Everything you need to know about StrawberryNET orders- Shipping,Delivery,Customs Tax,Refund info

Last year I placed an order with StrawberryNET, it was the first order I placed with them. I have heard about StrawberryNET since years but I always found the UI of the site very primitive and that made me think its some fake site. But last year I saw that they have really upgraded their site. So when there was a 10% off on makeup promotional offer, I decided to take the leap of faith and place an order for 2 makeup items that I had been coveting for a while. The good thing about StrawberryNET is that they have a couple of offers for newbies.

The Body Shop Online Haul & Shopping Experience {International Women's Day Offer}

So here I’m finally getting around to revealing some of the gifts I got myself on International Women’s Day. The Body Shop holds sales frequently on their online store & I've always been eager to try it out, coz their stuff is pretty expensive otherwise. You can check out the current offers on their Promotions Page . Everything I purchased was stuff I'd already tried out at the store (many times) before but always hesitated to purchase because of the price.  

URL: http://www.thebodyshop.in/

Here's the stuff I got 

Cheap & Chic : Nail Polish Remover Wipes from eBay

Have you ever tried nail polish remover wipes/pads? They are awesome! A must-have for any girl, really. Its literally one swipe & whoosh, your nails are clean of any nail polish. They also contain oil so you can condition your nails while cleaning them. Its such a refreshing feeling, compared to using Nail Polish removing liquids, because even though they are acetone free, my nails feel dry after using them. I first heard about these from my sister, she had gotten a box of just for Rs.50. But those were not available anywhere so I searched online & I found wipes from Bare Essentials but I was not willing to pay Rs.140 for them when I knew that the real cost is much cheaper. So ultimately, I found a good deal on eBay and decided to go ahead with it. I’m very happy with my purchase, these nail polish remover wipes are cheap and effective!  They are very thin wipes/pads that remove + condition the nails. They leave your nails oily, but its okay, it can be washed off. I won't really call the effect of the oil conditioning though. One wipe/pad is good enough for 5 nails. The only time I faced a problem was when I was trying to remove glitter polishes, I needed one wipe/pad per nail in this case.

Product Name: Liboni Nail Polish Remover Pad

Price : Rs.155 for 3 boxes, number of wipes/pads in each box is not mentioned. They are available in a variety of flavors but you can't select the flavors, they are randomly given.

Its Acetone & Toluene free

The one reason you really need nail polish remover wipes is because they are a great quick fix and a great alternative to carrying a bottle of polish remover and cotton balls.

I definitely recommend all of you to try them out, they make life so simple!

Update : they are also available on Shop Clues

Luxola India Review - Shipping, Tracking, Customs, COD information

I have heard of Luxola long before entered India. How? Well, I have relatives in Singapore and when they decide to visit India, they ask me if I want something from their city. Like any other relative on the receiving end, I jump 10 miles at the chance and make a list, but for that I need to know what’s available in Singapore, and what’s a better place than online stores? Luxola is based in Singapore, all products shipped from there. I’m very happy about Luxola’s presence in India, however, a lot of the products are quite expensive and I get why it’s so. In Asia, especially Singapore, western brands are pricier than they are in their native places. So, couple of months back when Luxola started promoting themselves through Indian bloggers, I decided to place an order with them. Here is the link to their site - Luxola India Website

I’ve heard of Zoeva brushes from youtubers and I was elated to see them at affordable prices on Luxola, but the ones I wanted were out of stock. Now this is something that happens quite often at Luxola, there is a chance that by the time you wait for one thing to come back in stock, the other thing(s) you want will go out of stock. This happened with me anyways; I wanted Zoeva 227, 228, 230 brushes and the Sleek Makeup Contour Kit. 227,228 were OOS & when they came back, the contour kit was OOS. I decided to order the Sleek Faceform instead. I could have avoided that, but firstly, Luxola(as of now) offers free shipping only on orders above Rs.2300 & I wanted to try the famous Sleek contouring products. When I placed an order with them, Luxola India was just two weeks old so I wasn’t sure if it would reach me since my hostel is in a pretty remote place and the products are shipped from outside India, so I opted for the COD option. Yes, yes, yes…there is a COD option(with no extra charges), so all of you who are afraid of international shipping can opt for it.

