Bras for Women's
Buying bras for women and other lingerie pieces online open up a whole new world of shopping for many women. Shopping for lingerie in online stores removes much of the inconvenience, awkwardness, and effort than dragging yourself to a brick-and-mortar lingerie shop or department store requires. When you shop for lingerie online, you can have your favourite bras, panties, and gets delivered to your door in three days or less at the click of a button.
Unfortunately, shopping for bras and lingerie online isn’t always so simple. When you shop online, you run the risk of ending up with low-quality or ill-fitting pieces or even getting scammed out of your money altogether. Don’t let these horror stories stop you from enjoying the advantages online lingerie shopping can bring to your life. Instead, learn how to shop smarter with these ten tips on how to choose bras and lingerie online.
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1. Measure Yourself First: Bra Cup Sizes & Band Size
It is imperative that you enter the world of online lingerie shopping with a current, accurate idea of your true size. Before you try to buy a bra or a chemise from a website, make sure that you know all of your measurements.
Don’t just measure your bust and call it a day; get the numbers on your waist, hips, thighs, shoulders, etc. too. The more accurate measurements you have on hand, the more likely you are to end up with products that actually fit you well. If you don’t feel comfortable or confident measuring yourself, enlist your local lingerie store to measure you professionally instead.
2. Look at Bra Size Charts
Even if you know all of your current measurements, always look at size charts before you purchase any lingerie pieces from a website that is new or unfamiliar to you. Never assume that your measurements equal a small everywhere just because the small size from one brand fits you best.
Sizes with the same title can mean drastically different things depending on the brand or website. Check size charts to make sure that you’re actually matching your measurements to the right size. Size charts are also important when you shop on international websites; they make the size conversion process much less confusing.
3. Read Bra Reviews
Customer reviews are your saviours when it comes to online shopping for lingerie. First-person opinions from other real people like you who have bought and worn a piece you’re interested in give you the best, most reliable account of what the piece is really like once it actually arrives at your house.
Don’t just listen to one customer review, though, whether it’s positive or negative. Digest consumer opinions as a whole and don’t stake too much on individual reviews. One person’s bad experience or one glowing review—which may or may not be sponsored—shouldn’t dictate your purchasing habits.
4. Buy Bra From Reputable Online Lingerie Brands
Buying from reputable brands doesn’t mean shunning every online brand that doesn’t already have an established customer base of thousands or millions of people. However, it is very important to actively assess a brand’s reliability and validity before you purchase from them.
Unfortunately, there are way too many fake scam brands on the internet. Filter them out the best you can by remaining actively aware of their existence and searching for reviews of the brand itself (not just the products it offers) on websites that aren’t affiliated with the brand in any way.
5. Pay Attention to Bra Product Descriptions
Online shoppers tend to skip over the boring parts—think fabric content and washing instructions—of product descriptions. While they might not make the most enjoyable beach reading, these descriptions are really important and can make or break your satisfaction with a product.
For example, you might not be able to tell from a picture that a piece is semi-transparent when you’re searching for opaque, or has a mesh lining you’re allergic to, etc. Product descriptions will inform you of these vital details, so force yourself to read those boring bullet points.
6. Scrutinize Bra Return Policies
Do not ever buy anything from an online lingerie website unless that website has an excellent return policy. Acceptable return policies are those that allow you to send back pieces and get your money back, no questions asked.
It can be difficult to find online lingerie companies that offer stellar return policies because of the sanitation logistics of returning bras and panties. However, it’s usually never worth it to buy from a brand that won’t let you return pieces you buy because you’re very likely to end up with many useless pieces that don’t fit you or don’t satisfy your expectations. Hold out for the brands with the best return policies; you’ll thank yourself later.
7. Expect the Unexpected
You will get very discouraged with the process of online shopping very quickly if you start shopping with the misconception that you’ll love every piece you buy. Online shopping, especially for something as personal as lingerie pieces, is always a risk no matter how careful you are.
When you buy something online, you should always expect that the pieces might not look exactly like they did on the website and might not feel or fit exactly how you expected. If you prepare yourself for these differences between your idea of the product and the product itself, you’ll be less likely to get discouraged and be more willing to return pieces you don’t like and try again.
8. Buy Bras in Bulk
The process of buying individual pieces, waiting for them to ship, seeing if they fit, sending them back if they don’t, and reordering a different size can be incredibly exhausting. If you find an online lingerie store that has a great return policy, you can expedite this tiring process by buying multiple sizes, styles, and colours of one piece at one time. When you buy online lingerie in bulk, all the pieces are delivered to you at the same time, and you can send back the pieces that don’t live up to your expectations in one bulk rejection shipment. It’s like an at-home version of trying clothes on in a fitting room and leaving behind the ones you decide you don’t want.Just remember that it might take up to several weeks for your money to be refunded for the products you send back. Make sure you have enough money to pay for everything up front and survive without that money for a few weeks before some of it is returned to you.
9. Don’t Be Fooled by Fake Online Bra Images
Obviously, brands want to display their products in the most flattering way possible. However, some brands take the advertisement images for their products much too far. That’s when you end up with pieces that look absolutely nothing like how they were pictured online.
There is no way to know for sure how accurate online images of products are. You can definitely decrease your likelihood of getting fooled, though. Only buy products that are depicted in multiple images from several different angles or on more than one model. Also, customers often post real-life pictures of products once they receive them; keep an eye out for these gems in the customer review section.
10. Search For Discount bras and Bra Coupons
A great perk of shopping in online stores is that you are much more likely to easily find coupons for products sold exclusively online than you are to find deals on in-store products.
Before you buy anything—including but not limited to lingerie—do a quick Google search for “[insert brand or product name here] coupons”. You’ll be surprised at how frequently you’re able to find online coupon codes that give you small discounts for websites and their products. These discounts are usually pretty small—think 10% off one item or reduced shipping costs—but they take very little effort to find and any discount is better than none at all.
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