Garden Botanika
Written: Jul 12 '02 (Updated Jul 12 '02)
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Can I give a store over a 5 star rating? No, I guess I can't but if I could I would give Garden Botanika over a 5 because their service has been so great that I am thankful everytime I have to order new products - although I just love buying new things. They have a great selection and they are great about their customer service and shipping.
Ok, a little background here. There use to be a Garden Botanika in the mall near my house but about a year ago it closed and I was again sad, if you read my review of Body Shop then you will see it was about the same experience with them. I went to their closing and the girl there told me I should start ordering from the site because I always knew what I wanted anyway so why not have them sent to me. Sounded like a good idea to me so I went home and looked at their site and explored it a little. Now I order from the site when I start getting a little low on anything and by the time I am out there is a new supply waiting for me.
Again this store is against all forms of animal testing and do not use any animal products in their products, this is what makes this store very special as well. If you want to know more about their policies then you can click on Company Profile on their site and it gives a lot more information.
The Layout
Very simple and clean. They make the site very simple to get around on so no one will have any problems at all with this site and finding what your looking for. they lay everyone out in a way that when you look at the front page you know exactly where to go.
Along the top of the page they have:
Home - So you can always get back to the beginning of the site no matter where you are.
What's New - Here you can find out all the latest products and news about the company.
Special Promotions - Here you can find out what specials they are having right now or what they will be having soon.
GB Beauty Guide - This is their section where you can learn about their products and e-mail them with any questions, comments or concerns about their products.
Shop Online - Takes you to a list of categories so you can start shopping.
Company Profile - This will help answer any questions that you have about the company.
Garden Club - I love the Garden Club and this will explain to you the benefits of joining this - trust me if you are going to shop at this site a lot spend the money and join. More about this further in the review.
Along the right side they have a list of all their product categories but we will get into that in a second.
Along the bottom there are more links - but these are some of the best ones. Yes, they do put a few in different places for the same thing but this does make them easier to find also.
Search - This will help you if you kind of know what your looking for and want to use their search feature instead of hunting all over the products list. Very helpful tool.
Track Your Order - Great feature. After you get your e-mail confirmation you can track your order which will be sent UPS right on their site. This will be talked about more under Shipping and Delivery though.
What's New - A repeat of above.
Special Promotions - Again a repeat link.
Join Our Garden Club - Again a repeat link.
So as you can see from this it is very simple to get around the site.
Products
Oh what a selection of products that they have. I have never had any problems finding what I want on this site. This is because I have shopped at their store and a little warning here, it is hard to shop for perfume online because you don't know what they smell like.
Their product topics are:
Accessories
Aromatics
Basic Skin Care
Body Care
Botanika
Custom Fragrance
Hair Care
Natural Color Cosmetics
Candles
Skin Correcting
Skin Renewing
Spa Botanika
Transparencies - this is what I usually order, they are all great scents but hard to tell from their online descriptions.
Vitamin C
Clicking on any of these will take you to a page with more descriptions of the products along with full color pictures of the products. Along with a link to their order list so you can see what is available right now, sometimes they are out of stock on some things but they will ship them to you as soon as they are available again.
Garden Club
If you plan on ordering a lot then it is best to join the Garden Club because you will get great discounts on your purchases. You get:
10% off all your purchases every time you shop
20% off on all purchases made the first Tuesday of every month
30% off all purchases made 3 days before and 3 days after your birthday
So for $10.00 a year you will get a lot out of this card. You can use this online, in their catalogue or in their stores at any time.
Ordering
Wow, simplicity here. Find the product you want using the product guide or the search tool, both ways work great. Find the product that you want and then select the quantity and click on add to cart. Now this is a feature that I like, when you do that it does not take you to the shopping cart but rather it keeps you on the same page and now you will have a link to your shopping cart on each page so when you are done shopping it's easy to get there.
Checking Out
Checking out is also simple. When you are done just click on the Shopping Cart icon and you are taken to a summary of your order, here you can change quantities or remove items as well. Now if you are a new customer you do need to get an ID for the site by using your e-mail address but this is a good thing to do if you are going to use the site a lot, plus they will send you updates of new promotions.
What you need to include is your normal information:
Name
Address
Special Instructions
If you are a Garden Club Member you will want to include your Garden Club number also so you get your discount on your purchase.
Your Credit Card Information
Now it will save this information for you when you return also, don't worry it will not save your credit card number in their system so you don't have to worry about that one. I worried about that at first also.
Shipping and Delivery
They use UPS ground for their shipping and the prices are actually pretty cheap from what I have seen in my orders. For a $20.00 order the shipping is $6.50 and for a $80.00 order the shipping was $10.50 so keep in mind that the more that you do order the better shipping rate you will get.
They do only use UPS Ground so they cannot deliver to a P.O. Box and if you live outside the U.S. you need to call them at 1-800-968-7842 for information about shipping and prices.
You will get your item in about 7-10 days and they send confirmations out the second that you order and for me the next morning to tell you it has been shipped with the tracking number in the e-mail so you can see the progress of your order. Everything that I have ever ordered from them has been on time and packed great. Again, glass items and I have never had anything broken or damaged on me.
Returns
Another good store to work with about returns. They want their customers to be 100% happy with their purchases and will take returns for any reason. They list their address and phone number in Ontario, California for all information about returns.
Customer Service
These people are great to deal with. If you have any questions no matter how big or small they are always friendly and polite and help with everything you have anything to ask. I have only had to call a couple times with small questions about my order, I keep missing the UPS delivery so nothing they could really do but they were still very polite about it.
Conclusion
They have both great products and great service. I do recommend that you go to a store first so that you can try their products and know what you are getting before using the online store because it has to be hard to order perfume without knowing what it smells like. All of their products are made with great quality ingredients that are not tested on animals so if this is a concern for you (like me) then you might want to try them out and see if they are as good for you as they have been for me.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kiko_cat
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Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 207
Trusted by: 199 members
About Me:
Well life has been insane but trying to write more again.
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