How I Bought a J.Crew Shirt for $2.76
By: Daniel Chae
Tags: Black Friday, Entertainment, Consumerism, Shopping, Customer Service

I remember being so frenzied that Saturday night. It was November 30th and I was doing some post-Thanksgiving shopping. I don’t know what you call the Saturday after Black Friday, want to just call it “Slate Saturday”? (This will make sense if you keep reading)

Anyways, leading up to Slate Saturday, I had been anticipating Black Friday for awhile. I would frequently run out of shirts and, if I’m honest, just kinda wanted some new ones lol. As a result, my next rational thought was to wait until Black Friday to pick up some shirts from one of my favorite retailers, J.Crew. I said rational, right?

Fast forward to actual Black Friday and I, no joke, woke up thinking about which shirts I was going to buy. But, for some reason, just didn’t pull the trigger. They were 50% off and it was clearly a good deal. Did I really need more shirts? I got cold feet.

However, I couldn’t get them out of my head. I waited until the next day, Slate Saturday, and was walking around Ross with my mum when I finally caved in. Just had to have ’em. To my dismay, the discount had been lowered to 40%, but I didn’t care at this point-I just wanted the shirts lol.

I swiftly navigated to J.Crew and picked out a few shirts. I picked a navy boi, black guy, white dude, and, just for kicks, a slate-colored chap. I was in luck, each shirt came out to be about $12. I was a happy boi. I put in my credit card information and I notice a small notification next to the slate-colored shirt that says something along the lines of “this color is in high demand and may not be delivered until early January”. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t too concerned with it. I’m like, “eh, it’ll eventually get here right”. It wasn’t even about utility anymore, I just wanted some new t-shirts.

After I purchased the shirts though, I really didn’t think about them for awhile. The navy and black shirts came in first, then the white. Honestly, I kind of forgot about the slate-colored guy.

I then received an email on January 30th (almost two months later from purchase and about a month after J.Crew said they’d deliver) saying the slate-colored shirt couldn’t be delivered due to declined payment and to give them a call. Mind you, I paid with Paypal, which is a direct link to my debit account. I knew I had at least the amount of the slate-colored shirt.

So what happened?

I give J.Crew a phone call and get this really kind, sweet lady on the phone. Her name was Kathy (not sure if that’s how you spell her name, but…) and she promptly let me know the payment was declined due to how long the ensuing freight was after the initial purchase. As a result, the high-in-demand slate-colored shirt was passed on to the next customer. According to Kathy, if I gave her a new form of payment, I might, might get the shirt in April.

Now, I am that guy at restaurants that asks for free things when anything remotely goes wrong. I preemptively apologize for being that guy. Nobody really likes that guy. But it’s ok, there are some people that love me.

Being that guy nobody likes at restaurants, I asked Kathy if there was anything she could do. She, of course, being the good customer rep she is, promptly said no. We then had a conversation about putting in new credit card information and I gave her the digits to my credit card. Then, out of the blue, she offered me a 60%-ish discount to bring the shirt down to $7.50 and I’m like, “ok? Great”. I wasn’t about to turn that down. But then she gave me another $5 rewards discount that I had no idea I had. At this point, this lady just told me there was nothing she could do, but she just discounted my shirt over 75%?

After this pondering of thought, she applied the discount and I thanked her for helping me. I hung up the phone, bewildered at what had just transpired.

I thought to myself, “what just happened? Did I just get a shirt for a couple bucks?”. Low and behold, yes I did:

You want to know the best part? The shirt came in just a week later:

As I write this, I realize how this story may contribute to the overall culture of consumerism. Guilty as charged, but, moreover, I’m open to a discussion about why or why not I’m wrong in purchasing these shirts. Be it sustainability, unfair wages, I’m curious to know what you think. Feel free to comment here or email me at daniel.chae11@gmail.com-always down for a conversation.

Best,

Daniel