RedEnvelope

Full review
My sister and I have six children between the two of us, grouped in what we refer to as two groups of three. Our first three (two hers, one mine) were all born within a span of 15 months, and the second three (two mine, one hers) within 17 months. The first Christmas that the First Three were together, we gave our mother three ornaments with the kids' pictures in them. I've been hunting for new ones for the Second Three for two years, and finally found them this year at redEnvelope.

::: Unique Gifts :::

If you've ever received a redEnvelope catalog of browsed their web site, it seems like a dream come true for shoppers looking for gifts for the hard-to-shop-for. redEnvelope is known for distinctive, unique gifts, from a kids' game set to bamboo shoots in a vase.

The site is very clean and well-organized, and rather than only navigating by product type, redEnvelope organizes their site into shopping categories. You can shop by occasion, recipient, or by the typical product category. Within each section, there is a link to popular items in that category, as well as subcategories to assist you further. Items can also be sorted by popularity, newness to the site, and by price.

redEnvelope has 24-hour customer service, as well as a Personal Shopper available from 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific Time. Payment types accepted are American Express, VISA, MasterCard and Discover, and the site allows you to register and save your payment and shipping information for faster checkout.

::: Seeing Red :::

I actually shopped the redEnvelope site through Upromise, so received 6% of my order total in my Upromise account. The item that I ordered was a set of three pewter snowflake picture ornaments, and I placed my order on a Tuesday evening at 5:00 PM. The ornaments are small and fairly lightweight, fitting into a box that is approximately 3 inches x 3 inches by 1 inch. This box was packaged in a much larger box with the plastic air-filled bags and shipped Airborne via USPS. The ornaments themselves were $25.00, and shipping and handling chargers were a whopping $7.95.

After placing my order, I received an immediate email confirmation of my order, with a promise that I would be emailed again when my order was shipped. I did not receive any further communication from redEnvelope until the package arrived on my doorstep exactly one week to the day after I placed my order.

I'm not sure that I would actually shop at redEnvelope again, unless, such as in this instance, they offered a product I really couldn't find elsewhere. The shipping was exorbitant both for the size and price of the item I was purchasing, and wasn't any faster than the other online stores I've puchased from this holiday season.

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This review is part of the Lean 'n Mean III W/O.