Tuesday, February 17, 2009

J.Crew Sample Sale {part 2 & 3}

A big "thanks!" to mom-nyc & Anon at 5:53 PM (in this post) who let us know that J.Crew will be having another two sample sales in NYC. The second will take place during March 17-19th and the third will take place during the week of April 13th. (Click here for more info at ClothingLine.)

After attending the first sample sale (refer to here and here), I personally have no desire to attend the other two sample sales. I much rather scour my local T.J. Maxx's which are offering current items at better prices than the first sample sale. ;) However, I hope Aficionadas and Aficionados that attend the events will get some fabulous finds at amazing prices! :)

Will you be attending either of the upcoming sample sales? If you are, please let us know! :)

33 comments:

  1. Wow... 2 more? And stuff at TJ Maxx? What is going on here...?

    I agree with Alexis... better prices at TJ Maxx/even on Ebay.

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  2. Are these still being conducted by Clothingline?

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  3. I will check out both...on the first and then the last day. I found very good items at good prices...my fave being the metallic marie for $49 so I think its worth it. And I live in Manhattan anyway so I might as well. I will report back. I am looking for the travel trench. Maybe I'll score one at the sample sale for $30?!....

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  4. I went to Jeremy's in SF (SOMA location) Saturday, and they had a decent coats selection from last winter, plus a bunch of suiting, if anyone's interested.

    Re. TJ Maxx, if anyone finds JCrew (shoes or otherwise) in any Bay Area stores, please report your finds, thanks!

    I hope JCAs going to the latest Sample Sale score some great finds! :)

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  5. Ms. Mer, what did the prices look like at Jeremy's....I'm speaking in reference to the coats...any styles that stood out to you? I am very interested. Thanks

    Tina

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  6. Was disappointed with finds at the last sample sale. Given that there are better deals at TJMaxx, I will not attend the 2nd. If feedback if good, I will attend the 3rd.

    Seems there is a lot of excess inventory. Would expect better prices online through their own website than what is being offered currently.

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  7. mom-nyc: I could not agree with your comment more!!! Especially the last part about selling online. I am sure J.Crew could have sold those excess items online, for more than they sold them to T.J. Maxx or through the Sample sale. I am not sure why J.Crew did that. Oh well! :)

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  8. Ms.Mer ... I checked TJMaxx's in the south bay this weekend. After much digging I found a few things at the store in Santa Clara. No shoes, a few (and I mean few) dresses in various sizes and a couple tops. Not sure it is really worth the trip -- for example, one of the sweaters I found (out of 2) was a cardigan that had been monogrammed!

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  9. Has anyone seen JCrew items at the stores in Fairfield County?

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  10. TOT - Photoshop alert! check out item 90849. The first two thumbnail photos look the same but move your mouse back and forth between them and you'll see that J.Crew photoshopped out a weird wrinkle on the right bust of the jacket. The photoshop job is fine, but they forgot to remove the "before" photo.

    Tee hee.

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  11. Has anyone tried the Mehndi graphic tee? Is the print as washed out IRL as it appears in the online photos? How is the quality of the cotton?

    TIA

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  12. Tina, they had Peacoats (mostly whites), 1 white jacket that looked like a sherpa-lined puffer (reg. jacket length), a few Carrie Coats in mostly Camel, and a few other randoms that I am pretty sure are from winter 08 -- some black ones and a few bright red/berry items that were pretty nondescript styles, nothing crazy. Sizing was all over the place. The only pricing I remember was for the Carries, they were down to $65 Saturday only, with normal Jeremy pricing of $130, so you might actually be able to get a better price online still. HTH!

    Thanks Anon at 7:44 for the Santa Clara TJM update... think I'll pass in that case. :)

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  13. RE: photoshop alert

    I guess it isn't always a case of pinning the garments to the nines. Sometimes the fit is digitally enhanced. :P

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  14. i may stop by...being that I live in NYC and all, but I won't wait in line like I did last time. I hope the prices are better! I thought they were a little steep for samples...I went on the first day, not sure how the rest of the sale panned out though...

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  15. That photoshop job is hilarious! Thanks for pointing it out anon :) I won't be stopping by the sample sales either. . . but I will be scouring TJMaxxes :)

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  16. I am puzzled by J Crew @ TJ Maxx and sample sales every month? They must have some serious inventory to get rid of! I have seen prices of a few shoes and boots go down a lot on jcrew.com, but no where near the deals of $19 at TJM. I also noticed that those lovely cobra cuff bracelets we made fun of a few months ago showed up at my local B&M in mass- they must have had 20 of them in a bin? So they must be shipping some stuff out to stores as well. All I know is that I have gotten some amazing deals from other JCA's and e-bay and now have a ton of cute JCrew shoes that I never would have ordered online for $175! So Thanks JCrew:)
    Twiga

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  17. Remember before the upgrade when there were Free Shipping/No Minimum codes and you could pick up a tank for $3 from the website? Inventory used to fly out of your shopping cart and off of the website within 30 minutes to an hour after the morning update EVERYDAY. Would J.Crew really lose more money doing that again instead of selling to TJ Maxx and having sample sales?

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  18. Speaking of Pea Coats -- read the entry on them at the "stuff white people like" blogspot.

    Hilarious!

