H&M Online Shopping and Shipping to the Philippines Review

I'm crazy over suede clothing. Suede is my staple fabric, not that I have tons of it, I just want it for every type of clothing item. I have suede pants, shirts, dress, bag and a premium pig skin short. I'm just lacking on skort and skirt. Googling suede skirt, I came up with this cute one from H&M. It's hard looking for a suede skort (perhaps I can get one soon) and this suede skirt with lacing almost pass for one. As you can see, it's double-layered on the front which is characteristic of a skort.

via HM.com

I head over to a local store and found it absent from the shelves. Asking for help from an employee resulted to nothing. I had no choice but to order it online as local H&M stores are adamant about online shopping.

Mandaue City is known for its outstanding courier service and I'm no stranger to shipping from abroad. But that's entirely a different story. Shipping from China is quite different from shipping from a well-known brand in the UK. I was afraid I'm going to lose my items through tariff issues (not that I'm purchasing something so expensive) for after all, my $8 item got stuck on the post office before and this skirt costed me P1201 including shipping. Had I not talked to my suking delivery guy then, I would not have known that my parcel got held. Anyway, for this one, I just hoped that H&M partner in the Philippines will do its best.

By the way, since April 2017, a package that falls below the amount of P10,000 is nontaxable already. That is, there's no longer any tax-handling fees and I expect that my item will no longer be held at the post office (again).

I was planning to buy at least three items but my fear got the good of me. Screw the P249 shipping, I just had to have this one. Good thing there's a 20% discount on Black Friday so that neutralized the cost. I ordered on the 25th of November and received my package on the 21st of December. That's 4 days short of a month!

Tracking

From H&M UK to the Philippines

H&M uses wnDirect courier to deliver items from the UK warehouse to the country of destination. As you can see from the image below, my order was entertained and packed on the 28th of November, 3 days from the day of ordering which is pretty common in international online shopping. My package left UK on the 1st of December and reached the Philippines on the 9th. Once the package reaches the country of destination, another courier is tasked on handling the package and therefore, a separate tracking system is used.

From Mandaluyong City Hub to Consignee Address

Quantum Solutions is the courier handling packages from H&M within the Philippines.

On the 9th of December, the updated location was on Mandaluyong City, Philippines. So basically, H&M's hub in the Philippines is located on Mandaluyong and as far as I'm concerned, H&M has a stall at SM Megamall which is located at Ortigas, Mandaluyong City. You really only have to start worrying about your package once it reaches the hub. The transit would be slow-going from there.

From the main hub, it took 6 days for my package to reach the hub in Cebu City and another 6 days for it to be delivered to my doorstep. Yeah, really slow-going. If you don't have the patience for it, I advice for you to shop elsewhere or else, just buy whatever you can grab from the physical stores. Well, a month of waiting is nothing next to 2 months when you order from China. And yet, shopping from Korea would only take a week.

The delivery man called me on the day of the delivery at an odd hour. The time was close to 5:00 PM and most courier would be done of their job by 4:00 PM. I told him I'm using a faulty phone and that the best way for us to communicate is through text. He complied.

This is how my parcel looked:

And finally, my skirt.

Conclusion

It's stupid of me to fear that my package is going to be held at the local post office and it has nothing to do with it being shipped from a known brand in the UK. It's the fact that a known brand would have its own private courier, duh. And again, it took 26 days for my package to arrive at my doorstep from the day I made an order.