Wunderwelt Review

I recently placed an order with Wunderwelt, a second hand lolita store which seems to be starting to grow in popularity. There doesn't seem to be that many Wunderwelt reviews out there so I thought I would share my personal experiences.

Ordering Process

Whilst the actual ordering process from Wunderwelt is not too difficult, the international ordering guide is quite hidden away on their English language blog. So to save time, I am going to give you all the direct link- How to Order (EDIT- they have since put a button to their guide on their front page)

I feel this ordering guide needs to be more prominent on the website, so that it is easy to find. If you don't know where to find the guide, it could put people off placing orders. Once I found the guide, I found it pretty straight forward. The guide has plenty of pictures and I was able to place my order with no issues.

Communication

When you place an international order with Wunderwelt, you pay for the items first and then pay for the shipping separately (using the same ordering process as you did for the items). Wunderwelt calculated my shipping very quickly and sent me the link to the shipping payment page I needed to use. However, apart from the shipping email I was not impressed with Wunderwelt's communication. It took me a while to realise that Wunderwelt seemed to want me to reply to them to confirm I was happy with my order. Judging by the paperwork on my parcel, they only sent out the parcel once I had replied to them. If I had known I needed to reply, I would have done it a lot sooner. Then I waited for an email to say they had shipped out the package and a tracking number. But no email came through an the first I knew of the parcel even being in the UK was when I got a customs note through my door. I think Wunderwelt need to provide customers with a tracking number (as the parcel did in fact, have one) to give the customer peace of mind.

Shipping

Once I had responded to Wunderwelt, the package only took a few days to reach the UK. It was sent via EMS, and they are usually very prompt.

Here is the box my shoes came in. I felt the box was a bit big for just a pair of shoes. The box itself was very sturdy and very well sealed with tape. However, the contents of the box had a lot of room to move about inside and there definitely needs to be a bit more padding, just to ensure the contents don't get bashed about. Thankfully, my shoes were okay.

Inside the box my shoes were wrapped in plastic and then further wrapped with a sheet of bubble wrap. I feel this photo shows just how much room there was in the box. I haven't removed any of the packaging here.

Condition Ranking

My shoes were ranked C (D being the lowest rank) so I was expecting a bit of damage on the shoes. The product listing mentioned some scuffs but the in the photo the shoes seemed to be in good condition. I found quite a few stains on the shoes. I am not sure how obvious the stains are in my photo, but they are indeed there! (It is near the sole, by the straps in my photo). I was able to clean up the shoes with no obvious stains and there was just one obvious scuff, where the paint had chipped away a little. This scuff was quite small. The shoes are definitely still in reasonable condition and once I had cleaned the stains away they looked really good. Therefore, I feel the C ranking was probably quite fair and accurate. So I am somewhat confident that Wunderwelt are good at judging an item's condition.

So this was quite a successful order and I am very pleased with my new shoes. However, Wunderwelt should really consider improving their communication. If I wasn't so confident at ordering from Japanese stores I would probably feel quite paranoid not knowing when my package was going to arrive. All they really need to do is send out an email to say the item has been shipped and give out a tracking number. Apart from this issue, I did find my Wunderwelt experience to be a positive experience. I would recommend Wunderwelt to my friends and I will probably be ordering from them again in the future. And I finally have a pair of pink shoes which are actually the shade I wanted!