Roaman's

Full review
With my husband coming home after being gone for 6 months I wanted something special to wear. Nope, I ain't tellin', so don't ask. Let's just say I wanted something...nice.

Anyway, I putzed around for almost two weeks online before I finally came across what I wanted. I had seen other items like it, but they all had one or two things I DIDN'T like, so I kept hunting. I had came across Roaman's Online Store thru a search engine, Yahoo's I believe. I had never thought of shopping thru them before and had actually thought they were well above my price limit from some of the catalogs I had received, but my item was well below the cost of some of the other's I had seen.

So, why was this one item so hard for me to find? Well, my main issue is I am NOT a little person. I'm short and......plump. Finding something that didn't make me look any plumper, or just completely ridiculous, was hard. Roaman's Online Store also carries the bigger sizes that are often hard to find. They had simple, yet visually appealing, clothes for larger sizes, which was a major plus for me.

Since I had came to the Roaman's Online Store on accident, I didn't look around a lot, but I did check out parts of the website and I encountered no broken links or slow to load pages. I have a cable modem, so my pages tend to load fast anyway, but all of the pictures were in place and loaded with no problems. The site didn't seem busy at all. Tastefully done, and I easily found what I wanted.

By the time I found my special item I had exactly one week before my husband was due home. It was about 11pm Thursday night. I decided to go ahead and see if I could get it ordered and delivered before he got home. I placed my item in my shopping card and went to check out.

Since I wasn't already a registered customer I did have to register to purchase my item. No big deal. I gave them my name, address and email and set up a password. I got thru to checkout when a window popped up saying that their site was down for maintenance. I wanted to cry! I finally found THE perfect item and I couldn't buy it! I could browse all I wanted, but I couldn't purchase anything. I added the link to my favorites and decided to try again in the morning.

When I got up in the morning I immediately tried again. I had to add the item again to my shopping cart because it didn't remember it, and also had to log in to purchase it. This time I was cooking right along. I clicked to check out and gave the shipping information. The "usual" shipping is 6-10 business days. Since this obviously wasn't going to work for me, I opted to pay the extra for Express shipping. It was $6.99 on top of the already $6.99 shipping fee for regular shipping, but I NEEDED this item ASAP. Express shipping was, I believe 3-4 business days, so this would get it to me just in time. I clicked Express shipping and paid for my order. They accept Visa and MasterCard, I know. I am not sure of other ways to pay, but I imagine they also accept American Express and/or Discover. I can't remember. I received an email confirmation not much later, so I knew my order was on the way. I also had printed out the final page, just in case, since I had never used this site before.

The following Thursday the Federal Express man rang my doorbell, leaving my package on my doorstep as he sprinted away. The week before Christmas, so I imagine he was to busy to wait on me to open the door? He had "hid" it under our welcome mat, which was laughable. Since we had a common entrance, it isn't like the weather would have gotten to it or it would have blown away. It also wasn't hidden very well since the mat was all cockeyed. I think it grabbed even more attention at the attempt to hide it.

Anyway, there laid my plastic envelope with my order in it. It took only 4 business days, but I was sweating about if it would make it on time. The item itself was well worth the cost, although the sizes were a little off. I ordered according to their size chart, instead of going with my "usual" size, and the item was a little big. Better than being small, I suppose.

The packaging wasn't bad, really. The plastic envelope was re-enforced, so it was very durable. The item I ordered was clothing, so it wasn't breakable. It was in a clear plastic bag, folded on a piece of cardboard, inside, so it was protected, and if we HAD lived where it might have been left in the rain, it would have stayed dry.

My main gripe would have to be the being down for maintenance. I went to the site to get some specific information for this review and the site was down for some strange reason. I'm not sure if this is common, but I didn't knock a star off for it since this has happened to me now and then being unable to order when I wanted to originally because they were under maintenance. Seems to have been down quite a bit this month.

All in all, I am very pleased with my first purchase at the Roamans Online Store. I don't know how often I would buy thru them, since usually I am cheap and go to Wal-Mart, but if I will be sure to check them out again if I am looking for something specific. Their prices, while not outrageous, are a little higher than I am used to paying, so if I can get it at Wal-Mart, I will. But Roamans Online Store is a good alternative, as long as you can get in to the site.

As a footnote, I did not have to use their customer service, so I can not comment on this. I ordered one item and it was fine, so I have not had to contact them for any reason, or return anything. They shipped when it was promised and I was charged correctly.