Macys.com

Full review
I shop at the Macys stores in my local malls from time to time, so I figured when I was too busy to go out that I would try their online store for purchases as well. I have had two shopping experiences at Macys.com, both of which were a complete disappointment. From now on, I am going to pass on shopping at Macys.com and just stick to their physical store locations only.

Products

Macys.com offers a little bit of everything, but not much of anything. For instance, they offer apparel for men, women and children, along with bed and bath items, cookware and bakeware, jewelry, cosmetics and fragrances and more. But, their actual stores carry so much more than what is available online. For instance, I like purchasing their Style & Co. apparel for myself. I wear petite clothing, and it is hard to find stores that carry petite styles. I was recently in Macys and found 3 shirts that I liked, but I decided not to purchase them at that time. Later that night, I changed my mind and tried to search for them at Macys.com. All three shirts were relatively new styles, not clearance items. Of the 3 shirts, only one was on Macys.com, and the next morning when I finally decided to buy it, that one shirt had disappeared as well. In fact, if I view all Style & Co. merchandise at Macys.com, a mere 3 pages (at 24 items a page) come up, and most of those items are clearance and are noted that they are sold out and not currently available. I could literally only buy about 3 Style & Co. items at Macys.com, but yet when I go to the actual stores I have an entire section of merchandise by this brand. I could walk through rack after rack of Style & Co. merchandise, choosing between hundreds of new, sale and clearance items.

Prices

Prices at Macys.com are just OK. The shirt that I wanted at Macys was the same price online, marked down 25 percent for their Super Saturday sale. I was very happy to see that the online prices were consistent with the store prices. But, that is where any similarities ended.

I am a Macys cardholder, and I get tons of coupons in the mail for 15 percent off, or for other discounts. Recently, I got a coupon for $25 off a purchase of $100 or more. I saved all of my recent coupons, and I had a total of 8. I read the fine print on each and every coupon, and not one had a code so that it could be used online. So it would cost me much more to shop online (after accounting for shipping charges as well) than it would to walk into a Macys store and hand them my purchases, card and coupons. At a minimum, it would cost me 15 percent more, plus shipping. If I spent $100, it would cost me about 25 percent more, plus shipping!

If you are very lucky, you might be able to get a good deal online that you could not find in the stores. But, this has not yet happened for me, and I have given up on trying. For instance, during my last visit to Macys.com, after the shirt I wanted to purchase simply disappeared from their site, I started browsing their sale and clearance items. They appeared to have some awesome deals, including a sweater for $5.99, and a hooded sweatshirt for $3.00. If I browsed through the sale and clearance racks at the actual stores, I never would have found such items in my size. So I quickly clicked on the items I wanted and added them to my cart. I found 4 items that I thought were exceptional bargains, and I started the checkout process. When I went to review my shopping cart, there was a message in red bold text at the top of the page that one of the items in my shopping cart was no longer available. I was instructed to remove this item from my shopping cart in order to continue. I did that, and once I did, the same text appeared notifying me that the other 3 items were now unavailable as well! In a matter of 1 minute, all 4 items that I had hoped to purchase had sold out. I ended up not buying anything that day.

Prior to the holidays, I had purchased an item for my mother and also found a bargain item online. That time, my order actually did go through. But, the next day, Macys.com emailed me and told me that the bargain item was unavailable. I received my order a few days later, and it only included the one regular priced item that I had purchased for my mom.

Site Navigation and Ease of Use

In general, Macys.com is relatively easy to use. The main website features main categories, and then you can drill down within each main category to find what you are looking for. You can search by item (i.e. jeans) or by brand. You can also look at sale/clearance items only if you wish.

They also feature a link to the gift registry from the main page, and that feature is also easy to use. You can view and print a couple’s registry online, and you can make purchases online from the registry as well. Or, if you choose to you can bring the printed registry to the store when you make your purchase, and they will use the printed registry to scan and deduct the item from the list.

They have a store locator online, which I use often when I am going out and want to know if I will be close to a Macys. They also have other services available through their website, such as the ability to apply for and pay for your Macys charge online. I have used this link to view my balance, and it is very easy to use, but I have never paid my Macys bill online through their website.

Shipping

Unless you are buying a lot online, chances are you will have to pay for your shipping at Macys.com. I find that other online stores offer free shipping more frequently and on smaller purchases, but Macys.com does not. For instance, right now Macys.com is offering free shipping on purchases over $150, whereas Kohl’s offers free shipping every day on purchases over $75.

Their shipping charges are also higher than those charged by other stores as well. For example, some apparel stores (i.e. Children’s place, Gymboree, Old Navy, etc) offer a flat shipping charge (i.e. $5) regardless of your order size. At Macys.com, shipping charges are based on your purchase price. They start at $5.95 for orders up to $24.99, and go up from there. A $100 purchase will cost you $15.95 to ship!

With that being said, my order from Macys.com came very quickly and was packaged very well. I have also received gifts from Macys.com, and they did a good job with the gift wrap. Therefore, I cannot complain about shipping speed or quality, just the cost!

Overall

Overall, I do not think it is worth it to shop at Macys.com. The selection is not nearly as good as the actual stores, and with coupons and discounts it is much cheaper to go to the store anyway. Plus, shipping only adds to your final cost. I am not a mall person and I dread shopping sometimes, but if I have a purchase to make at Macys, I will only go to the stores from now on. It is simply not worth the frustration!