I received my order in -wait for it- SIX days!! I’ve never experienced faster free shipping than this. The package was shipped from Singapore. I did not have to pay any custom tax and I was able to track my order through their website. All the items arrived in top condition, all items were bubble wrapped together & placed in a envelope padded with bubble wrap, nothing was broken. I feel they should individually wrap palettes because they are prone to break.

Empty Plastic Spray Bottles from eBay India- Really Cheap, yet Chic

Recently while searching Google for empty spray bottles I came across one entry from eBay India. I've never shopped from eBay India or eBay international before but I'm really impressed with this particular seller. I placed my order on 16th June and received my package on 18th June. I also received a message from eBay when my package was shipped and when I should expect to receive it, although they were wrong about the date of arrival, it arrived one day earlier.

What I ordered:

Just one set of empty plastic spray bottles. See THIS link for the product

Seller: barbersyndicate

Cost:Rs.180

The seller also gave a pamphlet of his store and on the pamphlet its written that 'If your product is not available in our store please mail me. We provide for you". How thoughtful!

I wasn't sure what I was buying because the product name on eBay is basically like a bunch of keywords so I contacted the seller first. He/She was Very prompt and replied back within few hours of my query. So if you plan on purchasing from them do contact them and ask for shipping details. I even received an email from them after I placed my order.

Basically you get 4 empty plastic spray bottles. of 100ml each, for just Rs.180, with free shipping. Awesome, right?

The colors are given randomly. The bottles are of good quality and the spraying mechanism actually works well. Each time the first 3 pumps are empty and then the bottle starts spraying. The nozzle is very fine and right now I tried it with just water and it sprays it in a fine mist. I think its great for perfumes. 

So if your planning any DIY projects which require spray bottles, now you know where to find them. You can even use spray bottles to store you toners or homemade perfumes or as a perfume atomizer.

Can you guess what I need it for? I will be revealing soon...stay tuned ladies ;)

Sleek Makeup Haul ~ If you thought online shopping was easy, think again!

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

I hope that through this post I can spread a little hope to any of you who are waiting since a while for your package from overseas to be delivered. When I placed an order with Sleek Makeup last year(in October) I came quite close to losing my money because the package didn’t reach me. Luckily, thanks to the cooperation of the company, though quite belated, I managed to receive the items I ordered. There are alot of dates and emails involved, and I think the best way to relate my experience, if you genuinely want to know how much effort it takes from both ends, is a timeline. If you just want to see what I purchased then scroll downwards.  Also, my home is in Mumbai, so I ordered the package to be sent there 

First I’d like to give you  a little introduction about Sleek Makeup, if you don’t already know them:
With over 20 years in the beauty industry, Sleek MakeUP has built a loyal following.  As one of the fastest growing brands on the high street, we create innovative, superior performance makeup, with strong pigmentation and high quality at the heart of everything they do.

Sleek MakeUP understands skin tone, catering from fair to dark and everyone in between. We know the importance of looking and feeling good in your own skin, so we deliver prestige products at an affordable price.

Forging an iconic following among makeup professionals and beauty enthusiasts worldwide, with products that aim to make the latest beauty trends truly accessible, there’s something to suit each unique style with Sleek MakeUP.

The url: http://www.sleekmakeup.com/

All beauty blogs I read RAVE about Sleek Makeup products; apparently they are cheap, but high quality products, so basically any makeup addicts dream! 

My experience:

Before we begin, I need to warn you that if your one of those lucky ones who has never lost a parcel, you may find this section boring! It contains lots of dates and snapshots of many emails exchanged between with Sleek Makeup customer services. So continue to read at your own risk ! Also, in the emails, time seems to be wrong at many places, probably because of the time difference between India and U.K

14^th Oct ’13: I placed my order on this date. Since it was my first time shopping from Sleek Makeup, I decided to order just 2 products.

My Bill:

(Sleek Makeup has increased the prices of their products at the start of 2014)

I choose the untracked shipping method, which takes 15-20 days and costed me an addional $3.64.

