STORE WARS: Nordstrom vs. Ebay
Starting March 19th and running through April 8th, Dappered.com is hosting a bracket based tournament with the purpose of eventually crowning the all around Affordable Men’s Style Retail Champ for 2013. For a full introduction see this post. The bracket on the right will be updated as the tournament progresses. Click on it for the full size. Make a case for your preferred competitor in the comments section, but don’t forget to vote at the bottom of each match up. On with today’s showdown:
Strengths: From their website to the in-store shopping experience, Norstrom is top of the line while still remaining mostly accessible for affordable-minded shoppers (even if a lot of us wait for their Anniversary sale and Half-Yearly Sales for Men). Their selection of brands is terrific. Meanwhile, house brands like 1901, Calibrate, and plain ol’ Nordstrom always have something good going on. Their policy of free shipping and free returns, no minimum, eliminates that risk of shipping dings and return charges. While selection can vary by market, they seem to push some solid stuff the way of their outlets, Nordstrom Rack. For an all around department store experience in the 21st century, Nordstrom seems to blow the competition out of the water, all while remaining mostly affordable if you’re patient and wait for sales.
Weaknesses: They are on the top end of the price spectrum for most of us. They’re not Barney’s by any stretch, but you’re not going to find many suits for $250 there either. Despite a perpetually stocked sale section online, sale events that include much more of their normal goods are very, very infrequent. The few affordable blazers that they offer come from their house brands, and those usually come with too-short-for most tails. Suit selection is just flat out expensive.
Strengths: There’s gold in them internet hills. The world’s a big place, and someone, somewhere, is always looking to unload a lightly used piece or pair of awesome for a ridiculously low price. It’s just a matter of finding it in your size and placing the right bid. A favorite destination for shoe shoppers, looking to grab a pair of Allen Edmonds for cheap.
Weaknesses: More than a few of us have looked, and looked… and looked… but never purchased anything on Ebay. The uber-fans might claim ebay as a panacea for all style-related shopping quandaries, but it just doesn’t shake down that way. It’s like thrift store shopping. You’ve got to be patient and know that you’re not always (or often) going to find a specific item that you’re looking for. Dealing with sellers (or buyers) can sometimes be a pain. You’ve got to be careful with who you’re buying from and how you’re paying for the purchase. More and more, it seems like Ebay is home to a bunch of professional horse traders, those people or shops with a bazillion items for sale, and less a place for individuals to go and score a good deal from another person who’s looking to make a couple bucks on something they don’t use anymore.
Your votes determine who goes on to the next round. Cast your ballot below. Voting closes at midnight ET.
UPDATE: Despite putting up their annual, solid fight, eBay goes down. Don’t worry eBay, you’re #1 in the hearts of many.
Store Wars: Nordstrom vs. eBay
- Nordstrom (69%, 869 Votes)
- eBay (31%, 382 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,251
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My two Brooks Brothers blazers that I got for less than $50 each make eBay my choice here. True, you have to look for things, but you can do it from your couch and there is an ever-increasing number of gently-used and vintage menswear sellers now.
I think that’s the part of Ebay’s problem- low numbers of sellers as well as trusted sellers because there is a bit of a risk. And search engines are not easy to build for the novice (I know Put This On has some great ones) but I’m talking the novice who doesn’t know about PTO. Where as Nordstrom- well, they just rock. Their selection can be a bit limited too but I can always go into Nordstoms and walk out with stuff- albeit I’m a lot poorer for it. And that’s the problem- they get crazy prices and they’re not Sak’s or Harrod’s maybe they want to be but not even close. Nonetheless, this goes to Nordstom’s!
eBay for me- I’ve been able to scoop up a few BB ESF shirts, pocket squares and ties on the cheap from good reputable sellers.
My vote goes to eBay. There are definitely a bunch of great finds at lower cost. Lost a bit of weight and recently started selling my larger clothes so I can buy smaller clothes. I have had great experiences. Recently picked up an Express blazer for $10 and a vintage Gillette safety razor for $15.
One problem I find from a seller’s point of view is that buyers do not like to leave positive feedback when they receive an item that they are happy with. May be that old study that found if you receive bad customer service you tell 10 people, but if you receive good customer service you tell 3. There are probably more great sellers on there than their ratings advertise.
The ratings skew (and kurtosis) is there, but it’s pretty uniform across sellers, so after a while you just adjust your expectations to account for the skew.
Nordstrom for me. I just think there’s too much risk in purchasing something from a rando over the Interwebs before you can see it and without the promise of easy returns. Learning the ropes so you can find quality stuff is also time-consuming, and since time is money (as well as notably finite), how much are you really saving?
My overall eBay haul in the past 18 months has been 4-5 Faconnable shirts ($12 each), 3 Brooks Brothers shirts (12-14 each), and an incredible Dunhill wallet which was $325 retail for 35 shipped. If you are patient and persistent and keep tabs on good sellers, you can do a lot of damage on eBay.
The key is to keep tabs on solid sellers and always try to bundle if they have multiple shirts listed. A couple of my prime sellers were essentially high end thrift stores, so I could always do a 3 for 35 deal if they had 3 shirts I wanted. eBay is a tremendous resource across the board: outerwear, formal wear, accessories, shoes, you name it.
