J.Crew Updates Website Back End {customer reviews and more!}

As many of you have noticed and commented, including Tiffany Rose (in this post), J.Crew has a major back-end update to its website today. Unfortunately, as many of you have noticed and commented, expect a log of bugs and hiccups in the system today... Things appearing and disappearing on product pages, pages not loading, etc.

What is new? First, customer reviews are up and running on the site. They can either be spotted on the upper right hand side of the page -and- beneath the product info.

Customers can rate the item overall (out of five stars), overall fit (whether its true to size), in addition to their opinion. Similar to other sites, including their sister company Madewell.

Overall, I am super excited about this feature. I was actually interested in the Pleated Knit Dress this morning and read several reviews that all said how the fabric was too thin. I was able to make an educated decision on whether or not this dress would be good for me and avoided the dreaded buy/return. Moreover, I was on the fence about the Patio Skirt in Photo Floral Skirt and the reviews were glowing making me get it. Yey for customer reviews!!!

As I was placing an order this morning, it was mentioned that the distribution center / online and in-store inventories are now mainstreamed into one system. Therefore, online now reflects all of J.Crew's inventory. Moreover, J.Crew will *no* longer be offering the "we will find it" service since online will now show all available merchandise.

We have seen how this works already as J.Crew tested out this feature in the past few months. (Remember ordering online and getting an item fulfilled from a retail store.) I am wondering if we should be expecting most orders to be broken up into lots of mini-orders- shipping from across the country? Or... If items from stores will be shipped to distribution centers and then packaged/shipped to customers?

What are your thoughts on the new and improved J.Crew? Do you like or dislike the new system?

J.Crew & Cyber Monday {a year later...}

The following article from Crain's New York (click here) shares some interesting tidbits, including J.Crew and its technological infrastructure.

Forget Cyber Monday, now it's Cyber Week: E-tailers are expected to offer discounts all week long as customers flock to the Web to shop in greater numbers.
By Adrianne Pasquarelli
November 30, 2009

The keyboard tapping and mouse clicks heard in offices today might be the sounds of online shopping. On Cyber Monday, traditionally the Monday after Thanksgiving, consumers utilize strong workplace Internet connections to shop online. This Monday, more than 96.5 million shoppers are expected to make a purchase, up nearly 14% from last year, according to Shop.org.

“A lot more retailers are offering more aggressive promotions,” said Larry Joseloff, vice president of content at Shop.org. The organization is predicting 87% of retailers will offer Cyber Monday promotions, versus 83% last year. “One trend we're seeing is retailers lifting restrictions for free shipping [like threshold amounts of spending],” added Mr. Joseloff.

Retailers such as Gap, Barnes & Noble, Bloomingdale's and J.C. Penney are all offering Cyber Monday promotions, ranging from 30% discounts to $50 off some purchases. Some retail experts predict the promotions will continue for the rest of the week.

“It's definitely ‘Cyber Week,'” said Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst at Forrester Research. “Now is a good time to go online and get what you need by the holidays.”

With Black Friday treating online retailers well, some are predicting strong sales to continue. In the New York area, eBay had nearly 19,000 buyers and over 15,800 sellers, and predicts stronger results following Cyber Monday. Additionally, consumers spent $595 million online on Friday, an 11% jump over last year, according to tracking firm ComScore.

Even so, questions remain as to whether retailers are prepared for the influx of online shoppers this year. Last year, technical snafus knocked out e-commerce sites for stores such as J.Crew and Bloomingdale's for hours during Cyber Monday as traffic surged.

This year, Web pages at retailers including Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us, Saks and Kohl's are taking over 2.5 seconds to download, according to mobile tracker Gomez. Ms. Mulpuru says even 2 seconds is considered slow for page downloads in the industry. Gomez listed J.Crew's response time for page downloads as a fast 0.799 seconds this year.

Some retailers have signed on for additional Web support. GSI Commerce, which provides e-commerce and marketing services to retailers and also recently purchased members-only shopping site Rue La La, has seen a spike in retail customers, eager to expand their online strategies. GSI currently serves 500 retailers and brands, double its number of customers this time last year, according to executive vice president of strategy Fiona Dias.

“In the last year, we've greatly expanded our service offerings,” Ms. Dias said.

Like many of you, I was not "blown-away" with J.Crew's Cyber Monday promotion of 20% off select sweaters and a code for free shipping on $150+. I thought the 20% off Holiday Sale offer that ended this last Sunday was more enticing. However, J.Crew is one of the few retailers performing {very} well. So I can't begrudge them too much. Instead, I tip my head in acknowledgment of smart management. :)

Lastly, remember those days last year when JCAs (including me!) weren't sure if J.Crew's website would have that dreaded "be back soon..." sign? It's nice to see the website fully functioning again. I have even gotten use to the new search features, including the additional sale categories (from "tops" to "sweaters", "knits & tees", etc.).

