Merrily R.

WARNING! Do not shop at HauteLook! I've ordered three things from this site, and experienced issues with all three items.

First, we ordered 2 pairs of shoes for my son. The first pair arrived within a few weeks, and they have a really (really) bad smell (formaldehyde perhaps?) -- we considered returning them, but they were only $20 and over a period of time the smell has lessened so now you can only smell it when you are up close. The other pair of shoes ordered for my son were in a pending status for 2 weeks, and then they notified us that they could not fulfill the order since they did not have the inventory. We have not yet received the credit and I am following up on this. Meanwhile, my husband ordered a pair of Rockport loafers in a size 10.5W.

After waiting for 3 weeks for the shoes, they arrived and he tried them on -- way too tight. The box was labeled as a 10.5W, but the shoes were actually a 10M... we called HauteLook and the person we spoke with checked the inventory -- oops, sorry we don't have that size any more. She told us that have a choice of returning it via UPS or taking it to a nearby Nordstrom Rack -- and gave us the address of the Livingston NJ store, which is about 4 miles from us.

Only after I expressed my surprise at the lack of quality assurance in the warehouse, and annoyance at having to deal with this return, and my comment that the least they could do was give us some sort of compensation -- did she then offer a $10 credit (which I will never use because I don't intend to shop at this site ever again). When we told my sister this story, she told us the Livingston Nordstrom Rack store isn't even open yet -- we checked further and it's not even opening until October 8th -- the next closest Nordstrom Rack is in Paramus, a 45 minute ride from our home. So now we need to call back their customer service department and find out how to send it back via UPS. All very annoying and inconvenient - and we'll also have to follow up on the refund for these shoes, as well as the pair that was not fulfilled for my son.

Unfortunately, I did not investigate this company before we ordered, because I trusted the Nordstrom name.

I am a regular customer of Nordstrom and shop at their stores and online all the time -- I cannot believe that a store chain of this quality associates itself with a site like HauteLook, and risks their outstanding reputation this way.