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How to Avoid Wasting Money on Discount Clothes
If you have a profile on Instagram or Facebook, you can relate to what we are about to discuss.
You’ve seen them and you’ve been tempted by them!
We’re talking those ads that show the latest clothing at ridiculously low prices.
Shirts for $3, jeans for $8, shoes for just a few dollars, watches and jewelry for $1…ring a bell?
Now, if you’re new to this blog, then here is a resounding “welcome!!”.
We love saving money and we love sharing all of our hacks and tips to reaching financial freedom. It’s a fun place to be over on this blog, and we hope you stop by again soon!
Nevertheless, as stated above, we love to save money, and we are sure you’re interested in doing so as well!
With this in mind, we went to go figure out what to look for regarding these online companies, and how to avoid wasting your money!
In this article you will discover:
- What exactly to look for when buying clothes/accessories from a discount online store
- What stores we have had the best (and worst) experiences from
- What to buy, and not to buy, from discount clothing stores
Now, while you’re here, be sure to download your FREE workbook to help you learn to budget, make goals, and stay motivated throughout your financial journey!!
What are Online Discount Clothing Stores?
The benefit of buying from a cheap online store is simply one thing: it is cheap.
They are able to sell you items from these stores because there usually is no middle man. As in, they usually ship right from China, where all (at least all we’ve encountered) the products are made.
Shipping typically takes much longer than your Amazon Prime purchases, with it sometimes being over a month to receive your items.
So, what is the catch?
If you’ve seen ads for stores like Romwe or Wish.com, you know that they advertise popular items at heavy discounts. Many times this includes gadgets and clothing.
Now, the problem is that you are sometimes sacrificing quality for price. The items you receive may not always be the quality that you’d get, but it all depends on multiple factors! We’ll discuss this below.
What to Buy, and What NOT to Buy
With the help of a few ladies, we set out to figure out quality from numerous stores that were advertised on Facebook and Instagram.
In total, the purchases included:
- T-Shirts, cardigans, and sweaters
- Watches, belts and jewelry
- Home décor, shelves, flags, and hooks
We purchased from Romwe, numerous Instagram ads, and Wish. They all advertised inexpensive, trendy clothing and items at a serious fraction of the price.
To consolidate the experiences, we’ll go through what we discovered are good and bad things to buy, and where we believe is the best option!
Best Place to Buy Accessories
We purchased a few accessories from Romwe , since they all cost around $1-$3 each. This included belts, earrings, rings, and necklaces. We figured it was an easy way to check out quality while not spending too much on this experiment!
Our favorite of all were the accessories from this site. If you think about items that you could get for around $10 at a local store, you can get them for about $1 each from Romwe. Our experience with this store was far better than others, but we’ll get to that later!
If you are interested in buying belts, bracelets, earrings, or necklaces, we’d recommend Romwe. The selection is huge and the shipping is significantly quicker than other discount online stores.
We also purchased two items from wish.com. One was a necklace and another was a ring. Wish.com works by putting individual shipping costs on each item, so even though the ring from Wish cost $1 as advertised, after shipping it was $4.
Now, obviously buying two items from the insane inventory that is wish.com isn’t much to talk about, it did show us something.
The biggest difference between Romwe and Wish is shipping.
When buying these few items, we found that your whole purchase comes as one when shipped with Romwe. Wish ships everything separately, and at different shipping prices.
“How about quality?”, you ask.
We found that Romwe had better quality items than Wish. Our purchases from either stores have not tarnished or gone bad (but you have to read review before purchasing!).
Want more bang for your buck? The winner here is Romwe.
Best Place to Buy Clothing
We were torn on this one at first, but are now confident in our answer.
For anyone with experience shopping on a discount online store, the biggest factor when it comes to clothing is sizing.
As you can recall from above, all these items come to your doorstep from China. And, their sizing isn’t necessarily the same as us Americans…
That’s why the most important thing to do, when purchasing clothing from these websites it to look at reviews!
Seriously, though, you don’t want to spend money on shirts or pants that are way too small.
And, sending items back to China isn’t always the easiest either.
So, what was our experience?
We purchased a handful of items from Romwe, a few from Wish, and a swimsuit from an Instagram ad. All looked promising, but there were some definite differences.
First, as stated before, it is critical that you look at reviews. Romwe usually has more photos that people submit, allowing you to preview quality beforehand.
Unfortunately, reviews were very hard to find when buying from an Instagram ad. It seemed like most of these were new stores, and potentially with a handful of paid reviews.
We found that, on Wish, we had to typically size up 1-2 sizes, while Romwe was usually the correct size, or needed only 1 size up.
Quality varied. We had the most luck with Romwe for the size and price. One item from Wish didn’t even arrive, and we had to request a refund (thankfully it was easy to request, but a bit frustrating that it happened).
And what about price?
Shipping plays a factor with this too. Our swimsuit had a hefty $10 shipping price. Each item from Wish had a few dollars tacked on for each to ship. Romwe shipping was free.
Now, we also highly recommend looking at return policies when buying from these online stores. Some make it extremely difficult, and considering the potential of getting the wrong size, it makes it all the more important to do your research on each item before placing it in your cart.
Want to avoid sending your items back? The winner here, again, is Romwe.
What to Buy
The items we had the best luck with included:
- Belts from Romwe: By far our favorite. Good quality and looks expensive.
- Sweaters from Romwe: We had discovered this when initially researching this brand. Their sweaters are inexpensive but comfy! (and typically oversized, which makes for no sizing issues)
What NOT to Buy
The items we had the least luck with included:
- A watch from Wish: The quality was worth the few dollars that were spent on it. Reviews were promising, the product itself was not worth it when the band broke on the second wear.
- Crop tops and white shirts: There is something about white shirts and the material being see-through thin. Also, if you are skinny, you’ll fit into their crop tops. Otherwise, it may be smart to avoid them overall if you aren’t a size XS.
So, is it Worth It?
Although we didn’t dive into each item in this post to discuss pros and cons, we have a good general idea of a few online discount stores.
After purchasing a few items from different ads, it was fun to see how different each experience was!
Now, the overall question here is simple: Is it worth saving your money, by purchasing from these types of stores, in comparison to every other option out there?
The answer is: It depends on what you want!
To explain further, let’s review:
- Do you want inexpensive but trendy accessories? Romwe proved to us to be a good option. No need to drive to a store for those items.
- Do you want nice clothing for work or an outing? You may want to stick to a boutique or store, to ensure fitting and quality.
- Do you want casual clothes for school or home? You can get a huge load of clothes from Romwe (and get free shipping!)
In future articles we plan to go deeper into comparisons, but hope that this will offer you some insight into a unique way to save money on items you’d typically buy!
Thanks for reading! Remember to always keep learning!
ThirtyEight
All advice and opinions provided in this post are reflections on experience and are for educational and entertainment purposes only. Affiliates were used in this article. Please see our disclaimer page details.