Romwe is an international women’s clothing site out of China that sells cute clothes for dirt cheap. If you’re anything like me, before ordering online -- especially from an international site like Romwe, especially when the deals on these clothes seem too good to be true -- you want to be certain that this is a legit, safe, and reliable site. Does Romwe make the cut?

Well, they’re a real fashion retail website. I am wearing Romwe clothes right now, so they do legitimately make and sell clothes. I can also tell you, as can many irate users across the world, that its customer service is terrible, slow, and barely intelligible. It appears sincerely terrible, not “we’re scamming you out of your money” terrible. Its shipping takes forever, and I suspect that some of the clothes they have up on the site are either out of stock or still in the process of being manufactured, but clothing that you order does arrive.

Eventually.

It will take forever for clothes to reach you.

Don’t bother to pay for express shipping, ever. Your clothing arrives in one month at the speediest. Many of the disappointed and angry reviews are from people who expect to receive their clothes with the guaranteed swiftness of an Amazon Prime membership, or who will wait one week but not two, or who needed the item by a certain date (pro-tip: don’t order anything time-sensitive from Romwe). I don’t know why Romwe even bothers to offer expedited shipping when it’s clearly not something it can handle.

I haven’t yet tried its new, “Ships in 24 Hour” section, where Romwe double-promise-pinky-swears that anything ordered from that section will reach you within 24 hours. Haha, right. Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, gg.

The clothes will probably not fit you.

Since Romwe is a Chinese site, the sizing is very small on everything. Even if you’re petite, the sizing is unforgiving and the clothes don’t have much give. Romwe does provide measurements, but what am I, a dressmaker? Take for example the measurements on the black long-sleeved floral jacket I ordered:

Nothing in these measurements indicated that trying to squeeze my arms into the sleeves of this jacket would be like trying to stuff sausage meat back into the skin. There are boa constrictors that squeeze their prey more gently than the sleeves of this jacket cut into my flesh. There’s just not a measurement for “on a scale from toddler with favorite toy to industrial vise grip, how torturously will these sleeves hug my skin?” If there is, it would probably be in centimeters anyway.

My one caveat is one-size garments, as in one-size-fits-all, which Romwe occasionally lists as “Free Size.” The two one-size garments I received from Romwe are among my favorite items ever.

The clothes will feel cheap.

I find it confusing the amount of accusation levied at Romwe for this. Did you think that your $12 skirt, however nice it looked in the photo, was going to feel like the breath of an angel dusting your thighs? Surely you didn’t think, when you went on a Chinese fast fashion site whose greatest selling point is that everything is on sale all the time, that you would be receiving handmade couture?

The site is egregiously cheap. The quality of the clothing and accessories by and large will reflect this. For example, the clasp of my bracelet broke instantly when I first took it out of the little plastic bag. Am I going to scream like a banshee over a $2.99 bracelet? No. Was it annoying? Yes. Does it mean Romwe is a scam? No. My jacket, above, had the give, elasticity, and structural integrity of off-brand Kleenex. Poor quality? Yes. Scam? No.

Notice there is one aspect of the site I haven’t covered: returns. I have a few items that need to be returned in this order, but as someone who worked in retail for a few years, I knowthe No. 1 cause of customer dissatisfaction with returns is that suddenly when confronted with a return policy the customer can’t read. Romwe’s return policy is straightforward, y’all:

1. Must be received within 30 days from delivery

2. Must be received unused, no perfume odor, not damaged, not worn

3. Can’t return intimates, accessories, swimwear, jewelry

4. Refund in seven business days after Romwe receives the return and confirms its condition

And most important of all:

You have to pay for the return shipping fee.

If you adjust your expectations to reflect reality, read Romwe’s policies, and are patient and persistent, you will receive your clothes eventually. Romwe is not a scam. But honestly, if you’re really unsatisfied, dispute the charges through PayPal or your credit card as a last resort. I wouldn’t make this my first stop on the online shopping train, but I wouldn’t pass it over entirely, either.

Had a terrible experience with this company? Had a great one and can’t understand the bad press? Still waiting for your clothes three years later? Share your experiences below.