Recently, I’ve noticed a nostalgic push in collaborations between brands. The latest is this Sesame Street collab with Bombas. The sock makers took elements of your favorite Sesame Street characters and created these fun socks.
Not super obvious but you get just enough of a sense to know who the socks match up with. My personal favorite is this one.
Yup, that circle on the socks is none other than The Count’s monocle, and both you and I know where you learned what a monocle was back in the day.
Get these socks from Bombas for a Sesame Street fan. Available for men, women, youth, and toddlers!
Okay, this is NOT how you start the Holidays. When you get a reservation for an item, you, well, assume the item is available to you unless specifically declined. So when I received this notification from Nike, I was very well pleased.
A total surprise for sure since I’m not in Nike’s top tier of purchasers spending big bucks week after week. Still as a loyal, longtime fan of Nike and Jordan brand, it was satisfying to see this dedication rewarded. So I proceeded to make my purchase and saw this.
Key in the bottom of the screen that says “Out of Stock.” Out of stock? For an item reserved for me? What’s that about? Did everyone with a reservation buy before me and snatched up all the reserved pairs? That still didn’t make since since I had until 3pm (HST) to make my purchase.
After an online chat with Nike customer service, it seems the release of the AJ1 Rookie of the Year was premature or mistakenly sent to too many customers. So if you want to gift this interesting AJ1 colorway (themed after MJ’s outfit during the ROTY announcement), you have to try for them when they generally release.
Now of course, Nike can easily make up for this grinch-like faux paux by really reserving me a pair. 😉 Wink, wink Nike.
Using the last few Yeezy restocks as a baseline, I figured the Zebra stripped Yeezy Boost 350 would be easy to get. Not so.
I had no luck on the Adidas site even using multiple Chrome users. I didn’t even get past the waiting room for a chance to buy a pair. Now that Adidas has sold out, it seems like retailers like Foot Locker and Champs have fully opened up their inventory. But that shipping cost makes getting a pair a little less desireable. While I love the look, the fit isn’t great for me and neither is that $200+ price point.
I can’t believe next week is Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Oddly, I don’t have that sense of anticipation of all those deals and steals. In the past, I’d be scouring for any intel for insane deals but now, not so much. I guess the shopping scene has transformed over the years where online shopping is huger than ever.
Also, looking out for BF Ads and planning out your shopping doesn’t feel as grandiose. Now stores are voluntarily showing customers their BF ads weeks in advance. No more finding leaked copies to post online. Not so fun any more.
Another contributing fact could be the on-slaught of (online) sales and discounts. Quarterly/seasonal sales are for sure but so many online stores just have so many sales.
Sure, I’ll start looking for the Black Friday good stuff, but for now, it just doesn’t feel the same…
I knew it. I just knew it. My faith in Nordstrom’s online ordering system has once again been betrayed, and I’m extremely disappointed with this continued trend. For a company renowned for customer service, their online ordering failures is a stark comparison.
A little history. My first Nordstrom cancellation was for a shadow-like colorway of the Air Jordan 1 Mid. A successful online purchase, a confirmation email followed by a cancellation email a few days later. But then, Nordstrom did have a redeeming moment offering a similar AJ1 model in blue, but even then, I was expecting another cancellation.
That brings us to this week with Nike’s release of its latest colorways of the React Element 87. Again, Nordstrom does surprise me with its shoe offerings, and I was lucky enough to order the Element 87 from Nordstrom online. I did have my reservations since the online system was acting strangely. Although showing all three colorways (Solar Red, Neptune Green, and Total Orange), clicking on any always brought me to the product page for the Total Orange. Assuming the red and green colorways were both sold out, I proceeded to order the Total Orange. A few sizes were displayed including a 10.5 Men’s (I wanted to size up on these since I heard the upper material does not stretch).
The order went through easily without a glitch. On 10/11/2018, I received a confirmation email listing the multiple items I ordered, including a single pair of Element 87. Later that same day, I received another email stating that some of my items had already shipped. But the Element 87 had not shipped but was listed as “In Process.” Hmmm, I was concerned but still hopeful.
On 10/12/2018, I checked status once again and once again, lost more hope. The Element 87 status changed to reflect a ship date of November 2, 2018. That would be two weeks after placing the order, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign.
Then on 10/13/2018, the false promise of Nordstrom was realized with the inevitable cancellation email that starts like this:
We’re sorry that we couldn’t fulfill your order
And sure enough status of the Reacts now looked like this:
Disappointing? Yes. Very disappointing? Yes again. It took Nordstrom 2-3 days to finally let my hopes dwindle and live up to my former shopping experiences. That’s two out of three online orders cancelled by Nordstrom.
I called customer service who answered the phone promptly on a Saturday night in Hawaii. But after providing my order number, the rep confirmed that the order is cancelled due to product unavailability. I asked why it took so long to figure out availability, and she explained how the order of processing the purchases was a factor. Already at this point, I knew getting the shoes was impossible. I don’t know the precedence of how Nordstrom processes orders, but I do know it’s flawed. And the company seemingly knows it as well, admitting that they are working to make improvements.
After my phone call to customer service, I reached out complained to Nordstrom’s Twitter account (see the captured Twitter Moment below).
Again, the premise is that the Nordstrom inventory and their online ordering system aren’t completely in sync, needing approximatley three days to fully understand a product’s availability.
So here I am mistrustful of Nordstrom’s online ordering system of false promises and their ability to actually fulfill their orders. I expected more from Nordstrom.
Please keep that in mind the next time you’re riding an escalator and repeat to yourself, “Escalators are not exercise machines.” If you forget, this sign will help you remember.
Now I would have expected something like this at Ala Moana where it seems mandatory that at least one set of escalators is broken. But alas, I guess some Windward guests were overly zealous with their exercise routines in the mall and caused this outage.
So remember that escalators are not exercise machines.
Anyways, the Windward Mall location is shaping up, but there’s still work to be done, mainly with inventory. The exterior entry way was full of Matson containers unloading the goods and dumpsters full of now-empty boxes. Sorry no pictures of this.
On the interior of the mall, you can get a glimpse of the familiar Ross design.
The racks are filling up, but the men’s shoe section looks woefully empty for now. But as evident by all these emptied boxes, there’s more stocking to be done.
Are you going to check out Ross Windward Mall on opening day?
Mr. Foamer Simpson has gotten inside my head. It started with this video, 5 Sneakers Every Guy Should Own Right Now! where Foamer listed his fifth pick as the New Balance 990. New Balance 990v4?!? Hanging with the Air Jordan 1, Nike AirMax 270, Adidas Yeezy Boost 700 Wave Runner, and Nike Air Max 1-97 “Wotherspoons” is the 990v4? Really???
I gotta say that while still pulling cues from the past, these shoes look pretty good. Some colorways are better than others while some simply look odd, but I think I could do these Black with Rosin ones.
But these are expensive, quality kicks going for $180+. Actually, the comfort factor plays a big part in these since they look extremely supportive. I’ll have to keep an eye out for discounts on (any) 990, so I can experience them myself.