What are your thoughts on the article? Thoughts on J.Crew's website (now that it is finally recovered, from the upgrade of last summer)?

J.Crew Site Has Some Technical Difficulties :(

Meh. It's back. The "STAY TUNED..." image is on the main page of J.Crew's website (click here). You have to like the redirect link (for the image above) of:

http://www.jcrew.com/failover/index_down.html.

Yes, there is a "failover" and the index is "down". ;) On a bright note, at least we haven't seen this screen in a long time. Remember when it use to be a constant staple last summer? ;)

UPDATE: "Thanks!" to all of you, who let us know the site is back up for some of us. {yey!} Unfortunately, it seems that the website issues are now fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "stay tuned".

J.Crews Infamous Green & Forbidden Screens

At one point or another, Aficionadas and Aficionados have seen the dreaded green screen or the words "forbidden" and "error". As of lately, many of you have mentioned seeing this screen way too often.
A big "thanks!" to Teresa (in this post) who shared the following insights on this {troublesome & annoying} issue:

Anyone still having problems with forbidden, green screen, not being able to add items to shopping cart, etc? I may be able to help. I contacted JC repeatedly (restarting my router was no good), and, after about 6 weeks, they found a solution: I needed to change some settings on referrer info (yikes) in my antivirus software. I canNOT believe it took it them that long to resolve the issue, and I did NOT spend $ with them I otherwise would have.

...Depending on your antivirus brand you can find instructions online to adjust the settings... Hope this helps!

I am happy to hear that there is a solution. I have also read comments here and there from several Aficionadas mentioning that they had to change their IP addresses to access J.Crew's website. Hopefully this issue is not happening too often for Aficionadas and Aficionados.

Incidentally, J.Crew offers some advice on their website (click here to view a larger version of the image above, or click here and here). Unfortunately, it does not offer too much in terms of remedying the issue.

Have you been getting the "green screen" and/or "Forbidden" message often, as of lately? Have you been able to clear up those issues? If so, please share with us your solution. :)

Surprise! Extra 30% Off Extended Until Friday {yey!}

"Thanks!" to many of you, including J./Anon at 7:41 PM (in this post) as well as lleila (in this post), who let us know that J.Crew has extended their latest promotion from Wednesday to Friday... wahoo!

J.Crew is offering an additional 30% off with promo code EXTRA30. This offer now expires 1/30/09.

And as many of you have noticed and mentioned in this post, J.Crew's website is not working properly again. The website issues have been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down" today. {grrrr.}

Hare you been able to take advantage of this offer (or has the website issues affect your ability to checkout)? If you have been (or plan on) using this promotion, want items are you getting? :)

J.Crew's Website & Tech Difficulties {s-l-o-w}

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website has been experiencing some "technical difficulties". :( From the comments, it sounds like the website issues have been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down" all day today.
The website issues this time around are most likely from the latest offer of an additional 30% off (refer to here) which is driving some additional traffic to the site. ;)

Has the website issues today impacted your shopping and browsing of JCrew.com? Are you trying to shop or avoiding to shop online or in their stores today? :)

J.Crew's Website & Tech Difficulties

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website has been experiencing some "technical difficulties". :( From the comments, it sounds like the website issues started this morning and has been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down".

The website issues this time around stem from the First Family wearing several J.Crew items. According to one article (click here), "It turns out that the first daughters did some success dressing, as well, and interest in their attire led to the crash of the J.Crew web site, as shoppers tried to grab duplicates of the head-to-toe outfits."

Has the website issues today impacted your shopping and browsing of JCrew.com? Are you trying to shop or avoiding to shop online or in their stores today? :)

J.Crew's Website & Tech Difficulties {again!}

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website seems to be having some "technical difficulties". :( From the comments, it sounds like the website issues started this morning and has been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down".

The website issues are a normal staple of shopping on JCrew.com. ;) It seems that the site will crash whenever there is a new promotion being offered and sale prices drop (which is what happened this morning). I am trying to stay optimistic (about the website being fixed), but in all honesty I have no idea when all these issues will be sorted out. :(

Has the website issues today impacted your shopping and browsing of JCrew.com? At this point, are you accustomed or surprised by the existing website issues?

J.Crew's Website & Tech Difficulties {ah geez!}

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website seems to be having some "technical difficulties". :( From the comments, it sounds like the website this afternoon/ evening (depending on which time zone) has been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down".

The website issues, stemming from the upgrade last summer, seem to become a normal staple of shopping on JCrew.com at this point. ;) I know I say this often, but I really mean the following: I hope it gets fixed soon! :) I am sure this can't be good for business. :)

Has the website issues today impacted your shopping and browsing of JCrew.com? At this point, are you accustomed or surprised by the existing website issues?

