This post was made possible by Redbubble who provided a coupon to pay for the items I bought to test the system. I decided to try and purchase pure evil and see if it made it through UK customs. I’ll touch on the reasons for that in just a bit.
If you read any geeky blogs, you’ll likely have encountered Redbubble before. It’s a platform that allows artists to upload their designs and sell them as t-shirts, hoodies, smartphone cases and other accessories. Blogs like Geek Native spend a little time searching through the vast inventory, all those talented designers, to look for the best and blogging to share it.
The catch? This Scottish blogger had never ordered anything from the US-based company before. If you’re based in Europe, you’ll know the truth. There are some online stores with warehouses in the States that you can safely order from. There are some that you have to avoid at all costs.
The initial signs at Redbubble are encouraging. The site converts US$ prices into GB£.
The challenge was picking a design. I used Pinterest to bookmark some candidates and narrow down my selection. Since I’d been enjoying Jim Zub’s Samurai Jack comic book series, a design called “Evil Shapeshifting Master of Cotton” caught my attention. Philadelphia based CooRadDuu’s design reminded of me of a particular demon.
The thing is; I didn’t want another white t-shirt. Thankfully, Redbubble lets you change the background colour of your item (and they have quite a range), and I was even more impressed by the black background.
The next step was to upgrade to a hoodie. An EVIL hoodie!
I got an email confirmation that my item had been shipped on the same Sunday as I ordered it. That’s pretty good.
Redbubble’s shipping guide says that apparel sent to the UK will be shipped from the USA (that’s not always the case; matte posters ship from the UK, etc.). The page also makes it clear that items will take about 5 to 15 business days to arrive and that an extra week might be needed in some cases to allow for local customs.
My beardy demon hoodie took about two weeks. That’s a long time to wait if you’re impatient, but it’s not bad at all. Not really. Most of all; Redbubble’s guide had managed my expectations. I couldn’t track the parcel, but I could see it had shipped.
The quality of the hoodie is good too. I’m a geeky weeble shaped blogger so I shall not model it for you but here’s a photo of the actual physical item. Sure; it’s not quite as bright as the web, the red seems a little more orange, but it’s good enough and it’s not a crackled print.
Warm. I’m delighted I went for the hoodie. This demon is snuggly warm and ideal for the tail end of winter. The actual size of the hoodie matches the sizing chart provided by Redbubble. You wouldn’t think that needs to be mentioned, but I’ve been caught out before.
Conclusion? Demons are warm, evil and can make it through customs and ordering stuff from Redbubble from the UK is worth the wait. It’s not that much of a wait, either.
Disclaimer: Redbubble provided a coupon to help facilitate this review. No artist or designer on Redbubble lost out and the text and conclusion of this post are all mine.
Join the site discussions by leaving a comment below.
That made for an interesting read, as a designer with designs on redbubble I am glad to hear that you didn’t get any additional fees via the hmrs which was a bother to some of my uk based customers. Just to emphasise my point it was the hmrc and NOT redbubble, who took great steps to make sure customers got a refund/voucher to make up for the inconvenience
Do you still have to go to the post office to pick it up and pay? I’ve had to do this with a lot of items I bought from the USA and it’s ridiculously expensive!
@Amy I was wondering the same thing this is why im hesitant to order from them
millygribben – I’m not entirely sure about shirts, but I ordered two posters and some stickers from RedBubble and they were delivered to my house. :)