Hanna Andersson - customer service the way it should be! (price, stores)
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In the shuke household, I am in charge of buying all the kids clothes. Just like I'm in charge of everything else, from doing the laundry to making sure the kids are fed to paying the bills to... well, you get the idea.
But anyhow, one of my favorite vendors for kids clothes is Hanna Andersson. A little pricey it may seem, but the clothes really wear very well, always look great, and best of all... retain their value for resale on the secondary market (Ebay). In case you didn't know, there's a whole underground economy in kids' clothes on Ebay... name brand stuff is coveted, especially if it's in new or like-new condition. And among the name brand stuff, Hanna Andersson clothes arguably have the highest average resale price compared to original retail price. So a $30 pair of jeans can easily sell for $20 to $25 once your kid is done with them... provided they don't have stains or holes. They're pretty well made... I buy mostly double-kneed pants, so holes are usually not a problem, and since I'm in charge of laundry, I make sure to treat all the stains before washing, so I've found this strategy works pretty well for me.
So this morning, I placed an order for approx. $1,000 in new Hanna clothes for my 3 kids. Fine. I check the order status tonight and see it shipped already. Great. Then I go to the homepage, and see that subsequent to this morning when I placed the order, they are now running a promo thru 10/21 in which they'll knock 20% off the price of any order over $150. Well, that translates to ~$200 to me. I'm a bit miffed, sitting there thinking I missed the 20% by just a matter of hours. So I start going through their customer service page, and I see a section there on price adjustments, which reads,
Quote:
Should a full price item from Hanna Andersson be marked down within 14 days from your original order date, we will gladly offer a one-time price adjustment. To receive an adjustment, please call us at 1-800-222-0544.
I'm sitting here thinking the 20% is a de facto price adjustment... maybe I should call to see if I can get it.
So I called the number. An 800-number, mind you, at around 9:00pm EDT, and got a real, live, American-speaking customer service rep. I gave her my order number, explained I just placed it this morning, and that by this evening they're taking 20% off such orders. No argument at all from them. She volunteered to credit me for the 20% and thanked me for shopping with Hanna.
I love it when things go right like that.
Oh.. btw.... Hanna runs a semi-annual sale, June and... I think.... December... where prices on in-season merchandise is knocked down anywhere between 40% and 60%. It's worth hitting that sale when it runs.
I LOVE hanna andersson clothes, esp. for my daughter. They are SO cute. thanks for the heads up about the resale value! Those prints are gorgeous. I never ordered online though. I will now. Thanks.
I LOVE hanna andersson clothes, esp. for my daughter. They are SO cute. thanks for the heads up about the resale value! Those prints are gorgeous. I never ordered online though. I will now. Thanks.
Yes, Hannas are probably my favorites, too. They always look great, and I don't think my kids have ever worn any of their stuff out. And even with the boys' pants, the waists are always stretchy enough - without looking stretchy - that if the kid would ordinarily be a "husky" in other lines, in Hannas, if the inseam fits, the waist always seems to work, too.
They just opened a B&M store just a few miles from where I live. I haven't been in there, yet, though. It's in a huge mall... and, frankly... I avoid the malls unless I really, really have a dire need to go because I need something that can only be gotten at the mall and it cannot wait. With Hanna stuff, though, I am always ordering in advance, so no need to go to the malls.
Which reminds me. I shop extensively online.... both for small-ticket and big-ticket items. But one thing about Hanna online.... inventory control has been their achilles heel. They have gotten MUCH better within the past year... I know I wrote them a couple of blistering letters telling them how much business they were losing because... going back a couple of years, now.... it was impossible to place an order without multiple things going on backorder. At present, they seem to have made SIGNIFICANT progress in addressing this gripe. That said... they definitely stock seasonally. Some vendors, like Lands End, always seems to have good inventory and when the next season's line is introduced, they just move the old stuff to overstocks. Well, Hanna tends to run a heavy mark-down near season-end to clear out the old stuff... season-end often being in the middle of when you'd ordinarily be wearing the stuff that's being cleared... bottom line is, for the best selection in all sizes, I think it is still advisable to order earlier rather than later.
But do watch for those semi-annual sales they run. That's a heavy mark-down on in-season stuff. They ran the spring and summer one for the whole month of June... plenty of time to order summer clothes that my kids wore through the end of September.
And I have been very happy with how promptly they process and ship an order. I usually have my orders placed before noontime. I'm not sure what their cutoff is, but like with yesterday, for example... placed the order by 10:00am EDT, and UPS had the shipment by that evening.
Never had any problems with returns, either.
But it was really nice to get that extra 20% after they had shipped the order. I thought that was really good customer relations, right there.
My boys are grown now, but when they were little, some of my favorite clothes of theirs were Hannas.
So colorful, comfy, and durable--I handed down quite a bit of stuff to the little brother, and it looked fine.
As I mentioned earlier, a brand new Hanna Andersson store just opened in a nearby mall. Yesterday was my first visit. I will say, I was very UN-impressed with the store itself. Maybe I had gotten used to the HUGE selection that is available online, but it seemed that what was available in the b&m store was a fraction of what they had online. Further, the selection they did have heavily favored baby clothes, as opposed to bigger kids clothes. Finally, the online store has links to all the coordinating pieces.. if you want to put together a matching outfit, it can be done much more quickly online if you are confident of the sizes.
Of course, much the same comments can be made about Gymboree stores, too. I hit that one while I was at the mall... just to remind myself why I only go to the malls but maybe once a year. Same story.. My daughter had torn up a brand new pair of tights when she was running and fell on the pavement. Was hoping to get a replacement at the b&m store... they didn't have anything close to her size in that color. Better luck was had online, however.
I'm still reeling at the thought of an English speaking US person answering a customer service phone lol!!!
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