Cheap and cheerful sundresses for little ones

In this baby bargainista post, Jenny shares tips for buying sundresses for little girls.

With the hot weather comes my annual search for inexpensive,
yet pretty summer sundresses for our girls. Our oldest is 5 and is deeply into wearing dresses – the frillier, the better – but they don’t always stand up well to her active, still rough-and-tumble lifestyle.

For special occasions, I splurged on a couple of beautiful dresses from Happy Wear. I love their cheerful, colorful designs and the dresses are very well-constructed in such a way that they can be easily adjusted to fit as your child grows through the season, with double-snaps at the shoulders and drawstring waists. Best of all, they are durable, and I’ve bought from them every year so I have a growing collection ready to pass along to Daughter #2! (As I tell my husband, it’s not really splurging, it’s an investment!)

But these gorgeous dresses likely wouldn’t survive a kindergarten birthday party unstained, so I also visited our local Winners and picked up a couple of marked-down frilly dresses. They’re fancy enough to keep Daughter #1 happy, but at $15-20, they’re cheap enough that I won’t mind the occasional cupcake stain.

And for school and active summer holidays, I always swear by Joe Fresh and H&M. Very simple, light cotton dresses can be found for $6-$12 at either store, and their A-line construction, while not fancy or fitted, is perfect for staying comfy and cool on hot summer days.
Top 3 tips:
1. At Joe Fresh and at Winners, stock moves quickly, so when you see something in the right size, buy it – it might not be there next week!
2. If you’re not sure about size with Joe Fresh, because they’re located in the supermarket it’s often easier to buy a couple of sizes and try them on the kids at home, then return them during your next grocery run (rather than try to wrangle cranky kids plus a full shopping cart into the fitting room!).

3. At H&M, lines at the checkout can often stretch around the store. Bring a friend to wait in line while you browse, or better yet, if the line is more than 6 people long, do a little browsing for yourself – you might find that the line has shrunk significantly when you are done (and you might discover a few bargains for yourself!).

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Seasonal sales and sundresses

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Jenny shares her shopping tips for scoring big at seasonal sales while buying sundresses for her pre-schooler.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true – kids grow up quickly, right before your eyes! When the first heat wave of summer arrived I reached into our first-born’s closet for the summer sundresses bought last year, hoping that a few of them might still fit, but it seems Girl #1 has sprouted about a foot in height, almost all of it legs. Even the sundresses bought a size larger at the end-of-season sales last year are no better than tunics now.

So, I headed out to find our beanpole some summer wear. Luckily many stores have already started marking down summer merchandise. I first went to Old Navy and H&M in the Eaton Centre; both had big SALE! signs in the windows and I rejoiced! My procrastination was about to be rewarded.

Old Navy may have had kids’ dresses, but the day I went the children’s section was a mess! Picked over, understocked, and understaffed, with many items misshelved so that it was hard to tell what was on sale and what was not. I couldn’t find anything in my daughter’s size, and when I asked a passing staffer for help, she told me it “wasn’t her section”.

Thoroughly dissatisfied, I headed a few doors down to H&M. There I had the opposite experience: sale racks and individual items were clearly marked, and despite the crowds, when I asked a passing staffer if anything else was marked down she happily directed me to another sale rack hidden in a corner. I found nearly a dozen summer dresses but eventually settled on a half-dozen, including the $10 sale item pictured above.

Bottom line? When shopping seasonal sales, remember to:
1. Ask sales staff if any other merchandise is marked down – sometimes sale items aren’t clearly marked and you might find more bargains

2. Buy up for next year – if you can’t find anything in your kid’s current size, there’s no harm in buying a size or two larger – they’ll grow into it!

H&M excels in customer service

We’ve had lengthy discussions about stores that have tightened their return policies and trimmed customer service this year. It’s only fair that I share a story about a wonderful experience I had at H&M on Bloor this week.

I want a pair of skinny jeans and have my eye on a pair from Fidelity but I’m trying to avoid the just-shy-of-$200 price tag. So, I thought I’d check out H&M during my lunch on Tuesday. I found a nice pair. Not as detailed or as well made as the ones by Fidelity, but for ¼ of the price, I thought they were worth the try.

Have you seen the change rooms at H&M? One word of warning – the line-ups are long – avoid them if you can. Fortunately, H&M has a 30-day return policy. I picked up two different sizes to try on in the comfort of my own home.

The cashier told me she put the bill in the bag. When I got home, it was nowhere to be found. I’ve had this happen before. It makes me so uncomfortable. I always think they’re going to assume I’ve stolen the merchandise when I return to the store.

I thought I had lost the bill. Last night I called the store and told the guy on the phone what happened. He told me to return with the jeans and tell the person on the cash that I never received the bill (that way I’d have an easier time.) So, yesterday that’s what I did.

While waiting in line at the cash, I read the return policy. H&M accepts returns within 30 days with or without a bill! (Note: Photo ID is required.)

When it was my turn at cash, I told the salesperson I wanted to return the jeans but I didn’t have my bill. She asked for the approximate time of day the purchase was made, the type of payment and which cash registered was used. Turns out I was speaking with a manager named Jackie who explained it would take 5-10 minutes for her to locate the transaction. She suggested I go upstairs where there wasn’t a line-up and once she found the details of the sale, she’d issue a refund right away.

The clock was ticking and I had a meeting in 30 min. how long would I have to wait? Hmm, within two minutes, the salesperson that rang in the sale on Tuesday came right over and greeted me with a friendly smile. Her name was Sarah. She was so happy I came back because she knew I’d left without a bill and I was planning on returning at least one pair of jeans. Within seconds she had my bill in hand and took care of my refund!

Whoever said customer service sucks in modestly priced clothing chains is wrong.

And a couple more things…
H&M’s summer sale is on now. There are several tables and racks of clothes starting at $10 and up. I actually received a pitch from their PR rep in the U.S. when when I got back from H&M the first go round. She asked if I’d let you know their sale was starting on Wednesday. I let her know it had already started in Canada. ;) And by the way, I wrote this post because I had a great experience - the pitch story is a total coincidence.

Check out H&M’s Dressing Room and Fashion Against AIDS program. You can upload a video and create your own ringtones too.

What about you? Have any good news customer service stories to share?

You still have time to find that perfect little black dress to ring in the new year

Okay, so my story isn’t really about New Years’ Eve but it could be so, read on if you:
a) received an invitation to a last-minute New Years’ Eve party; or,
b) tried on your dress for tomorrow night and it doesn’t fit

There’s still hope. You can find that perfect dress quick and on a budget. Here’s how…

My cousin (she’s more like my baby sister) was married on December 21. I was flattered when she asked me to be in her bridal party and delighted when she told me I could wear any dress as long as it was black. Sounds like a no brainer, right? Well not exactly...

I already owned a perfect little black dress. Well, perfect once I altered it to fit my slimmer body and raised the hemline. My dressmaker who usually does awesome job, charged me $25 – a real bargain and much cheaper than buying a new dress. I’m not sure why but I waited until two weeks before the wedding to have it altered. Then I did another crazy thing and waited until the night before my flight out to Vancouver for the wedding to try the dress on. Big mistake!

This time, my dressmaker didn’t do such an awesome job and the dress didn’t fit! It was already 8 p.m. I was leaving in the morning. Yikes! I ran over to my neighbour’s house. She is a wonderful seamstress. She took one look at the dress on me and told me I’d ruin it if I tried letting it out. I ran over to another neighbour’s house to try on her two black dresses – one was too big, the other one was too small. I was starting to feel a bit like a brunette Goldilocks.

Stores were closing in about 45 minutes but I still had time to scoot over to Yorkdale. I ran into Banana Republic, Zara and H&M. I didn’t have time to try anything on so I made sure to go to stores with flexible return policies. When I got home I tried everything on and decided I’d take one of the dresses from Banana as a back up. It was the best of the bunch and the fit, although not perfect, was okay. It was also on sale from $275 to $115 – the price was right!

I still wasn’t sure about the dress. I literally had a couple hours in Vancouver to shop. I went to Club Monaco and found a great dress – it was on sale for $129 less 20%. It was much more my style than the back-up dress. I was so lucky they had it in my size and it was the perfect fit!

After Christmas, I returned all the other dresses (I think I had about six). I also checked Club Monaco to see if my dress had been further reduced. Like everything else on sale in the store, the price hadn’t changed. As of Sunday, they still had lots of evening dresses in several sizes.

So, if you’re still looking for that perfect dress to wear this New Years’ Eve, don’t despair. You still have time and there are plenty of bargains still out there.

Happy New Year!

Meet my new friend Marc as in Marc Jacobs

I needed a new full-length winter coat. I have the great big, warm hooded down coat and I decided it was time to get something more stylish that I could wear day or night, for casual and more formal occasions.

Maybe I left if a bit too late. Maybe with the sagging economy, manufacturers and retailers didn’t think people would be laying out the bucks for new outerwear this season. Whatever it was, the pickings were slim.

Kathryn and Rayanne were exchanging tweets about where they bought their new winter coats. With no time to go downtown, I searched all over Yorkdale. I had seen a nice looking coat on the rack at Banana Republic. Unfortunately, it didn’t look good on me. I’d seen some nice coats on the cheap at H&M. The fabric felt a bit scratchy though. I debated whether or not it was worth buying on for $100 that I’d be tired of after a year and passed in the end.

Zara had some great looking coats in the same price-range as Banana. Problem is by mid-Saturday afternoon, they’re all picked over and several coats had buttons hanging by a thread. Sorry, Zara, sloppy merchandising even on a busy day is a big turn off, particularly when it comes to high-priced items.

So, on a whim, I dragged Mr. B. to Holts. Except for my Bobbi Brown make-up must-haves, I haven’t shopped there in ages. I took a quick look around at the sale racks scattered throughout.

Then I saw it, hanging on a sale rack behind the cash in the contemporary fashions department.. I found the perfect navy coat on sale for 30% off. It was Marc by Marc Jacobs. Believe-it-or-not, on sale, it didn’t cost much more than the coats I had seen at the chain stores. Well worth an extra $100 for a designer coat with far more attention to detail. Don’t ya think?

I usually stay away from navy but I liked it and besides, the same style in black wasn’t on sale. I decided to splurge. I’m glad I did.

What have you splurged on lately?

FYI, Holts had another markdown a few days after I bought my coat. I was surprised to learn they don’t offer price adjustments. (I wonder if their policy will change as Canadian retailers start feeling the hit of the recession?) On the bright side, my coat is still selling for the price I paid and now the black one is on sale too.