J.Crew's Website: Tech Difficulties {yes, again} :(

As *many* of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website seems to be down yet again. :( Hopefully, the site will be running smoothly soon. :) However, considering this has been happening often (unfortunately, it feels like too often), I am not sure if it will. :(

Have you been able or unable to order online? Do you think the website issues will get better, stay the same, or become worse in the next few weeks? :)

J.Crew's Website: Tech Difficulties {again} :(

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website seems to be down again. :( Hopefully, the site will be running smoothly soon for a possible new promotion tomorrow. :)

J.Crew's Website Is Having Some Tech Difficulties :(

As many of you have noticed and mentioned, J.Crew's website seems to be down again. :( From the comments, it sounds like the website this afternoon/ evening (depending on which time zone) has been fluctuating back and forth from "up & running", running slowly, and "site down".

"Thanks!" to those, including Dina, Flaneuse (in this post), as well as Green_Dino, Anon at 1:59 PM, Pakcola, Anon at 2:00 PM, Casual_Crew, Snow, Anon at 6:19 PM, & Lindsey B. (in this post), who let us know about the current website issues. :)

I have a sneaky suspicion that the "Give More Save More" promotion (click here) drove a lot of traffic to the site and it just could not handle it. Hopefully it is up and running smoothly soon. :)

J.Crew's Site Is Down Again :(

As many of you have mentioned, J.Crew's website is down again. :( I should add that the site is down for periods of time, then up and running, then down again, and so on. {Hopefully the site will be "up and running" soon.} :)

My sympathies to the holiday shoppers trying to buy online, as well as sales associates (at stores) and customer service representatives (at call centers). I am sure their jobs have not been easy the past few days.

Incidentally, I came across a post at the Preppy Princess blog (click here for link), with a very interesting quote:

J.Crew CFO James Scully told stock analysts last week about some of those expenses: “…approximately $1 million in customer accommodations related to the direct system initiatives in the form of free and upgraded shipping and other customer appeasements…”

J.Crew Is Experiencing Some Technical Difficulties :(

As many of you have pointed out (throughout the blog), J.Crew's website has been experiencing "some technical difficulties" today- the site is either completely down or running very slowly during the moments it is "up and running".

Hopefully J.Crew's site won't be having any more issues for the rest of this Cyber Monday. :) Also, I know this sounds weird... but I am happy that they changed the "be back soon..." image to read "stay tuned...". ;)

Incidentally, Anon at 11:57 AM (in this post) and RatsOnParade (in this post) pointed out that the websites for the Gap and Banana Republic were down earlier today too. (Hopefully this is just a weird coincidence among some retailer's websites.) :)

If you are interested, there is an article about today's website issues: J.Crew, Bloomie's Get Cyber Monday Shock.

Are you planning to take advantage of the additional 30% off online sale items today? Or are you planning to avoid ordering online altogether?

"Be Back Soon..." Comes Back To J.Crew's Website :(

As Minah, Mary (in this post), and others have pointed out, J.Crew's website has the dreaded "be back soon..." sign up.

Mini-Update: "Thanks!" to Anon at 5:25 PM in this post who let us know that the website is back up. {yey!}

My fingers are crossed that the website & system will be fully functional (and glitch-free) for the holiday season. :)

Be Back Soon... I Remember You! ;)

As many of you have pointed out throughout posts on this blog, J.Crew's website is experiencing "on and off" difficulties. So if you see the "be back soon ..." image on your browser, don't worry- you are not alone! :)

Update: J.Crew's website is up and running as of 3:05PM. Hopefully it works for you too. :)

J.Crew's Website Is Down & Back Up Again

As Anonymous at 4:56PM (in the "Darlings, is it time for a J.Crew coupon code?" post) pointed out, the website is down again. :(

I noticed it went down but saw the site back up, but I guess that was temporary because it went back down and is still down (as of 5:38PM). To keep things positive, maybe they are updating the site with new arrivals and putting up the latest catalog to view. :)

Update (as of 5:46PM): For some reason the J.Crew website seems to work perfectly for me in an Internet Explorer browser. However, if I try opening the JCrew.com site in Firefox, I still get that "be back soon..." memo. Maybe that will be the case for some of you as well.

Update (as of 6PM): Site seems to be back up and running for me (in both IE & Firefox browsers).

What do you think about the website still having some "issues"? When do you predict the website will be close to trouble free?

J.Crew Website Upgrade: The Great Debate

Silver_Lining (in the "Images of the Tribeca Store" post) came up with a phenomenal suggestion: to create a weekly post (or even semiweekly) where J.Crew Aficionadas can freely express their recent experiences with J.Crew's website/ system upgrade.

I think this is a great idea for so many reasons. First, I think that there should be a dedicated place where we can vent our concerns, frustrations, and feelings over recent J.Crew orders: both the good (e.g. great customer service, having all items ordered sent, receiving package in less than a week) and the bad (e.g. orders being lost, canceled without warning, being excessively overcharged, etc.). This will also provide other Aficionadas (who may have avoided ordering online,) greater insight on whether the website/system issues are getting resolved or not.

