Zalando

Zalando’s logo says it’s ‘the online shoe shop’. It isn’t, it sells loads of stuff. As well as shoes, it sells women’s clothes and men’s clothes and children’s clothes and bags and jewellery and – what I was after – running gear.

The site is easy to navigate down to your chosen department. As I need some new running gear to see me through the winter, especially with my London Marathon training and Janathon coming up, I looked for a long-sleeved top and some long running tights.

Most of the clothes on the site are in the upper price bracket (with most of the more affordable ones being out of stock in my size) but I did find a pair of tights and a long-sleeved top that I liked and weren’t either XS or XL that together came to £55. I went through the process of ordering (PayPal is an option which is a bonus to me – no need to look for my credit card details) but the website didn’t like my address and kept deleting the house name (I live in one of those stupid countryside houses that don’t have numbers).

Fortunately, Zalando had given me the opportunity of reviewing these products, so I emailed the owner of the site and told her the problem with the site accepting my address (if I had been ordering with my own money, I’d have gone somewhere else).

She got in contact with their customer services who said it was probably because my house has a name and not a number (this reminds me of my first job that was at a courier company called ‘On Yer Bike’ and they used to advertise for riders with the slogan ‘be a name not a number’ and then they’d all be given a number anyway, then they’d give themselves nicknames like ‘Cage’, ‘Digger’ and ‘Major Tom’ [sorry, where was I? Oh yes, running stuff]) and that she’d ask them to change it manually.

I went back to the site and my basket was empty and so I went back to find what I had previously ordered but neither the top nor the tights were there anymore so I looked for alternatives that were within my price range. I couldn’t find any tights that I liked the look of (they were all completely black) and the price of but settled on a pair of Reebok running tights with green trim for £37 (much more than I’d normally pay for a pair of running tights)

and a red long-sleeved Nike top for £22 (the same top in pink was £30 – huh?).

So, a total of £59 for both items. Far more than I’d usually pay for two items (since venturing bravely into Sports Direct in the High Street, I am now a fan – massive bargains to be had in there if you can bear the hordes of chavs and the shop’s illogical and almost impenetrable layout) but there is the bonus of free delivery. A downside to the free delivery is that the website states your order will be with you between 5-7 working days and if I’m ordering from a website, I expect my stuff to be with me quickly, i.e. within the next three days but ideally within 48 hours. It’s also delivered by courier and not Royal Mail, so if you’re not in, you’ll have to rearrange delivery (although they will attempt to deliver three times before taking it back to the depot).

My address had been changed to show the house name but now the road name was above the house name. Worried that the delivery driver wouldn’t be able to find the house (as even with the most specific directions, a lot of delivery people can’t find it even if you draw them a map with arrows pointing to it (but the pizza delivery dudes can always find it and that’s the main thing), I edited it so the address was showing the name and road in the right order but this messed it up again and deleted the house name.

I emailed them again to tell them this had happened and was told it was something about them being in Germany and they’d sort it for me. I went back to the site, re-ordered my gear, saw my address was looking normal and paid for my order.

I was in Paris when my order arrived but the driver had left a note saying it was in the woodshed, which is fine with me. The tights and running top were comfortable and fitted perfectly and I took them for a run on Christmas Day. Well, I say ‘run’, what I really mean is a bit of a shuffle for 1.5 miles. Now that Christmas is over, I suppose I’d better stop over-drinking and over-cheese-eating and get myself back on the road and back into the gym.

Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for Janathon. Slacking isn’t an option.