Online Shopping Experience, Review & Haul - Slassy.com

A few weeks ago when I was in college, (this was before I came home for New Year’s) I needed some things-make up products to be precise-urgently. I couldn’t help myself, and despite my feelings about online shopping I placed an order for them.  The online store that had most of the products I needed was Slassy.com, it was the only website that had the Maybelline Color Show nail polish  in the shade Porcelain Party which is a plain white shade.

Their url: www.slassy.com

 So I placed an order with them on 20^th December and paid the money online.  Even after 5 days of placing the order, I had not received any notification about whether my order had been shipped, and when I checked online they had not yet shipped my order. I kept calling their number but I always got the message that the office hours were over. Finally on 26, I got a call from them informing me that Porcelain Party was not in stock and that’s why order had been stalled. I choose Coral Craze instead and they shipped my order on 27^th and I received it on 28^th. So overall the delivery was fast but they delayed it by a week which was obviously very frustrating for me. They should have informed me at the start, rather than at the end that they were waiting for the product. And why isn’t the number that they list on their website working?

I’ve previously ordered from Slassy.com, way back in July’13 and I didn’t face any such problems then. That time I was in Mumbai and the delivery time was 2 days. On both occasions they shipped through Aramex.

this is the box they sent...

the invoice

You can see that they sent everything in that rectangular cardboard box. An invoice was tapped on the back of the box and there was one more inside the box. I really didn’t like that they put those thermocol pieces inside the box rather than bubble wrapping everything.

What I ordered:

•  Maybelline Hypercurl Volum Express Waterproof Mascara
• Maybelline Color Show nail polishes in Coral Craze and Nude Skin
• Vega Cuticle Trimmer and Pusher.

 Only the MNY Color Show nail polishes were bubble wrapped. :-(

Currently, Slassy.com is offering free shipping on orders worth Rs.499, which is lowest, comparing it to other online shopping websites.

Overall I liked the fast delivery and they just need to work on customer care and on updating their website. I always prefer DTDC courier service so if they add that also it would be a better experience for me.

Have you ever placed an order from Slassy.com? If yes, how did you find it? If you haven’t yet,do you plan to haul from them?

<<I know the pics are bad, I blame the weather!!>>

Hope you found this review helpful ! 

Do check out:
Online Shopping Experience with ASOS
Online Shopping Experience with L'occitane 
Online Shopping Experience with Major Brands
Online Shopping Experience with Jabong
Online Shopping Experience with Nykaa

Online Shopping Experience - Review of ASOS and a small Haul !

I’m soooo happy! My ASOS Haul is here!

 This is what I wanted write on 14^th, when this parcel arrived, unfortunately I wasn’t able to blog because I had to pack and come back to college. Plus, I had to take ALOT of pictures for future posts (hence a few posts may have the same background).

Well, this post is about ASOS, and what I brought from it.

ASOS.com is one of the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty stores. ASOS.com offers over 50,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty. ASOS has websites targeting the UK, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, Australia and China and also ships to over 237 other countries from its two distribution centres in the UK.

url: http://www.asos.com/

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Online Shopping Experience – Review of www.nykaa.com

Yet another online store I have shopped from for makeup. To tell you the truth, online stores have lost their charm for me. You just can’t rely on them to be completely honest. They show you all the products and after you place an order and pay the money, they mail you saying that the product is not in stock—that’s purplle.com for you. They sell shamelessly sell old products to you, aka in.loccitane.com. And then, the late delivery of products, brought to you by www.majorbrands.in.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

By now, your probably like, “what possessed you to shop again, girl?” Well, like they say, desperate times, desperate measures. I don’t get access to make up brands except Lotus and Lakme in the area where my college hostel(my home for 9 months a year) is, and international  brands tend to release new stuff when I’m not at my home, aka Mumbai.

This fall, Maybelline released new products every month, like the Bold Matte lipsticks, the Cheeky Glow blush and of course—The ColorShow Nail Enamels. When the Color Show enamels released, what was I supposed to do? Just sit and bide my time till I got a chance to come home? Hell, no. I had to get my hands on them asap. I was surprised to see them available online within a week of their launch, at Nykaa. So I happily placed my order, along with a few other items so that I could get a bill of above Rs. 500 to avail free shipping.

screenshot of the home page

A little bit about Nykaa: (taken from their site)

URL: www.nykaa.com

Who are we?
Promoted by FSN E-Commerce Ventures Pvt Ltd. and spearheaded by Ms. Falguni Nayar, the former Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, India's leading investment bank, along with a team of experienced professionals. Nykaa.com is committed to bring to you the best and the biggest brands, an incredible shopping experience and excellent customer service. Our wide selection of brands and comprehensive advice will delight you day after day.

