If you are new to online shopping and you’re definitely one of those people who love to shop in person… I’m one of them! But if you’re now shopping more online, this is going to be new learning curve for you, so just be patient, breathe, calm.

The first thing to do is to embrace that this is a new journey for you. So, I know that sometimes we just expect it to be super natural to us, like ‘how difficult could it be’, and then the other thing is we get so frustrated with the company that we’re shopping with,  like ‘why don’t they have more images?’ or ‘why does it always look different?’. It’s difficult, it’s difficult to really capture the essence, the touch, the tactile, everything of the product is so much easier in person, I get it! But there are some benefits of shopping online and I’ll get into those in just a second. But the first thing is just to embrace the journey.

Alright, so the first thing that’s awesome about online shopping is, let’s just say, that you need a new shirt and you have to, obviously, drive to the store, park your car, go in… I mean, I know that there’s a whole experience and there’re others nice things about it, but your shirt’s not even necessarily what you’re looking for, and you could just go to one store at a time. What’s awesome about online shopping, is that you have like the entire web. Like you have a million, well let’s just say, ten stores, your ten favorite stores, and you can basically skim to see if they have what you’re looking for.

Now, the con to that is that you really have to know what you’re looking for. So, sure, you can kind of just browse the sites up and down, but that also might lead to frustration. So, if you know what you’re looking for, the more specific, the better. Let’s say that I’m looking for a dress for a special occasion that I’m gonna be wearing on Zoom. Or that I’m wearing with a small group of people.

So, what’s important is: do I know more or less, can I narrow it down to a couple of colors? Like two colors, black and red. Or blue, or green. Like just narrow it down to line two or three colors max.

The next thing you wanna think about is, of course, what style of dress you want to wear. And again, it sounds super obvious, but I’ve shopped with so many women online that are like ‘I don’t know, I just want something cute!’. So, it is important to know how to dress for your body shape, if you don’t know your body shape and don’t know how to dress for your body shape, what style clothings are best suiters for your body type, you want to click here. I have a great calculator, you type in your body shape. You wanna do that on your desktop, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work for the phone. So frustrating. But anyway! You wanna put in your measurements and then I give you 40+ outfits that you can wear for different body shapes. So, check that out first!

But you wanna think about, again, do you want to wear a long dress? Do you wanna wear a short dress? Do you want it to be long-sleeved, do you want it to be short-sleeved?

So those things are important. Then, what about the neckline? Do you want it to be a v-neck, a bote neck a scoop neck? All of that is important. How about the sleeves? Do you want them to be wider bell sleeves, do you want them to be narrower, do you want them to be tight?

I mean, there are just so many things to kind of think about. That’s why definitely that a look at this dress body shape guide, it’ll give you some guidelines at least! But you want to think about, again, the color, you want to think about the length, you want to think about the neckline. And of course, the fabric. So, if you’re somebody that needs a breathable fabric, let’s say hot flashes! I have a video on that, by the way. You want maybe more of a breathable fabric if you’re somebody that, you know, loves, I don’t know, sparkles or whatever kind of fabric you’re looking for, that something important to consider.

Once you’ve kind of almost designed that perfect dress, or the perfect top for your self, then you want to go and visit Mr. Google. And you can google all of these words. Again, sounds so obvious, but really it’s on!

The other thing you could too is that if you see a dress of somebody, or you see something in a fashion magazine that you’re like ‘oh, I want that’ but you can’t find it later, you can also google a description of it. Be as detailed as you can be and that will definitely really help.

The other thing that you wanna think about, is when you actually click on the item, you pull it up you want to look at the, of course, the measurements, and the websites give you the great measurements like you can measure yourself. This top, for example, is comparable to the different shops that you’re shopping at those stores. That’s really helpful when it comes to sizing.

You also want to consider the fabric, so that’s really important. Is it polyester? Or is it cotton? Then, the other thing, you wanna zoom into the item and look at the stitching. Is it like the stitching that’s pretty tight, is it kind of far apart? Does it look like it’s really thin?

So all of these things are going to at least cut down your trial and error, by 80%. And then of course there’s 20% where you’re going to have to buy it, try it on, and make sure that it fits right.

However, I do suggest that if you are going kind of on a shopping journey, then you kind of put it all together and buy from the different websites, and then you return together. So then it is not like you’re constantly buying and returning, buying and returning. That’s just a tip that really helps me.

And then last but not least, I should have included this in the sizing, one thing that I’ve learned from another stylist that I thought was genius and I didn’t think of it sooner, and I didn’t think of it by myself before, was to buy multiple sizes. So, let’s say that the medium or like the size 8 fits you great, but maybe that 6 or that small fits you even better.

I hope this you’ve found helpful, leave a comment for me below, let me know your takeaway or any extra tips that I should include here, that’ll be very helpful for our community.

Thank you so much for watching, have a wonderful rest of your day and check out some of the other videos I have coming up here and here! And if you’re not already following me on Facebook and Instagram, please do, where I’m sharing daily tips, tricks and advice on how to stay confident, stay calm, and stay stylish.

Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next time on Ada Style Minute.

 

Useful links:

Free Online Body Shape Class
Download the Determine Your Shape Guide 
Essentials for your closet
Body Shape Calculator (please use it from your desktop)

SHOP ADA COLLECTION BELTS

ada-collection-belts-wrap-belt-obi-belt-leather

 

Share: