April Haul - Sasa
The OG Asian beauty shopping temptation. Whether it is a physical store or their online site, Sasa is comparable to the Western beauty mecca, Sephora, in terms of variety and store numbers. What makes Sasa more dangerous than the other S brand is the prices. It takes much willpower to browse the store and leave empty-handed. Everything looks nice, sounds promising, and is cheaper than most other (e-)retailers.
My method to avoid temptation? Not visit period. If I don't look I won't be lured. But you know...when the opportunity comes to order with a friend to share the order total load...for free shipping purposes, it gets infinitely more difficult to resist. Oh, I'll just get an item or two. 1 hour, 4 items, and almost $50 later I finally stop myself from browsing anymore.
Let's just say, for comfort's sake, I limited myself well. Of the 4 items I got, half are to satisfy my curiosity and the other half are products I have used before—at least all of them were under USD $15. 23 Years Old's Black Paint Rubar's promise to tackle whiteheads and blackheads earned a place in my cart quickly. I enjoyed using a stick cleansing before and was excited to find another brand at a more affordable price. Papa Recipe's Bombee Honey Pudding Set was the pure impulse purchase. It also claims to help with congestion but I have yet to meet a peel off mask that I could handle. Biore's UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF50+ PA+++ is a favorite for using on my neck and chest when the warmer humid weather kicks in. Crabtree & Evelyn's Hand Therapy lotions are the only ones I have tried that sink into my skin without leaving a residue behind.
Price & Stock
If you can find a particular Asian brand you want on Sasa, it is safe to assume it'll be the cheapest option available on the internet. The only catch is the product availability and price fluctuates a lot. Items go out of stock fairly quickly. If you don't purchase it immediately, the item could get cheaper but more likely than not pricier.They seem to have a "Price Guarantee" option where customers could submit information to Sasa if a lower price for an item is found elsewhere online. I have never used this feature before nor know of anyone who has so I can't attest to how smoothly that process goes.
Account
Signing up is required to complete the checkout process. I believe shopping on the site will accrue "Bonus Points" which can be then redeemed for various freebies. These points also expire every year end of March.If the purchase is big enough, USD $155 within 3 months, Sasa may send a "VIP member" invitation. Their site says VIP's get 5% off throughout the year, 2x Bonus Points, birthday surprises, and free gifts.
Shipping Options
Shipping options to the USA and Canada are simple—it is either Free Shipping for orders $70+ or Standard Shipping is $15 for orders below $70. The requirements for other countries are slightly different. Do remember to double check before buying. Since the minimum requirement for free shipping is quite high, I recommend ordering with friends.
Payment
The site accepts a bunch of different payments: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal Diners Club International, JCB, Unionpay, Tenpay and Alipay.It seems pain-free enough and practically every popular option is offered. Bestie did have troubles before when using credit cards in particular. Her issuing bank blocked her payment to Sasa once and on another occasion Sasa declined her payment. We're not really sure what the reasons were. Sometimes Sasa will e-mail to request for credit card confirmation information and other times trying a different credit card fixed the issue.
Maybe next time PayPal is the way to go?
Check Out Process
Other than possible payment hiccups, the rest of the check out process is simple. Shipping and payment information are input into in-screen pop-up windows. Then you accept the Terms and Conditions and press the "Confirm Payment" button to acknowledge the order.I find the side "Notice" panels really intimidating. It looks like it has so much information even though most of it aren't pertinent to my order. Some "Notices" date back to 2013!
Delivery
Sasa estimates a delivery time of 8-12 business days. In reality, it took a little over 3 weeks for our purchase. The both of us weren't all too surprised. We don't order from Sasa often but every time we have the delivery time typically takes around 1 month.We placed the order 4/3. Bestie said they sent a packing notification on 4/5 and dispatched it for delivery on 4/6. Even though she received a tracking number, it was a non-working one. The package arrived 4/26, and on the same day, Sasa sent an email to Bestie saying the order was canceled. What's up with that?
This was also our second attempt at ordering from Sasa. We had tried a month earlier and had similar communication mishaps. Sasa requested credit card confirmation information 2 weeks after placing our initial order. After waiting another 2 weeks for our package to arrive, Sasa sent an email one day saying the order had been cancelled altogether. Bestie suspected it was because one of the items on our list was out of stock. It would have been nice if they could have sent the other items and refunded the unavailable one, waited until everything was in stock again, or at the very least notified us of the cancellation earlier.
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