Planet Blue is an American fashion retailing brand that was founded in 1995; this means they’ve been in the fashion retailing business for over 24 years. Planet Blue does not hide its American roots, they advertised proudly as being Malibu born and raised in California.
The store was founded by Ling-Su Chinn who remains the company’s chief creative officer, ensuring that as the company expands across the world; they remain celebrated as the go-to destination for bohemian and vintage-inspired styles. From its one store in Malibu, Planet Blue now operates about 13 stores across the United States.
Planet Blue is largely a women’s clothing shop, but their Santa Monica shop in California also holds men’s wear. They hold all clothing types but they are better known for their Bohemian wear and vintage-inspired styles. They advertise as having styles for the beach and the street and everywhere in between.
They offer products from a range of brands which includes All Things Fabulous, Blue Life, Endless Summer, James Smith, Kai, Levi’s, Minnie Rose, Nation Ltd, One Teaspoon, Sage the Label, Tai Jewelry, Valet, and more.
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The online shop can be found at www.shopplanetblue.com. The site can be used by anyone who is 13 years of age and older.
Planet Blue is an American fashion retailing brand that advertises as “spreading good vibes since 1995”. If you were wondering what a fashion retailer has to do with vibes; they explain that they provide an assortment of styles that goes from the beach to the street and anywhere in between.
Planet Blue is a legit fashion store. It is not a scan because you are going to get any item you purchased.
So whether you want to soak up the rays by day or layer in the fun when the sun goes down, they’ll supply you with the perfect clothing.
Does Planet Blue actually provide the perfect fashion pieces that’ll put you in the right wave? Do they provide the other services that make a great fashion store (such as competitive pricing, fast delivery, easy returns, responsive customer service, etc)? In the first place, is Planet Blue legit?
This Planet Blue review will examine Planet Blue in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
Planet Blue is also safe and legitimate. You also want an online fashion store that is safe. A safe store is one that safeguards the information that you share with it. What information, you may ask. When you register with an online fashion store, you’ll share your personal information which includes your contact details and mailing address. And when you place any other, you’ll share your payment instrument information (credit card details). You don’t want this information captured by cyber fraudsters, thus, you’ll want a safe store.
Planet Blue says that they are completely committed to protecting your privacy and that they utilize every available technology to ensure that your confidential information remains secure. True to this, they use 256-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology to protect customers’ data. SSL creates a secure link between devices and web servers communicating over the internet, keeping transmitted data private.
Also, the data is encrypted ensuring that even if it is captured, it cannot be read. That Planet Blue uses the 256-bit encryption standard shows its commitment to customers’ data. While many stores use the 128-bit encryption, Planet Blue goes for the strongest encryption standard – AES 256-bit.
Thus, there is no doubt that Planet Blue is safe. You can shop there without worrying too much about your sensitive data leaking to unauthorized third parties. For more similar stores, visit here.
The ideal online fashion store will have a good range of products. It does need to be a hold-it-all store; but even in its chosen niche, it should offer a variety of product types. For example, you wouldn’t want to purchase your top in one store and go to another store for a matching bottom. Apart from the convenience that getting your items in one place affords, there could also be cost savings, resulting from large order purchases, or savings from shipping only one order instead of shipping multiple orders from different stores.
Planet Blue ticks the box in this regard. The brand provides women’s clothing, and you’ll find an assortment of fashion products and styles that can go from beach to street and anywhere in between. When checking the website, the different product categories that you’ll find include:
Clothing – You can shop the following items in this category
Accessories – The fashion accessories you’ll get here include: Necklaces, Bracelets, Hair Accessories & Hats, Belts, Rings, Shoes, Scarves, Home, Sunglasses, Earrings, Handbags
Offering a wide product range is important, but so is having a big inventory of each product type. A large inventory will give you choices, and you’ll be more likely to find an item that appeals to your taste and pocket. This accounts for why large supermarkets will see more patronage than small stalls.
