Let me start the review by saying I am getting paid to do it. This only motivates me to do the review, the opinions in the review are indeed my own. Like most of the sites I review I will pick apart the various things I hate or like about it more so than some fluffy this is what the site is about…on that note Halloween Express is about costumes, Halloween and otherwise.
The first mistake I see is some poor use of flash. Their logo uses flash, and does not link to the home page. I would swap the animation for a static image and a link home any day of the week.
Flash strike #2 – on the right column they have a flash animation which looks pretty nice…it grabs my attention but does not allow for any action. Let me click this thing.
The next thing that pops out at me is the bunny costume…the image looks like crap…it grainy. The funny thing I actually had to show for a bunny costume last week. If I click on the “shop for Easter†text looking part of the image it takes me to a poorly optimized page the order of the page makes very little or no sense to me. I am sure the “crown of thorns†is a top notch item… seriously, I would display things based upon either what sells the best within a category or allow for some featured items on the top. The order seems somewhat random.
Another thing to note is the ridiculously long left hand navigation going on. They display 20 items by default which still leaves room for another 20 below with the length of that crazy ass navigation menu. Based upon the default 20 item display I would also allow me to sort by price, popularity, featured, and also allow to display all within a page.
Once I get into an item I like the cross/up selling going on with the you “might also like” on the bottom.
Back to the homepage… the Easter graphic links me to kids costumer… and there is only one costume… something is not right. I would think the main Easter graphic should relate to Easter COSTUMES! After looking a bit further the landing page for kids costumes is a mess, and needs to be looked at. It only has one item in the main category, sub categories seem to be fine.
Other then these errors I think the site is somewhat solid. I would write custom descriptions for all the costumes and maybe work on my product names/titles. Also I would get the category ordering looked at and figure out if you really need that many categories with duplicate content such as these 2 pet categories (one, two), especially when the root category is only a link to the previous 2.
Lastly I only added one item to my cart which was straight forward, but they force me into creating a new account at the beginning of the process which is a pretty long form with some scary red dialog in the middle.
Instead of telling people to fuck off, if they do not understand the paragraph you may want to offer phone ordering or an 800 help number. Either that or let me just order the stuff I want and not be forced into an account.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
do not use these people i ordered a costume and returned it that day and they refused to give me a credit. I didnt even open the box. They stated that it was wornn and opened which is false!– do no use them they milked me for 40$
worst company and their supervisor is a nasty woman who wont listen to you at all
Halloween Express is HORRIBLE. I ordered 2 batman costumes from this site – one was sized 2T-4T on their site, when I received it, it DOES say 2-4 but then says for ages 1-2 years. When I asked for an exchange at no cost to me I was told that no they stood my their sizing since it does say 2-4 on the package. NOT 2T-4T and it would not fit my 3 year old in way shape or form. When I told them how upset I was they said that was my choice. Very rude and could care less.
DO NOT purchase from Halloween Express!! They are extremely rude and do not care of customer satisfaction.
I agree. Their customer service is terrible and extremely rude and unhelpful. I’m sorry I ever ordered from them.
I was shocked by how little they cared about customer service and how disrespectful their responses were.
This is the worst company i have ever dealt with. They are rude would not issue a credit or return my item, they are crooks.
I agree with the above. The worst online company I have ever ordered from. I paid to get the item shipped, paid to send it back for a return and then when they denied my return I had to pay additional shipping fee to get the item back. I will never do business with this company again! BEWARE!
I ordered a costume from them a couple years ago and not only wasn’t it the same costume I ordered (it was a skeleton but not the one I wanted) but it was the wrong size too! When I notified them of their error they did not care and refused to refund my money. And yes the lady who I dealt with was so rude, I was really shocked and have never experienced “customer service” that bad before. I make sure I tell all of my friends and family every Halloween since then to make sure if they are ordering their costumes online to avoid that place. Funny how after it happened I saw so many reviews on various websites describing almost the same experience that I had. Most cases it was their error but they do not do anything to make it right and in fact took on a hostile attitude toward the customer. I just wish I would have checked reviews before ordering from them!