Second, I think having this dedicated post will free up other non-order related posts to be devoted to those posts' specific topics. (I know I can easily get "off track" with my own comments about ordering on a non-order topic. So hopefully this is a way to try to keep the conversation for each post "on track".)

What are your feelings on the website/system upgrade- or "downgrade" as some of you have called it. ;) Have you been ordering online as much as you have before the upgrade? Have you received all your items without any issues? Would you recommend another Aficionada (or Aficionado) to order online or to wait a bit longer? Do you like the current layout of the new website (or do you prefer the old layout)?

J.Crew Email To Customers

Lauren shared with us an email that J.Crew sent to her to let customers at J.Crew know that they may want to preemptively check their bills to make sure they aren't erroneously charged. What is interesting about this is that the email refers to "items in multiple packages," but Lauren's order (placed back in June) only consisted of one item. The following is a portion of the email that was sent:

Thank you so much for your recent order with us and we hope that you are enjoying your purchases.

We have been working to make some updates to our website and systems and know that we have definitely hit some bumps along the way. We are working hard to fix them and can ensure you that the changes will definitely be worth it.

From your recent order, we shipped your items in multiple packages to ensure the quickest delivery. During this process, we have discovered that we did not charge you for all the items that were shipped. We wanted to notify you that we are in the process of rectifying this and you will see your final charge appear on the payment method you originally used in the next 24 to 48 hours. We truly apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and want you to know how much we appreciate your understanding.

We are available to answer any questions you may have—you can reach us 24/7 at 800 562 0258.

This email appears to have been a canned email response since A mentioned (in the "Extra 30% Off Final Sale: Is it Back?" post) receiving this email as well. A also said (in the "Seek & Find: Will you visit J.Crew this Weekend?" post) to "wait a couple of days and if they haven't charged you within that time frame, they will not be charging you at all".

But as a "just in case" I thought this info is worthwhile to share in its own post. Also, "thanks!" to Lauren & A for letting us know. :) To be honest, I am really surprised that the website/system is still having issues after all this time.

Did you get a similar email? Have you been ordering online? If so, have you been experiencing any difficulties with your orders?

Another Article on J.Crew's Website

I am sure you are finding these posts about J.Crew's website a bit repetitive. However, I actually find something new in each article and I think you may find interesting as well. The following is an article from StoreFrontBackTalk (article link here) that was published on July 8, 2008:

JCrew Site Slows To A Crawl As Extensive New Features Launch
By Eric Athas

When the $1.3 billion JCrew apparel chain launched its new Web site on June 29, it was the culmination of a 2-year deployment effort. Seems that customers may have to wait a bit longer to fully use those new capabilities, as the site quickly crashed and has suffered significant slowdowns ever since.

On Tuesday (July 8), the tenth day of the problematic performance and with a "our Web site and call center are running slowly as we fine-tune the improvements" apology replacing JCrew's homepage, JCrew spokesperson Margot Brunelle-Fooshee said the problems are still slowing things down and the associated disclaimer "will probably be up until Friday" (July 11).

The 260-store chain's site changes include real-time inventory shopping carts, an online catalog interface (clicking on a picture in the catalog will display an option to add it to a cart) plus a new zoom feature and enhanced search abilities.

JCrew CIO Steve Dee said the slowdowns had been expected, because of the extent of the changes. "Something this complex and this far-reaching has a lot of different variables in it, so we did anticipate that there would be periodic performance questions, because there's just so many layers to what you're dealing with," Dee said. "We serve images out to a third party provider, so everything needs to be copied down to them. You might find an image or Flash here or there that might take some time or might have even been wrong and you have to reload that. And every time it does that, it has to be cached out to that service provider. So they come back and they hit our server and they pull. So those were some of the periodic pieces that we found."

The CIO said the problems were not extraordinary. "You're going to run into some bugs when every system goes live," Dee said. "So we had to put out bug fixes. Those fixes often require that we would have to take down a server here or a server there, causing us not to be at full capacity."

I highlighted the parts that I thought were interesting. First, for a 2-year project the system roll out could have been a lot smoother. (We have mentioned before how GAP has system upgrades that don't last for weeks with dysfunctional functionality.) Second, it's pass the July 11th mark- so what does this mean (is the website now functioning like it should be)? Third, the problems J.Crew has been experiencing seem like they are in fact "extraordinary". I mean, charging customers for items they never received, not returning credits back to customer's credit cards, not knowing if items have been shipped or not, all seems like a big deal for any retailer. (But maybe that's just me.)

What do you think of the article? Do you agree or disagree? Do you think there were just "some bugs" that J.Crew had to deal with?