Going through Planet Blue, we found that in terms of inventory size, they do well in the clothing category but poorly in the accessories category. For example, at the time of writing, they had about 90 different styles in the dress section; the Tops section had over 185 styles, and the trousers & Jeans section had over 98 different styles. Other clothing sections held a sizeable inventory. Thus, all your selection needs will be served when shopping for clothing in Planet Blue.
However, the accessories were poorly represented. For example, in the shoe section, there were only three Slides. There were no boots, booties, slippers, heels, sneakers, trainers, loafers, etc; just the three off-duty James Smith Slides. Bags were at least represented by three designers (Valet, Cleobella, Tiger Lily, and Rock Paper Scissors), but only seven (7) bags were available. There were also only 11 belts, 8 sunglasses, and three items in the home section which includes lotion.
That said; it’s safe to say that Planet Blue is relatively well-stocked in the clothing category but lacks such bragging rights in the accessories section.
Price is what jumps out at you in every purchase. You’ll not want to pay over the tops for any item, so the ideal online fashion store will have items that are reasonably priced.
The best way to look at the prices of items in a store is to compare them with the prices offered by the competition. When that is done, Planet Blue does not come across as a fashion destination for cheap and affordable pieces. The cheap fashion stores floor their prices, and you’ll find many of their items in two digits, especially in the low Tens ($10 – $50). However, it’s easier to squeeze water from a rock than to find items in Planet Blue in that price range.
For example, at the time of writing, of the about 90 different styles of dresses, only one (a Sage The Label Fiona Dress) was priced below $100, and it was a high $98. Every other dress was in the $150 – $300 range. Tops were also priced high with almost none coming under $50 except a crop tank priced at $39 and two Tees ($44 and $46 respectively). You’ll find other Tees and Tanks between $65 and $100; and you’ll need to be having around $150 for the Camis, Wrap Tops, and Blouses.
The bottoms were no different; of about 98 different pairs of trousers & Jeans, not more than 10 were priced below $100, and they were all as close to $100 as possible ($92 – $99). You’ll need about $100 to $240 for every other pair of jeans or trousers, be it skinny, flare, wide leg, Yoga pants, sweat pants etc.
However, it doesn’t mean that Planet Blue is overly expensive either, as many of the expensive stores have prices in the high hundreds, and in four figures. With products priced in the low hundreds ($100 – $400), Planet Blue is a store that is not cheap but also not expensive; rather, they’re just a bit over-priced.
Customers want to get the best value possible. So even when the prices of items are floored, customers still look out for cost savings opportunities and talk less of when items are a bit overpriced. Thus, you’ll want the ideal fashion store to offer a lot of cost savings opportunities. Promotions offer such because they allow customers to get products for free or for less than the item’s full prices.
We didn’t see a lot of cost-saving opportunities in this blue planet of a fashion retailer. Their website was lacking those elements that show a fashion store that’s generous with promotions, such as price slashing offers, discount coupons etc. There was also no sign of a large order (bulk purchase) discount or a student discount. It is safe to say that if you want huge savings opportunities, you won’t be getting them in Planet Blue.
However, we found that Planet Blue sometimes run promotions. For example, in one of their promotions that ended just before our review rewarded, customers were entered into a contest to win different prizes that included a $200 Planet Blue online gift card, a Nightcap Clothing Dress, a T3 Micro SinglePass Curl & Cura Dryer, Kai Fragrance’s Rose Eau De Perfume & Rose Body Butter, and Sprayed By Jade Tanning Lotion. All they had to do was follow any of @shopplanetblue, @nightcapclothing, @t3micro, @kaifragrance, @shopgemtye, & @sprayedbyjade and tag one friend.
They do have sales items with prices that are clearly marked down. This is where you’ll be doing any savings when shopping in Planet Blue. However, buying sales items comes with a caveat – no returns.
Making payment for your order should be without hassle. For this, you’ll want a store that supports a range of payment methods so that no matter where you are resident one of the supported methods will be available to you for use in conveniently paying for your order.