What does Nykaa offer?
Nykaa is a beauty and wellness e-commerce platform with a difference.
•An extensive selection of curated products and services
•100 % genuine, fresh products
•Comprehensive content including product reviews, beauty tutorials, articles by experts and an e-beauty magazine
•A beauty helpline to assist you in choosing products and services best suited to your needs to ensure sustainable beauty for all time to come.

Coming back to my experience…

 Nykaa clearly mentions on their site that they use 3 courier services- Bluedart, DTDC and Aramex. I’ve had a good experience with DTDC, but not with Aramex, and you can read about it here. Also, Aramex customer service agents are rude, they never greet you with a Good Morning/evening/afternoon and don’t even address you by “mam”. But coming back to Nykaa, given my bad experience with Aramex, I called up the Nykaa customer care and specifically requested that my items should be shipped through DTDC only and not through Aramex under any circumstances. The customer care executive(CCE) assured me that they will be shipped only by DTDC and made a note of the request along with my order. I even called them the next day to confirm all this again.

After 3 days from placing the order, I received three emails from Nykaa regarding shipment of the items. Yes, I kid you not, they took three days to ship the items. It was a Sunday that day, I opened the emails and saw that my items were being shipped in 3 lots and 2 lots were through Aramex. I was appalled;  even after I’d gone to the pain of calling them up and making it clear that I don’t want my items to be shipped through Aramex, they did that anyway. I immediately dialled for customer service but unfortunately customer services has a holiday on Sunday.

The next day I called them up, and expressed my anguish and disappointment. The CCE lady assured me that everything will go smoothly, and blah, blah, blah. What could I do? The items were all shipped and there was no way to get them to backtrack and change the courier services. So I just waited for them to reach me.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

The first delivery:

The item shipped through DTDC arrived first. It came to me on the 5^th day from placing the order. I received the other items through Aramex on the 7^th day from placing the order, typical Aramex speed. 

NYX Single Eye shadow ES32

The invoice 

The item I got through DTDC was nicely bubble wrapped, they actually wasted a lot of bubble wrap and paper for one tiny eye shadow box.

The second delivery:

The items from Aramex were not packed well. Aramex shipped the two nail polishes and a nail filer and only one of the nail polishes were bubble wrapped. 

And did you notice the nail file is too big for the box it came in, how did they fit it in? It just popped out the second I opened the box.

Summing up my experience:

I’m not happy with the service and I definitely won’t consider shopping again if I’m at college. When I’m in Mumbai, if the need arises I probably will try it again because Mumbai is a place in which I’ve always had good online shopping experience. Also, I’m not happy with the time they took to ship and deliver the products; it can definitely be made faster. The customer service is polite and attentive. Because of my experience I can say that there is a communication gap between the CCEs and those who are incharge of packing and shipping the orders and that should be bridged. 

Overall Verdict- 2.5/5


Update: I have placed orders with them when I was in Mumbai and it always took 2-3 days for the parcel to reach me, which is pretty good. 

Other online shopping experiences:

• Review of ASOS online store
• Review of Slassy 
• Review of majorbrands.in
• Review of Jabong.com
• Review of L'Occitane online store
• Review of Sleek Makeup online store

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Online shopping experience - Review of L'occitane online store and a haul!

Hauls…don’t they make everyone happy? [Well, except those on the paying end, if you get my drift ;-)]. I know you can hardly call 2 products a haul but what else can you call it? A tiny haul?? Hmm yea .. Ok, that actually works! So last month, sometime after mid-July I got to know about L’occitane(LOX-EE-TAHN) sale. They had a flat 40% off on skincare and flat 50% on makeup.  Luckily, they have an online store that delivers to my sort-of-remote college area. I felt so lucky when I saw that. I've never been to L’occitane because of their freakishly over-priced  goods, but a flat 40 and flat 50 felt criminal to pass up. Since I was late, most of the good stuff was pretty much gone, but I did find two things that I liked.

here's the site : in.loccitane.com

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com 

Online Shopping Experience ~ Review of Jabong.com

Hey, I'm gonna do a quick review on my shopping experience with Jabong.com. I had shopped a long while ago...

