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, I Got a Suggestion...

Inside the December 2009 issue of Lucky Magazine, I ran across an interesting tidbit about Banana Republic enhancing the shopping experience for customers...

Banana Republic Gets Automated
Lucky Magazine's Shopping Report
December 2009

This mega-retailer is undergoing a 21st-century techno upgrade. By far the coolest additions: fitting-room checkout (done by a sales associate while you change back into your own clothes) and in-store computers that track sold-out items you can buy on the spot and have shipped home for free.

What wonderful features– from quick checkouts to complimentary shipping. I especially like the part where there are in-store computers that you can use to find items.

I appreciate the "We'll Find It For You" service J.Crew currently offers, however it is limited: (1) full-price merchandise only, (2) takes a day or two, & (3) not exactly reliable. (The last part I found out the hard way. Even though J.Crew can locate stores with the available item, they won't tell you which ones. Instead they send a request to those stores. It is then up to the individual store's associates to respond to the request on whether or not they have the item. The opportunity to "overlook" the request has happened to me.)

J.Crew maybe you can get on-board with these technological upgrades too! Just a friendly suggestion. :)

Have you experienced any of these features at your local Banana Republic? Do you think J.Crew should consider these upgrades? Are there any other upgrades that you would suggest J.Crew pursue? :)