In this regard, Planet Blue accepts payment with the following methods: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and PayPal. Generally, online fashion stores do not break the roof with alternative payment methods; thus it’s really not surprising that Planet Blue supports only these limited options. However, since credit/ debit cards and PayPal are global options, you shouldn’t have an issue with payment no matter where you are resident.
There are different price and payment-related policies that we find in most fashion stores. One of such is Price Readjustment, where the store will reimburse you the difference if an item you purchase in the store is marked down soon afterwards.
The reason is so customers will not regret having bought the item sooner. Another policy is Price Matching, where the store undertakes to sell you an item for a lower price lower than it is listed if a similar item is being sold at another store for a lower price. The reason is to give customers the best value possible. Some stores also offer financing plans, where you can buy now and pay later in different instalments.
However, our blue planet of a fashion store does not offer any of these oft-seen policies.
Shipping is considered by many shoppers as the most important consideration (after price) in online shopping. Since you won’t be walking out of the online shop with the purchased item(s); it’s important to consider the various factors affecting how you will receive the items. The most important considerations are shipping destinations, shipping cost and shipping times.
Though online shops serve more regions than shops with pure brick and mortar operations, it’s still difficult to find an online shop that serves every location in the world. Thus, when considering purchasing from an online shop, the first check should be whether the shop ships to your location because if the shop doesn’t, it will be difficult to receive delivery of your order.
Therefore, the ideal online fashion store will ship to as many worldwide locations as possible so that where you are located is more likely to be covered.
Unfortunately, Planet Blue does not get excellent marks in this regard because they ship to relatively few countries. The countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
Except if you are resident in the US or in any of the 35 listed international countries, you may want to look at another store for your fashion purchase. This means that in the whole of South America only persons from Brazil can use Planet Blue, while everyone in Africa cannot use the online shop. This is disappointing as we’ve come to see online fashion shops shipping to upward of 100 countries, with many of these stores even reaching the 200 mark.
The shipping cost adds to the purchase price in calculating the total expenditure on an item. Thus, even when an item is acceptably priced, a high shipping cost can make the total expenditure unacceptable. This is one reason why many customers abandon their shopping cart at checkout after shipping costs have been added to reveal the would-be total spend. Thus, the ideal online fashion shop will have shipping costs that are as low as possible.
In the same vein, you don’t want to wait forever before receiving delivery of your order; thus, you’ll want a store with fast delivery.
For US domestic orders, there are different delivery options, and the shipping costs and times depend on the chosen option. Standard delivery is available via USPS or UPS. The USPS option cost $5.99 and takes 2 – 8 business days; while the UPS option cost $7.99 days and takes 1 – 6 business days. There is a 2nd day delivery (by Air); it cost $19.99, and as its name suggests, it’ll take two business days to receive your package.
There is a Next Day delivery (by Air); and as its name suggests, you’ll receive the package the next business day following order placement, and it cost $27.99. Lastly, there is a $19.99 priced Same Day delivery option (albeit for only customers in Los Angeles). However, to receive the Same-Day order, it has to be placed before 11 am of the day.
However, these delivery times and costs apply to continental US states alone. For Orders going to Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, only the USPS and UPS Standard delivery options are available; the former cost $10.95, and the latter cost $12.95, but both have an expected delivery time of 6 – 9 days.
For international shipments, Planet Blue charges a flat rate of $40. The delivery times will depend on the particular country that the package is travelling to. For details of delivery times to particular countries, you’ll have to contact customer care.
The lowest possible shipping cost is zero (that is free shipping). Unfortunately, Planet Blue does not offer free shipping. However, at the time of writing this review, they were actually offering free shipping as a promo, and it applied to only domestic US orders. It should also be said that the shipping costs are so-so. The domestic shipping rates are fine except for the Next Day delivery, which is relatively high.
However, the international shipping cost comes out as too high. Usually, shipping cost increases with the distance of the country to the distribution centre; but with a flat rate, countries closer to the distribution centre will be paying high. Thus, the international shipping cost of Planet Blue is high for most countries when compared with the shipping costs of many other stores.