Forgot to mention the cologne and cosmetic product market on eBay as well. As long as you buy from someone who accepts returns, you can get incredible deals (30-40% off) on high end cologne like Tom Ford and Creed or even Murad/Philosophie stuff. It is a tremendous asset for gift buying as well.
Would you be willing to share some favorite sellers via personal email?
If so unspokenryan at g mail
ebay for me as well. The trick for me has always been to save my searches on very specific items. For example, I like Brooks Brother Black Fleece suits in BB1 and Turnbull and Asser shirts in 16 32/33 spread collar. When new items are listed, I get an email notifiying me so I can bid, or at least watch the item. I’ve gotten allen edmonds wingtips for 70 dollars, shirts from turnbull/asser, charvet, harvie/hudson for around 30-40 dollars and a couple of black fleece suits (originally 1900) for around 400-500 a piece. Its incredible. But on the flip side, it doesn’t work out once in a while and the seller may not have a return policy but its a risk worth taking for me.
I know it’s not the popular option, but I gotta go with ebay. There is no Nordstroms near me. I doubt if I have ever set foot in one in my life, so I really have no experience with them. OTOH, I’ve gotten a lot of great things from ebay over the years, things I could never afford to buy in an upscale department store even on sale.
I like eBay but I have trouble conceptualizing it as a “store” the way I do other stores. eBay is a facilitator for other sellers, some of whom sell good stuff and some of whom don’t, some of whom are good sellers and some of whom aren’t. As a seller myself, I know that the seller is responsible for any and all work involved – it’s hard for me to give credit to eBay for a good or bad sales experience when I know that it’s totally dependent on the buyer and seller.
eBay is too much of a crap shoot. Bought a blazer on there recently that was a J. Crew Ludlow 42R, which I have a few of so I know how it should fit. As soon as I unboxed it, there were stains on it (not disclosed or pictured) and the sleeves had been shortened considerably (not disclosed). The seller indicated they wouldn’t take returns, but thankfully the eBay Resolution Center is awesome. In this case I didn’t have to go to that route because I told the seller I wanted to send it back for a full refund, but I’ll eat the return shipping and he agreed. End of the day I wasted $13 and my time with nothing to show for it. I don’t think I would attempt to buy a used article of clothing ever again from eBay.
On an positive note though, I found a great seller seller that has prior season stuff for J. Crew new with tags and some items are a great deal. I got a navy chino Ludlow suit for half of what it would cost new. They do accept returns as well, though you’re on the hook for return shipping and 10% restocking fee, so I wouldn’t buy anything I was on the fence about.
Nordstrom on the other hand is always a great experience and great return policy too. Not really relevant, but I love their cafe as well, haha. They get my vote.
Have to vote eBay, especially since I’ve never lived close to a Nordstrom. Saved searches, trusted sellers, and bid sniping are the real keys to landing good scores. PTO’s searches are great combined with a few saved searches of your favorites in your size. Some of my recent scores include Ralph Lauren 100% cashmere sportcoat for $50, RL Linen/Silk sportcoat for $70, Allen Edmonds 5th avenue in walnut for $80, BB’s shirts for ~$15, various pocket squares for super cheap. I love eBay
I actually get most of my clothes off eBay. Risky? Yes. But at the end of the day, getting 10 used items at 50% of their retail value and finding you got jipped on 2 of those items, still yields a nice return (and you can always resell on eBay).
Plus it’s a lot more fun to hunt and snipe items than to jump on a website and drop tons of money on something that might not be to your liking.
For all the store wars matchups going on…this is the toughest to vote. Dammit Joe, you had to match these two up in the first rd!
Nordstrom’s brick-and-mortars are just not that impressive. The men’s store is generally small, and of that, 70% of the shoppable area isn’t even worth walking through. The staff is nice, but not all that knowledgeable, and sometimes as a 20-something walking through there you’ll be ignored.
Props to their site for doing free shipping, but I’ve gotta go Ebay. There’s a gap between Goodwill and highbrow sale racks where plenty of awesome is to be found, and they’re the only ones in it.
Nordstrom for me, no question. I’ve tried my hand at Ebay and maybe I’m just not patient enough or maybe I’m looking…for the wrong things? I’ve been disappointed each and every time. Works wonders for some but for me, it’s been useless.
Didn’t get a chance to vote, but for me it’s eBay. Nothing against Nordstrom and their house brand for shoes for example is quite affordable and stylish for the price, but they simply don’t carry some of the high end brands that I like. They did have the Pendleton Portland Collection this season though. Also, I love their shoe trees for the price.
eBay can be great. I’m more a seller at the moment, but I can find some good deals on some brands that I like that Nordstrom doesn’t even carry. You can get a brand new with tags Barbour for example for nearly half off. Now I can find them elsewhere at that price too, but not a lot of folks will order from overseas.
Ebay has more potential but requires far too much effort for me do to anything more that casual browsing.
I see a lot of products on eBay that say “line through tag.” What does that mean? What else should I look for when buying off of eBay? I’ve got my eye on some Bonobos and J Crew stuff. Thanks.