G'day y'all!
One of the biggest days on every preppy style lover's calendar is the Lilly Pulitzer After Party Sale. If you have been following my blog, you might recognise this name. Lilly Pulitzer is a brand that is one of the staples for the Southern preppy style. It is defined by it's fun, bright and colourful prints executed in classic styles. The thing about Lilly Pulitzer, is, that they can be a little pricey, and on top of that, they are hardly ever on sale! Instead, twice a year they have a huge sale called The After Party, which is when they discount so many styles and prints from the year just gone by. All sales are final, and shipping is free (within the U.S).
I have been entertaining the idea of trying out the ShopMate service offered by Auspost, in which they give you a U.S postal address, meaning you can online shop from places that don't ship to Australia. Considering some of my favourite brands don't ship to Australia, including Lilly Pulitzer, it only makes sense for me to give it a try. When the After Party Sale was announced last week, I thought that this is probably the best time to give it a test run.
Here is what I knew going in:
1) I would be placed in a virtual waiting line before I could access the sale, and
2) Things become out of stock in a blink of an eye.
I have seen tips like checking out as soon as you find something you want, then heading back in again, instead of placing the items in your tote (basket). However, the site says that once you check out, you will be place in the back of the line, meaning, that you have to wait to have everything in your tote before you purchase. Other than these two things, I did not have a real plan. I just knew that I was going to trust my judgment and my taste and not buy items for the sake of it.
After waiting close to two hours since the sale started, (8am ET, which was 10pm AEST), I was finally let into the site! Claire had the site open as well, and she (somehow) was ahead of me in the line, so she had a couple of minutes before me. She just scrolled through and pointed out items of interest I could check out. Despite the wait, I was surprised by how many things, and sizes, were still available. I decided to take my time and look through everything that was on sale, and add things to my tote as I went, and then review at the end before I purchased. At 12:39am, I had successfully checked out, and secured two dresses: The Sofia Lace Shift Dress and the Mila Shift Dress in Hot Coral Trunk in Love print!
I will talk about these dresses more once I receive them in the mail in a few weeks' time, but I am already excited to potentially wear the white dress for my Uni Graduation!
Overall, it was quite a different shopping experience than I have ever had before. While I can see that the virtual waiting line can prevent the site from crashing, it is also quite stressful, as what you wanted me be already sold out once you're in. I think that I definitely prefer shopping in store though, as there were some styles and prints I would have loved to try on.
However, the prices were amazing, which is why I can understand the hype around these sales. I knew that it might hurt my bank account a little bit, but if my Mum taught me one thing (she actually taught me a lot of things), it was how to hunt a bargain. Both of my dresses I purchased with over $100 off the original price! I am glad that I decided to take part, especially considering that Lilly is rarely on sale, and it is a brand that is unique and does not have anything that can be seen as a local, Australian equivalent.
What did you think about this style of post? Let me know what you think!
No comments