For the delivery times, it should be noted that for the standard delivery options, the delivery times quoted are only transit time and not inclusive of order processing time. Thus, when you are using any of the standard delivery options, you’ll have to allow some time for processing of the order which is up to 1 – 2 business days. After the order is processed, it is dispatched to the carrier, and the advertised shipping time starts counting.
It should be said that 1 – 2 days processing time is relatively fine as there are many stores that take longer (sometimes up to a week). The relatively short order processing time of Planet Blue means that they will quickly dispatch your order, which translates to relatively fast deliveries.
Online purchase is characterized by blind purchase; that is, not physically assessing the item being completed in the transaction. Thus, there’s a possibility that you will not be totally satisfied with the item when it is delivered. Most fashion products are also sized products, and with sized items, there is the possibility that the wrong size is ordered. Whatever the case, you’ll want to be able to return an item that you are not totally satisfied with. Thus, the ideal online fashion store will accept returns.
All online fashion stores that we know of accept returns, so what will have been surprising is that Planet Blue does accept not returns; as it turned out, they do accept returns. An important consideration of any returns policy is the returns window, which is how much time you have from the date of receiving the item to get the item back to the store.
Planet Blue allows a returns window of 30 days. This is one of the widest returns windows you’ll get in the industry, and it means that you’ll not have to race against the calendar when deciding on returning any item in your order.
All items that are delivered to you damaged may be returned to Planet Blue. However, you’ll have to contact the Customer Care Team within 24 hours of receiving the order. You may also return any item that you are not satisfied with, but the returned item must meet the following conditions:
Returned items will be inspected, and only items meeting the above-mentioned conditions (and returned within the 30 days window) will be accepted for a refund or exchange.
It should also be said that Planet Blue does not accept returns of sales items, because they treat any item purchased at a sale price as a final purchase. This is one aspect of a returns policy that we do not like because it puts customers between a rock and a hard place.
On one hand, they can buy full-price items (usually expensive) if they want to be able to return any item in the order that they are not pleased with; and on the other hand, they can buy sales items (usually heavily discounted) but be unable to return any of the items in the order that they are not pleased with. The chance of not being satisfied with an item is real, and if you’ll not want to be stuck with an item that you don’t like, that sales items are not returnable means you’ll have to pay top dollar to get your items at full price.
There are many stores that solve this conundrum by accepting returns of sales items, but with a reduced returns window (usually half of the normal window). That is, if their returns window is 30 days, they’ll accept sales items if returned within 15 days.
You will not want a situation where you’ll like to return an item but perceive the returns process as cumbersome. While the store will retain the payment for the item you’ll not want to use the store again leading to a loss of future sales. Thus, stores try to make their returns process as smooth and easy as possible.
You may return items to Planet Blue in-store or through the mail. Where some online stores require that items bought online can only be returned online (that is, by post), in Planet Blue some online purchases qualify for in-store returns. You’ll simply need to take the item to any of their store along with the original invoice receipt.
For the online returns, you’ll need a returns authorization slip and a returns label (optional). These documents can be obtained in three ways:
You’ll print the documents; then complete and enclose the returns authorization slip in the returns package. You’ll have to affix the returns label (which is prepaid and pre-addressed) to the front of the returns package and drop it off at the post office. If you’ll rather not use the returns label, you may post the returns package using the format:
Planet Blue Returns Department
Order # ________
1653 12th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404
On the whole, the returns process of Planet Blue is straightforward and hassle-free. The provision of a prepaid and pre-addressed returns label makes for easy returns and will mean you’ll not have to think of costs at the time of mailing your returns package.
However, the returns process is not the most simplified because of the process of obtaining the returns label and the returns authorization slip. The most simplified process will be a print-free process. Some stores offer that by enclosing the returns label in the order package that is delivered to you. With such stores, you don’t even need to contact customer care to make a return; you only need to attach the enclosed label and mail the returns package.
You also do not want to return an item to be cost-prohibitive. Thus you’ll want free returns, where the fashion store bears the cost of returns shipping. Unfortunately, Planet Blue does not offer free returns, except where the returns are for a damaged or wrong item delivered. For all other returns, the customer bears the cost of returns.
