Totsy Review and Invite: Posh Baby and Kid Gear for less

I am so excited to share Totsy with you today. Totsy has been on my radar for awhile since 2 of the most fashionable blogging moms on the web are the face of Totsy. Nicole Feliciano of MomTrends.com and Audrey McClelland from MomGenerations.com are moms and fashionistas. I follow both of them, and loved what I heard about Totsy.

Totsy is the Gilt or Rue La La of baby and kid gear. Serving up flash sales for everything from strollers to toys, mama jewelry to adorable clothes.

For those not familiar a flash sale is a sale that lasts a limited number of hours (usually 72 hours), where you can score 40-60% off retail on goods that might otherwise be outside your price range. It’s a win-win-win for the company who needs to sell off their inventory, for Totsy who runs an amazing company, and for the moms (and presumably dads too) who shop and score fantastic deals. The secret is to view the sale early, and pay attention to the emails that announce what sales are coming up. If you wait too long, your favorite product may fly off the shelf before you have a chance to purchase it.

Totsy knows how busy moms are so they cleverly launch their sales at 9PM when you finally have the kids in bed and a minute of quiet to click over. Companies like Gilt start their sales mid-day when you are likely serving lunch or doing preschool pickup, and they rarely have kid items.

Benefits of shopping at Totsy:

Totsy has a great referral program: For every person that makes a purchase through Totsy you get $15 in Totsy credit!
Totsy is 100% green! They even plant one tree for every purchase made! How cool is that?

I talked to Nicole about Totsy, and asked her how she and Audrey became the face of Totsy. She shared the following with me:

I’m on of the Totsy moms because I believe moms shouldn’t have to sacrifice an ounce of style after the kids come along. We just need to be a little more savvy about how and where we spend our money. Private shopping sites like Totsy.com allow us the insider scoop on deals for our families. Back when I was working for Ralph Lauren I got an employee discount on my clothes. Now I use Totsy to provide me with discounts on the brands I covet (Like a recent sale on Cybex strollers–that’s the stroller I push here in NYC). -Nicole Feliciano

I was invited to try Totsy out, and ended up purchasing a Plan Toys airport for the kids. I figured it would be a great toy for my youngest, who is 4, and might get me a few minutes of quiet so I can squeeze in some work.

Our package took about 10 days to arrive, and the kids had no idea it was coming, so it was a fun surprise. Photos of the adorable packaging, and toy we picked out below:

Now the fun part!

As readers of the ¢entisble life you get a special invite to join Totsy! Just follow this link to Totsy, and sign up!

Due to the increasing number of comments about poor customer service I reached out to Totsy for a statement. From the Totsy team:

“Due to our best products and best pricing in the US market, TOTSY has ‘enjoyed’ a growth in sales of over 10 times in the last 3/4 months. This has literally completely saturated our logistic center and our normal shipping time (15 to 20 business days) have almost double for certain sales.

As you may know Private Sale website don’t stock any product. This means that when someone order a product we need to first close the sale (3/4 days), order the product (2 days), receive the product from the manufacturer (1 to 3 weeks), check quality (2/3 days) and ship it ( + delivery time up to 7 days).

We have been taking numerous steps over the last 8 weeks to solve this situation: triple our customer service staffing, open customer service email center at night and weekend, implemented a professional email management system, triple our warehouse manpower, and moved our warehouse to a 24/7 operation. As of today we still have a one week backload and we do expect to be back to normal by the end of the year.”

I would caution anyone shopping flash sale sites to be aware that they often have a longer turn around time due to the nature of their business. Partly that’s why you get such a great deal. I’m hopeful the changes they mentioned have helped with their customer service issues, but if you are still experiencing issues, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to alert Totsy to your comments.

Kelly

Disclosure: I was provided with a credit to make a purchase from Totsy. All links to Totsy, Gilt, and Rue La La include referral codes.

About Kelly

Kelly Whalen is the founder of The Centsible Life, a blog where motherhood and money meet. Her goal is to help readers live well on less. Kelly is a mom to 4, and loves that she can stay at home with her kids, and still pursue her passions for writing, personal finance, and social media. You can often find her on twitter and Facebook talking money and motherhood.