Pudgy Beads.com
While looking for vintage beads one day, I happened across a new site for me, PudgyBeads. I loved the selection and prices seemed reasonable, so I decided to order a few sets of beads. While my initial shopping experience was okay, I was subsequently disappointed with the time it took to receive my order, the communications, and the packaging of the beads. Perhaps my experience was unique, but I’m not willing (at this point) to give PudgyBeads another shot at my hard-earned beading budget.
The shopping section of the Vintage Beads is organized by type of bead, and within those types by color. I think this is a pretty awkward way to set up the site; I can’t compare if the same style of bead is available in yellow and in pink, for example, but it’s useful if you are looking for a specific color scheme. Add to the clunky feel that if you want to go to a different category (i.e., move from Vintage Beads to Clasps), you must go back to the Home page – the only navigational button on the sub-pages are for Home. (There are links to all sections at the bottom of the page, but you have to scroll all the way down to find them.)
Aside from vintage beads, you can shop for vintage and new clasps, Czech crystals, and vintage flower-themed beads. Also available are sign up for classes at the retail location (Long Beach, California), a limited number of books, and closeout beads. The Gallery section was actually more vintage beads and pendants for sale, not a gallery of finished pieces as I was expecting.
Photographs are good quality and descriptions are well thought out. Number of beads per strand varies, and it is clearly noted as such for each item. You can add multiples of the same bead strands to the shopping cart at the same time, but not different styles of beads at the same time.
The shopping cart can be secure (MasterCard, Visa, Discover or American Express accepted), or “normal” which takes you to the same screen to enter your credit card number and send off the order, but there is no SSL lock at the bottom of the screen – why would anyone in this day and age use this function?
Minimum order is $25 before shipping and handling. As the number of beads offered on the site is pretty extensive, I had no problem meeting this minimum.
I placed my order for beads on March 19, 2006. I received an email confirmation that day stating that my order had been received. I waited. And waited. And waited. On March 31, 2006, after 10 business days, I received another email notifying me that my order was being shipped that day. The beads finally arrived the following Monday, over two weeks after I’d ordered them. Packaging was unprofessional – the four strands I had ordered were rolled into a slightly smoke-scented paper towel and placed in a plastic bag. While the beads didn’t arrive damaged, I expect more care when I’m dealing with what purports to be an established store (eBay sellers get just a little more leeway).
The beads themselves were nice, good quality, and as pictured. I wasn’t as enamoured with them in person as I had been on the web site, but that could potentially be because I had to wait so long and because they were packaged so poorly.
Bottom line, PudgyBeads offers some very unique, beautiful vintage beads at reasonable cost. The web site is difficult to shop from however (they really need a professional overhaul), shipping wait time was excessively long, and packaging was amateurish. Unless you are willing to wait and take your chances on how your product is packaged, I’d pass by PudgyBeads.