The returns label of Planet Blue cost $7.99, and if you choose to use it, the fee will be deducted from your refund. This is a relatively okay return shipping. It is also fine that that is all there is to pay when to make your returns because Planet Blue does not charge extra fees like stocking fees.
Planet Blue takes two weeks to process returns and issue refunds. This is not the swift returns/ refund processing that we’ll want. Though there are stores that take longer to process and issue refunds, we’ll like to see Planet Blue improving on its processing time.
This is especially so because after Planet Blue issues the refund, your bank may require additional days to process and post the transaction to your account. Thus, you may have a total waiting time of three weeks before having the money in your account. The total waiting time for a refund can be significantly reduced with a reduced refund processing time.
Also, Planet Blue issues all refunds through the original payment method. That is, when you return an item, you’ll be refunded as cash in your account. It is only when a refund to the original payment method is not possible that Planet Blue will issue the refund as store credits.
There are stores that issue all refunds as store credits which tie you to spending that money in the particular store. However, with refunds as cash in your account, you may decide to go to another store entirely for your purchase.
However, only the cost of the item will be refunded; the original shipping cost will not be refunded.
Exchanges are returning an item and getting another one in its place instead of getting a refund. You’ll want a store that allows exchanges because the time of waiting to get refunded before placing another order is significantly longer than if you simply return the item and get another in its place.
Not too many stores allow exchanges; but thankfully, Planet Blue does. However, only even exchanges are allowed; that is, exchanges for similar items but only for a different size or colour. Also, exchanges are only possible for domestic US orders.
The role of customer support in any business cannot be overemphasized. Customers will always have questions that they need to be answered or issues that need to be resolved; thus, the ideal online fashion store will have an effective support centre for addressing customers’ questions or complaints.
In most online platforms, the first step to getting answers to questions is an FAQ section usually found in the “Help” section of their website. FAQs do hold answers to many of the questions that customers have asked in the past; customers usually seek these self-help articles for many of their inquiries. Unfortunately, there was no FAQ to be found on the website of Planet Blue. They do have a “Customer Care” section but it does not hold any link to an FAQ page. There is a “Help” link in the “Customer Care section, and our first thinking was that that would take us to something like an FAQ.
However, it merely opened a page with information on shipping, returns & exchanges, and orders & payment. Granted that page is very informative, but we’ll like to see a traditional FAQ section with short answers to questions, and probably links to these pages for more information.
To directly contact a support agent; Planet Blue provides email service and a telephone support service. We like to see more direct contact support options, such as live chat. You can send the store a mail directly from your email address using orders@shopplanetblue.com. The store will get back to you within 48 hours.
If you’ll rather have instant feedback, you can use the telephone service by calling 877-674-6772. The phone line is active between 9 am – 5 pm (PST) on Mondays to Thursdays, and between 9 am – 4 pm (PST) on Fridays. It’s somewhat disappointing that the support service is not available round the clock. It is our opinion that a global platform should endeavour to provide round-the-clock support because the uptime in a time zone is the downtime in another time zone.
Pros:
Cons:
Planet Blue is a legitimate US fashion retailer that lives up to its reputation of providing an assortment of styles. They come out as the go-to destination for Bohemian clothing and vintage-inspired styles. They draw fashion pieces from a variety of brands, and so they have a large clothing inventory that ensures that you’ll find something that appeals to your taste and pocket.
You don’t have to worry about whether Planet Blue is legit or safe. There being a registered company with over 24 years’ track record of fulfilling orders rest the legit concerns; while their use of SSL technology with bank-grade AES 256 encryption rests the safety concerns.
Also, they offer an easy payment process, relatively fast delivery, and easy returns. And when you run out of gas, there is responsive customer service to serve you. However, there are a few knacks on the road that are hereunder listed as cons.
Have you ordered an item from Planet Blue before? What were you experiencing? Kindly use the review form below to give your Planet Blue review.
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