Kohl's

Full review
Let me start by saying I was not a big fan of Kohl's the department store before I discovered Kohls.com a few years ago. Our local store is just not convenient and not very organized to me (aisles are messy, piled high with product, etc). On the other hand, I shop Kohl's online store regularly. The sales are great(especially on a Wednesday) and if you have an order over $75.00, they usually offer free shipping. I do most of my shopping online and find Kohl's to be among the best for me. Keep in mind this is not Macy's or Saks, but it's not Wal Mart or Target, either: no Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, Lenox or Waterford here. You will need to go elsewhere for higher-end merchandise.

Website
The website navigation is easy and efficient. You can easily find what you are looking for, and on their home page, they usually have some sort of sale advertised. Adding items to your cart is a breeze, and you don't need to log in until you are ready to check out. I usually log in first though, as I have my items shipped elsewhere, and I can choose (as I order) where to have the items sent to.

I did experience an issue recently that I had not previously experienced. Via email and on TV, they had a huge sale advertised a few weeks ago. Having NO Christmas shopping completed, I decided to take advantage and see what I might find. I woke up at 2am and decided to take advantage of what I thought would be a slow time. How wrong I was! The sales were great and I found tons of great items. I added them to my cart and could not check out. The site became very slow, and I watched items in my cart become unavailable. I still did OK, but it took me hours to check out and I had to choose other items instead of the one's I originally wanted. I believe the site must have been overloaded with many other "Christmas is coming, I better get some shopping done" insomniacs. The more trouble I had, the more determined I became! It being the middle of the night, there was no customer service available to call for help. That is really the only time I have ever experienced any issues with the website being extremely slow, but others reviewers have stated they have experienced the same problem.

Products
Kohl's carries just about everything you can imagine from household goods to clothing to kid's items. I have ordered toys, games, collectibles, clothing for myself and others. I feel the zoom feature is one of the best compared to other shopping sites.

I have to say I was disappointed with some of the holiday offerings this year compared to previous years. I always found unique Christmas collectibles that made great presents; this year I found the selection to be very limited. I did however, find lots and lots of kids items.

Some popular name brands include Dockers, Reebok, Nike, Oshkosh, Adidas, Nine & Co, Pfaltzgraf. One note, I feel their Sonoma brand runs a little on the small side. I received a 6x sweatshirt that looks more like a 4 to me.

I have purchased jewelry, and have been pleased with what I received. Again, the items are usually on sale. The hoop earrings I just purchased were smaller than I pictured, but that was my fault as the size descriptions are outlined with each item. (Hey, who can figure out millimeters at 3am?!)

Checkout
I prefer to store all my info online and this makes the checkout process a breeze. You can store multiple "ship to" addresses, credit cards (encrypted), etc.

Sales/Promotions
Kohl's frequently has some sort of promotion going on. I do get some emails, but not excessively like some online stores. One word of advice, do an online search of "Kohl's coupons" before you shop. If there's a promotion or coupon code, you'll find it. They also offer specials available only to their Kohl's charge customers.

Delivery
Orders over $75.00 usually ship free. I refuse to pay high shipping costs, so that works out well for me. They have changed delivery carriers a few times over the last few years and I usually have not had a problem. There was one time (2 years ago) they kept extending the "guaranteed" delivery time and I literally followed the UPS driver on Christmas Eve to make sure I received my delivery! More recently, they have been using USPS, which I feel could use a few lessons on customer service, but that could be a whole other review! Delivery times now take longer than other carriers. I have also noticed recently they have begun shipping items separately, which makes for multiple deliveries and I am sure higher shipping costs. I realize I don't pay shipping, but eventually those higher costs will reach the consumer. I have always received an email to track my package upon delivery. Now that my items have been coming USPS, I have found that package tracking is not in real time as with other carriers.

Packaging
I have never received a broken item, although, sometimes the boxes are in such bad shape, I wonder how. I am talking about the boxes the items themselves are packed in, not the actual shipping box. For example, I ordered 2 glass snowmen recently, and both boxes they were in were ripped, crushed, taped back together, etc. There was enough bubble wrap around the item in each box and around other items in the shipping box, it's just that the boxes the snowmen were in were in very bad shape. I decided not to wrap the snowmen in those boxes-thank you to whomever discovered gift bags!! That's not the first time I experienced this. The clothing is in a plastic bag within a box or shipping envelope.

Returns
One thing that makes Kohls.com so great is you can take returns back to your local Kohl's department store, which saves on return shipping charges. Save your receipts!

Overall Impression
As long as I don't experience website problems, Kohl's will continue to be one of my favorite online stores, especially for holiday shopping. I will continue to do less and less shopping in brick and mortar stores!