About Jabong:
Jabong.com is a young and vibrant company that aims to provide good quality branded products. Jabong.com caters to the fashion needs of men, women and kids across footwear, apparel, jewellery and accessories.
At Jabong.com we strive to achieve the highest level of “Customer Satisfaction” possible. Our cutting edge E-commerce platform, highly experienced buying team, agile warehouse systems and state of the art customer care centre provides customer with:
Broader selection of products
Superior buying experience
On-time delivery of products
Quick resolution of any concerns 

They have ALOT of brands, including Accessorize and The Body Shop.

Like every other online shopping website in India you have two options, COD( Cash on delivery) and online payment. If you choose COD, you will have to pay an extra Rs. 39. 

They have a very nice website, however, in the cosmetics section, they have a separate page for each shade which is really very tiresome to browse through. Like, for a lipstick which is available in 9 different shades, they have a different page for each shade instead of making just one page and putting all the shade options within that page.
I would have included the screenshots of the website, but its sales period, and anyways the interface will keep changing, review is more important. :-)

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

When did I place my order?
I placed my order on 23rd June.

What did I order?
I ordered 3 items:
Advanced Hard As Nails Color - Jewel Frost
Single Eye Shadow 47-Kiwi
Orange/Golden Sling Bag
I choose online payment. I got a 10% discount because my order went over Rs.2000. Yay!
Total = Rs. 1822/-

When did the order package reach me?
On 26th June though Javas couriers. Pretty fast delivery, I'm very happy :-D

How's the experience?
The number of brands available, the discounted products, plus additional discount and the fast delivery were super impressive! The customer service was also very helpful, I called them and inquired if the products were actually in stock because sometimes there is a delay in updating the online sites, and they obliged, that too so nicely and politely.  Its not that I'm not used to good customer service, but some shopping portals (majorbrands.in for example) have poor customer service.
The products came in a big plastic bag which was sealed properly, there was loads of bubble wrap used. The purse was separately bubble wrapped. Nothing was damaged.
There's one thing I would like to point out though, I received a free hand cream with the Sally Hansen nail polish, honestly I picked out the nail polish for the cream, but the hand cream expires this August(i.e August 2013). I was expecting the product to be old, but not a month away from its expiry, ew! I think that was quite disgusting and they should not have given such an old product.
Other than than blip, the overall experience was nice. I would advise you to check the products your gonna buy with the customer service first, especially the expiry date.

Here are a few pics, I haven't shown the purse. I came home late that day so it was quite dark and I had to use flash, that means bad pics :-|

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

The large plastic pack and the bubble wraps inside it.

Here's the bubble wrap containing the cosmetics

Inside the bubble wrap...

(Left to right) Sally Hansen NP, near to expiry hand cream and NYX single e/s; Unpacked

Overall verdict:- 4/5
Plus points for the fast delivery, nice customer service and the discounts.
A minus point for giving me an almost-expired hand cream. Freebies should be useful too!

Other online shopping experiences:

• Review of Nykaa
• Review of ASOS online store
• Review of Slassy 
• Review of majorbrands.in
• Review of L'Occitane online store
• Review of Sleek Makeup online store

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Online Shopping Experience Review and Haul - majorbrands.in, Aramex Delivery

If there's anything I like more than shopping, its online shopping! Its so relaxing to know that despite the extremely sunny/ stormy weather, I can still get my hands on necessities, that too by just sitting at home. Online shopping helps you become aware of brands you might not have heard before, products you wouldn't have thought of trying, products from international brands too and best of all is that most of the stuff is priced lesser than that at stores.

Recently, I did a major Inglot haul at www.majorbrands.in . MajorBrands is actually a retail organisation which is a partner for brands like Mango, Aldo, Aldo Accessories, Charles & Keith, Inglot, La Senza, Bebe, Nine West and Promod in India.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

A few screenshots of the site: