Enhancing Your Shopping Experience

Stage 9 Secrets is more then just another dress store and aims to put our customers at the core of every decision. Over the last year we have listened to your comments, suggestions and concerns and want to do our very best to create an enjoyable shopping experience for our community and customers. Some actions have been met with success, while others have required going back to the drawing board and want to thank you for your patience while we continue to navigate the lasting effects of the pandemic and grow as a brand. We believe these changes will help improve the experience for everyone we serve. 

Below is a summary of the changes to our policies, new business practices and how we aim to enhance your experience interacting with us. Should you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you are always welcome to reach out to us and we’ll be happy to assist you the best we can. Please feel free to email us at, contact@stage9secrets.com

1. Orders over $150 USD will now enjoy a complimentary signature for delivery as part of our free shipping offering. This change is to help fight theft against our customers and issues in the last mile service.
   
   

2. We have now introduced two shopping pages for our community: buy now and pre-order, to help differentiate when products are on backorder. We hope this creates a better purchasing experience with a clearer presentation of product status for shoppers.
   
   

3. Reiderate Return Policy. As a small business we have created our policy in the best interest of our customers while fairly taking into consideration the economics of purchasing, making and distributing our designer gowns. As such we have reviewed our policy to make the return or exchanges with Stage 9 Secrets as easy as possible. 
   
   

4. Last month we welcomed a new designer to the S9S Family, Portia & Scarlett In an effort to offer more designs and style options. As a made-to-order designer, Portia & Scarlett take longer times to fulfill (4-8 weeks on average). Because these styles are made-to-order, these orders are final sale. 

Orders over $150 USD will require signature for delivery

Every year about $5.4 billion USD worth of package theft occurs due to porch pirates, affecting around 14% of Americans (around 1 in 50). It’s an awful metric and an even worse experience for our customers. Complicating this experience further, there are blurred boundaries between when the accountability of a product ownership, and responsibility, is transferred from our store / supplier to the delivery service and then to our customers.

While we do have insurance programs with USPS and UPS for shipments, that cover up to $100 USD of damage to or loss of packaged goods, we have found this to cause a stressful situation for both us and our customers, with about 1% of our customers throughout the year being affected.

This lack of clear jurisdiction on accountability is why we are choosing to upgrade our free US shipping offering, to include complimentary  signed delivery service for all orders over $150 USD. With this action, we can guarantee that only the customer who bought the purchase, or who provides a valid, pre-authorized individual to sign for a package, may securely receive their order.

We understand this may add an inconvenient barrier to you receiving your products, but we want to ensure you receive the best experience possible doing business with us. Should a customer choose to waive their right to this service, all lost, stolen or damaged goods will be the sole responsibility of the consumer. We will not be providing refunds or store credits in those circumstances, and we cannot open lost or stolen good claims on the customers behalf with shipping entities.

Introduction of the Buy and Pre-Order shopping experience

The pandemic has decimated distribution channels and product availability for everyone looking to buy. From the shipping back logs to labour and product shortages, there’s been massive inability to meet demand with the supplies currently available. It’s been a cascading effect where the pandemic has, directly or indirectly, caused disruption with obtaining labor demand, raw materials, sourced goods, and transport capability.

These challenges have produced lack of availability of goods for consumers, price hikes for everyone along the distribution chain, and customer service nightmares in attempt to be transparent about the situation. Our store and shoppers are equally affected, so we decided to try for a better shopping experience by being more transparent with product availability through our website buy buttons.

Should these changes make your shopping experience difficult, you are always welcome to reach out to us about product availability. In fact, we encourage it! We want to help you get the right product for your needs.

Our Return Policy

As a small business our policy has been created in the best interest of our customers while fairly taking into consideration the economics of purchasing, making and distributing our designer gowns.

In an attempt to lessen our carbon footprint and environmental impact in the fashion industry, each gown is uniquely ordered just for you, and ships directly from our designers based in Los Angeles. While many designer boutiques would consider this to be custom order ( and thus final sale or charge high value restocking fees and deductions for labels on shipping costs), we wanted to differentiate ourselves in the industry by creating a fair policy that offered returns and exchanges where the customer's dollar never depreciated. 

While we do not provide return shipping labels, all exchanges for new items or sizes are shipped out complimentary. For more information on our process our full policy can be found HERE.
Our customers' satisfaction is and always will be our top priority so will always do our best to assist in any way possible. 

Welcoming Portia & Scarlett