Real talk: I hate in-store shopping for clothes.
(It’s probably a bad idea to start a blog post with a negative statement, but it’s a very true statement).
The salespeople are either too pushy or refuse to help you, the lighting is awful, the music is too loud, and there’s never enough time to really evaluate the purchase you are considering.
This post is not sponsored and I purchased these items myself. This post contains affiliate links
For years now I’ve been online shopping with vendors who have reasonable return policies to ensure I have enough time to decide on the fate of my purchase in the comfort of my own home. The one downside? The constant buying, trying, returning, and waiting weeks for the credit to hit my card again. As I tend to order items in multiple sizes, I end up charging much more to my card than I will ultimately keep, and often end up having to pay the statement balance before the return is processed (looking at you, Nordstrom and Uniqlo).
When I’m booking travel and making clothing purchases at the same time it can be exceedingly frustrating to have so many charges on my card, which I pay off at the end of the month without fail. Since we are currently in the middle of booking a long trip and feeling fed up with having so many charges, I was intrigued by Amazon’s new Prime Wardrobe Try Before You Buy (update: they changed the name!) feature.
Looking for more honest style reviews? Check out my index of reviews, sorted by brand
Try Before You Buy is a new feature for Amazon Prime members that allows you to try a minimum of three items of clothing, shoes, and accessories at home for seven days free of charge. Within those seven days, you can evaluate and decide which items to keep or return, and then you can log in to your account to begin the returns process for anything you wish to ship back.
At the end of the seven days, Amazon will charge for any items you did not indicate you wanted to return. You can still return items past this date, however, you will have to wait to be refunded. Amazon sends several reminder emails during this time, so it’s pretty easy to stay on top of things, even when life is busy and hectic.
It seems pretty straightforward, but is it really? Today I’ll be sharing my experience placing my Try Before You Buy order, my impression of the items I received, the returns process for items I did not keep, and my overall thoughts.
Placing a Try Before You Buy Order from Amazon
I worried at first that the selection wouldn’t be very good (after all, I’ve seen a lot of questionably made $15 dresses on Amazon…), but I was pleasantly surprised at some of the brands offered. Indeed, there are a lot of fast-fashion brands to sift through, but there are some gems as well.
I recommend performing your search directly within the “Try Before You Buy” category and clicking through the garment and brand filters to help consolidate it down to a reasonable amount of items. Prepare for a little frustration, as the site isn’t incredibly user-friendly and not all sizes and colors are eligible for the service (essentially anything that’s on a steep sale or not sold by Amazon is ineligible).
Adding items to your Try Before You Buy cart is much like adding them to your regular Amazon shopping cart; just be sure to click the button that says “Add to Prime Try Before You Buy Cart.” Your Try Before You Buy shopping cart is separate from your regular cart and shows how many items you’ve added and the total cost after seven days. Amazon allows up to eight six items in a Try Before You Buy box and a maximum value of $1,000 $300, whichever comes first.
You can see my cart below, full of denim. Normally I would have incurred a $978.61 charge, but because I placed the order through this program I wasn’t charged a cent.
Home Try-On
I placed my order on Sunday and had all the items in hand on Wednesday. As soon as the tracking indicated the order had been delivered, Amazon emailed me stating that my seven-day window had begun and that my try-on period would end the following Wednesday. Everything arrived individually wrapped in a resealable bag with the Amazon Wardrobe logo, along with a small pamphlet explaining the program once again.
I loved being able to try things on in my own room using my own lighting and mirror, while also having the chance to squat and sit in chairs to test the comfort of the jeans in a normal setting. I was disappointed to not have that “glass-slipper” moment with this order, though the Wedgie jeans came very close.
I also encountered an issue with the zipper on the AG jeans. They were the only pair that arrived unzipped, and I found out why: the zipper was broken. I was still able to try them on and found they weren’t right for me, anyway, so not the end of the world.
Making an Amazon Return
I ended up returning everything (yep, everything) in this order, but at least the returns process was fairly painless.
I logged in, visited the Try Before You Buy section of the site, and reviewed my order. Next to each item are two boxes: one that says “Keep” (the default) and one that says “Return.”
I changed all to “Return” and hit the “Complete your return” button. I packed everything back up in the original bag, attached the return shipping label, and dropped the bag off at the UPS Store the following day.
Several days later Amazon emailed me letting me know all items had been received; I then was able to place another Try Before You Buy order, including re-ordering the Wedgie jeans in two sizes, and they are now on their way.
Final Thoughts on Amazon’s Try Before You Buy
So, was it worth it? Overall, the Try Before You Buy process didn’t feel very different from ordering and returning clothing from a traditional retailer, and I think it is something I will utilize from time to time. And while there are certainly a lot of mass-market brands to be found on the site (it is Amazon, after all), there are some others you may be surprised to see.
Among these, my favorite offerings are Equipment, Pendleton, Rails, Theory, ExOfficio, Eileen Fisher, Geox, and Blondo. The biggest downside is the selection of styles and sizes. It can be frustrating to click through a list of items only to find that one or two are available in your desired size and color, and using the filters on the left panel doesn’t seem to be of much help.
And to be honest, I don’t expect to use the feature as it’s intended (to purchase many items directly from Amazon) rather, I see myself using the program to gauge fit on things to purchase at a lower price from other retailers or secondhand.
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Questions for you
Have you ever used Try Before You Buy or a similar service? What did you think?
How do you feel about trying things on in stores these days?
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