously, NOON?!? What are you, a clothing store or a frat boy?
Ugh, Avenue. I just ordered from them last night, and was lucky to not have to go through the ridiculousness you went through, but they did trick me into thinking they had seamless bike shorts left, when they DIDN’T. That’s what I get for waiting until now to get them, damn things get all sold out. Got a bunch of cute bras, though.
I almost wish that their website would actually talk to me like that, since it might make the whole experience so much more entertaining, than infuriating.
Um, that’s horrible. It’s like they’re begging you to not buy from them.
Before I actually joined my experiences were similar to yours. Now I have no problems placing orders though my billing and shipping addresses are the same.
One Stop Plus sells Avenue merchandice and I’ve ordered through this site when free shipping is offered.
My problems occur when I shop the Lane Bryant site. With the exception of the last order, every time I’ve purchased through the LB site I’ve received wrong items. A shirt instead of panties? How could that have happened?
Holy shit that was funny. And sad, because it’s pretty spot on for Avenue.
I am desperately wanting a pair of capris for camping and biking this summer and after failing at all other brick and mortar stores, I trudged over to Avenue, where fatshion is stuck somewhere a decade ago. I dutifully went through rack after rack of different styles of capris only to find they only go up to a 26 in store for most of their pants and I wear at least a 28 in their bottoms (of course they carry the classic fat lady elasticized fake jeans up to a 32!). I was told I’d have to order online. Sorta defeated the purpose because I wanted to try before buying, since jeans are hard for me to fit right. Such bullshit that they make up to a 32 and they won’t carry it in the store! Put that with the shittiest website and poor customer service and they’ve permanently lost my business.
Okay, I’ve been reading for a while as a guest, but now you’ve forced me to register so I can tell you how very, very funny this post is! I’m in the UK so have never shopped at Avenue, but I’ve had a few experiences like that one with various other online shopping sites (and switching from Firefox to IE in case it’s a browser problem sounds awfully familiar…). I’m tempted to buy something from Avenue now just so I can experience it for myself.
That was so hilarious. I love avenue but I hate their website and I’m fortunate enough to have stores in my area so I just go there. No surly associates in the Pittsburgh stores I’ve been to, either. I had a similar experience with their website trying to get a bathing suit for my daughter.
Is THERE IS NO PRODUCT PAGE anything like THERE IS NO SPOON? Maybe you were in The Matrix!
OMG that was so fucking funny. The part about the papyrus! And it only got better from there. I do like hearing about floral print tunics six times an hour, yes?