Online Shopping Dilemma: Is it ‘NEW’ or not?! Shopping with Vooboodoo

TAGS: Reader Help • shopping •

So before I start ranting again, I thought I’d ask you dear readers, what you think about a problem I’m having with an item I purchased recently.

I purchased a facial toner/lotion, the Japanese liquid type from someone I have bought from before – Vooboodoo on eBay, the same person who runs Facial-shop.com. They tend to sell sample and tester products – they’re new but they may come marked as ‘tester’ or ‘sample’ but the listings usually say.

Confused cat

Now when I bought this toner the seller had 3 in stock of this particular formula. It says on the listing the item is BRAND NEW – and boxed. It was the same price as some other sellers who I know always sell fresh items only (like adambeauty.com!). So the item gets here and the box is a little battered and not wrapped in cellophane.

Ok – I am pretty anal but I ignored this since the box would end up in the bin anyway.

Then I noticed that the seal actually on the bottle wasn’t there (the silver lid that usually protects the product). This I do not like – I have no idea if it’s been used or contaminated if the seal isn’t on there.

Thirdly – the bottle does not feel 100% full. I don’t expect it to be filled to the brim, but it feels like 1/2 inch is missing. When I took the lid off there was bits of liquid over the spout (is that the right word?!). Of course – this is hard to prove but it seriously doesn’t feel right and, but if the seal was there I wouldn’t be questioning it right now….hmm.

So my question is – if you buy something that’s labelled ‘New’, what do you expect to get? Do you think a unwrapped boxes and unsealed products can still be called new?

I have decided to query this with the seller – just because it’s sort of annoyed me. She simply replied and said it’s new and all of the bottles look the same as hers. But it doesn’t explain why there’s no seal (I’m obsessed with seals) and why it came in a bashed up, unwrapped box….hmmm.

I’m not impressed. There’s no way to know how fresh this product actually is or if it has been tested. In the future I won’t be buying from vooboodoo or facial-shop.com – there’s no point when I know that adambeauty.com and my other preferred eBay seller, AlphabeautyUK have good prices and always send brand new, fresh and untampered products.

So what do you think? When is ‘new’, new?!

{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }

NoBunny August 10, 2011 at 7:01 pm

I would definitely take it up with the seller or eBay because that just sounds nasty. Good to be on the safe side too.

Row August 21, 2011 at 6:07 pm: Urgh now I have to send it back…what a pain!

Jen August 10, 2011 at 8:10 pm

Yeh, I’d definitely take it up with the seller, I would NOT be happy if I’d received an unsealed beauty product that was listed as brand new…that’s just icky!! Prone to bacterial infection and whatnot :s