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  19. anyone seen anything at Kansas City area TJ Maxx's?

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  20. The sample sale in NYC was awful! The prices were crazy- some of the items marked "sample" were being sold for more than they were currently asking for in the current catalog! The prices would change randomly- we went to lunch and back and the same pants we bought in the morning had been changed to $20 less. On top of that my friend used a credit card to pay that she rarely uses for anything else plus one that she uses all the time. Two days later she got a call from her bank, one card had been duplicated and was being used in Florida. Two weeks later the second card was met with the same series of events. She told me she has a bunch of cards but only used these two at the sample sale. This totally doesn't mean it happened there but just be very careful there is a fraud ring in Florida going on right now.

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  21. has anybody heard anything about their Factory sales? They used to hold them at their WH in Virginia.

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  22. I'll stick to TJ Maxx, thanks. In fact, the whole TJM craze has really turned me off ordering from JC's website or even making my weekly visits to the B&M. Why pay so much now when if I wait I can get it wayyy cheaper elsewhere?

    Has anyone inquired to J Crew why they are dumping so much inventory to TJM versus reducing their prices online, etc?

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  23. Ditto FFM's comments! If J crew sent us an e-mail that said they were reducing shoe prices by 30-50% we would be crazed to get onto the site and order a bunch. Perhaps they know this and the site can't handle it??? Or more likely they were pressured to get rid of inventory quickly for financial reasons etc...

    Anon @10:53 I was in KC for work last week and checked out 1 TJM and no luck:( sorry I do not remember where it was in KC??

    OT-I was thrilled this morning to see my much wanted Maggie in Black pop up in my size!! I could not resist:)
    Twiga

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  24. I'm thousands of miles away from NYC. Even if I were in the area I doubt if I'd be happy about the sample sale after seeing JC in TJMaxx and all the other places man ladies have shared about here. You ladies are the best. Happy shopping to those that will attend the 2nd sale. Hopefully the markdowns will be out of this world.

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  25. I sent an email to J.Crew asking about the TJMaxx sellings and the response I got said that they were items that were not up to their standards, and were also not covered by their quality warranty (i.e. if it got a hole or something broke they wouldn't refund money to the TJMaxx items... to me this is obvious, it wasn't bought at J.Crew, but whatever).
    This is obviously a lie as there are THOUSANDS of items being sold nationwide at TJMaxx. It kind of makes me even more mad that they would throw a lie like that at me and expect me to believe it.

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  26. My take why JC dumping inventory to TJ rsather than selling on-line is to get it off their book by the end of 2008, didn't they have a shareholder meeting around that time? By selling it on-line it would have appeared as inventory and affected their reporting numbers. This way they get rid of it fast and they don't have to worry about returns.

    The quality excuse is a joke, from reading some posts on this site there are complaints that some of their Spring items are poor quality and JC is still selling them.

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  27. casual_crew I think you're right and they had to dump the inventory. Obviously they still had massive quantities of stuff left as we were all posting about the many items we purchased on the great promos during the end of 2008.

    Alexis - maybe a good post would be to ask people what was their #1 quality issue lately. Or perhaps what was the item that surpassed their quality expectations.
    Now that I'm typing this I'm getting a deja vu so perhaps it has been done already...

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  28. I second Anoy@7:33 for the post suggestion. I am disappointed that JCrew doesn't check its returns and just sends them back out. That explains why people get shoes instead of say jeans as maybe the bag is not the right one and no one even bothers to check and the items get coded with the bar codes into the system incorrectly. I know I got a bikini top instead of bottom even though the outside said top. I really hate JCRew for this fact!

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  29. "Was disappointed with finds at the last sample sale. Given that there are better deals at TJMaxx, I will not attend the 2nd."

    - And it begins. Hate to tell JCrew I told you so, but...I did.

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  30. "I am sure J.Crew could have sold those excess items online, for more than they sold them to T.J. Maxx or through the Sample sale. I am not sure why J.Crew did that. Oh well!:)"

    My guess is that JCrew doesn't want to condition their customers - at least not all of them - to getting such good deals. Why would they ever pay full price if they knew soon enough it would be sold at fire-sale prices in their own store/site?

    By dumping all the excess inventory on these outside discount stores (and they're spreading it all over the country in small amounts) I think they're trying to make it hard to anticipate taking advantage of these prices on a regular basis.

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  31. "I'll stick to TJ Maxx, thanks. In fact, the whole TJM craze has really turned me off ordering from JC's website or even making my weekly visits to the B&M. Why pay so much now when if I wait I can get it wayyy cheaper elsewhere?"

    JCREW I HOPE YOU READ THIS.

    Please stop this TJM madness. Lower prices on-line and dump stuff on your own outlet stores (which, if the ones in S.Cal are any indication, are usually pretty low on inventory.)

    -Connor (Sorry forgot to sign in.)

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  32. working in tjx's company, i know for a fact that they signed contracts to take and sell what jcrew has left or what is overstocked. not all things are damaged though one should be aware.

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Dear J.Crew Aficionadas & Aficionados: Please feel free (and encouraged) to share your thoughts and opinions. :) However, please note that this is still a personal blog. So comments that are considered inappropriate (e.g. obscene, racist, homophobic, personal attacks, rude, and just plain mean) will be removed.

And now back to J.Crew! :)