eShakti Review: Not Quite Perfect

I received this dress from eShakti in exchange for an honest review. You can bet this is that.

 

I have seen bloggers all over the place positively reviewing their complimentary, "customized" dresses from eShakti. So when I had the opportunity to receive my very own dress of choice, I was very excited. They have all kinds of gorgeous clothes, but I knew I wanted a maxi dress, and this one stood out to me right away. After looking through all my options, I eagerly went with this one and could not wait for it to come.

It finally arrived a few weeks after ordering, but I was quickly very disappointed. But let me just break it all down for you with a full review:

location || I looked through eShakti's website before ordering to try to determine where they are located and assumed since they have business hours listed in PST that they were located on the west coast. Silly me. I discovered later that the dresses are actually made in India. (This is mentioned in their About page, but for some reason I missed it.) No offense, but had I known this, I probably wouldn't have ordered from them, as you probably know I am all about supporting American businesses.

shipment and packaging || I was told the dress would ship in about 7-9 business days and that I would be kept posted on the status. When it hadn't shipped in that time and I had heard nothing, I contacted them to check on the status and was told "Our samples typically take 7-9 working days to be processed and shipped," and was told they would email me as soon as it shipped. It did finally ship the next day and arrived just a few days later.

It arrived folded up in a flat box, so it was, not surprisingly, pretty wrinkled as you can see. Which was not desirable but I don't see how it could be avoided.

dress quality || I was afraid that my hopes for this dress were too high, and they turned out to be. As soon as I pulled it out of the box, I thought, Man, it's long! And once I held it up to me, I saw it was definitely too long, by nearly a foot. Call me crazy, but when I think maxi dress, I think long, but not dragging several inches onto the ground. I had entered my measurements based on the range choices I was given and didn't go with the option of exact measurements because I'm not sure that that option was free, and I also gave my height. While the dress could have been tighter in the waist, the issue here was obviously the length. And you would think since they had my height, they should have known how long to make the dress, since it's supposedly made for me. But even with my tallest wedges, it drags the floor.

Then I read a review for this dress in particular that mentioned the surprisingly long length of the dress (though they liked it), so evidently it was not a mistake, but rather how this dress is always made. If that's the case, the description should include that info, and it does not.

value || The color is gorgeous and the cut is flattering, and I do like the feel of the fabric. So I love, love, love those aspects of the dress. But it is very thin and see-through (so much so that you can see the pockets) and wrinkles easily (besides the natural wrinkle of the fabric). I definitely would not have bought this dress from eShakti--it costs as much as I would spend for at least 3 dresses. Everything on their site is expensive, even if it is supposedly customized to your size. But I would only have purchased this dress if I had found it on a clearance rack.

communication and accommodation || I contacted the company right away to let them know about the evident mistake on the length of the dress, and after emailing back and forth a few times was told that I could ship the dress back at no charge to me, and they would evidently remake the whole dress (not just hem it--you know, they put lettuce on a customer's burger, they didn't want lettuce, so the customer sends it back and they throw the burger away and make a whole new one). But the catch was that, as best I can read the rather confusing email, they would reimburse me any alterations charges in the form of store credit. That would mean in order to "get back" my money, I would have to buy something--everything is pretty expensive, so I would be out money in the effort to "make back" my money by buying something. They really wanted to just replace the dress but weren't sure on fabric availability and suggested I might pick another. (Sure enough, it's still out of stock.) But I really wanted this particular dress; I just wanted it to fit. Finally when I told them I would not be sending it back if I had to pay anything or pick another dress, I didn't hear from them again.

So in short, the initial hesitancy I had in ordering from this company was for good reason. I hate writing negative reviews, but I have to be honest. Basically I'm harder on this dress because, though it was free to me, it is very expensive otherwise, and it should live up to its price.

All of that aside, it was free! And I did wear it out successfully on a date with Daniel and do plan to wear it again, because hey, it's free! And maybe since I don't trust myself to do it, I can convince my best friend to hem it for me when she comes to visit.

Have you received or purchased a dress from eShakti? Was yours perfect like everyone else's?

Are you familiar with maxi dresses dragging all over the floor?

{Linking up with Treat Yo' Self Thursday}