Zara, how do I get my R3,500 back on your outdated business model?

It turns out Zara’s system is fundamentally broken and is amazingly anti-consumer.

For our seventh wedding anniversary, I wanted to buy my wife something made of wool, the traditional gift. I asked a fashionista friend for advice and she recommended an oversized, tangerine jersey from Zara. It cost R3,500.

The first problem I had with Zara is it’s impossible to open an online account. I tried to buy it online but just couldn’t open an account. I tried five times on my iPhone and laptop. No luck.

So, I went to Sandton City to buy the jersey in-store, only to discover that it’s an online-only deal.

How can I buy it? The helpful store person gives me Zara’s phone – a dinky little iPhone 4 that is easily a decade old. I’m not a phone snob, but this was a vastly worse experience than my own much larger, much faster iPhone 13 Pro.

There I am standing in a crowded, busy store, doing online shopping in that very store. That has to be a business model fail in and of itself. The Zara staff rolled their eyes when I explained why I had to come into a physical store only to do what I could’ve done at home; and saved myself what became a 90-minute trip of immense frustration.

But the Zara app won’t let me pay for it. So, I pay for it at the cashier, who asks me: Do you want to collect this in store?

No, I reply, I never wanted to come to the store in the first place. Please deliver it to my house. I pay for this in the first third of February, and it takes two weeks to arrive, just in time for our anniversary.

When the jersey arrived, it wasn’t right.

So, I tried to return it. I tried numerous times to log in but still no luck. I tried multiple password resets to try to activate my account. Nothing.

I planned to take it back, but I am seldom near Sandton City and I knew there was no point trying to interface any more with Zara’s online portal. I never received any emails or confirmation from Zara that I had opened an online account in the first place, nor any receipt for my purchase. Nothing. Luckily, I put the receipt in the box it arrived in.

When I finally got to Zara last month, just over a month since the anniversary, I was told by the Zara cashier that, wait for it, my receipt had “expired”. It’s only valid for a month, I was told.

I turned over the physical receipt and, sure enough, there is the 30-days nonsense, in the smallest text possible. I looked around for the hidden cameras for a spoof video. This is so ludicrous, it can’t possibly be true, I thought.

When I asked how this was possible despite the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), the store manager told me he couldn’t do anything to help me.

I asked to contact Zara’s managing director and he said he couldn’t give me those details, and I had to find them on the website. The same website that won’t let me open an e-commerce account.

I looked for the information, but all that’s offered is a web-based text chat and the Twitter and Facebook handles, ironically called “Zaracare”.

I tried to start a return or refund process, but I have to log in to do that. The warning message I got was “Invalid Request: Incorrect params sent”. Very helpful consumer-facing error message that.

I tried resetting the password many times, and still haven’t received an email. No, it’s not in my spam folder, I checked.

I started a chat request and got this equally useless message: “Please note that you would have to log in to your account and select on My Account > Orders And Returns. You will be able to make the return request from there. Once completed, an email would be sent confirming the return request and another email with the return label would be sent once the courier has processed the return label.”

When I explained the whole saga, I got an equally unhelpful reply: “I would suggest you kindly visit the store for the return and the store will pay you back for the purchase.”

Amazingly enough, Zara is seemingly on the right side of the CPA, which allows six months for the return of “defective” items. The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 25 of 2002, stipulates a seven-day cooling-off period for returning items bought online. This is from the date of the delivery.

But what do you do if the retailer’s e-commerce offering is so abysmal that you can’t actually log in to it to try to return the item you bought? What if the defect is the company’s own electronic offerings? Whose responsibility is that?

So, Zara, how do I get my R3,500 back please? The jersey is unused, unworn and still in the box it came in. It’s as beautiful as ever, why do you think it’s now worthless?

Meanwhile, on the same day I bought this jersey, I also bought some clothes for my son at Cotton On Kids. When I discovered they were made almost entirely of polyester, I returned them to Cotton On (on the same day Zara refused my return) and had zero hassles. I am a loyal customer henceforth.

So, my question for Zara is: why do you hate your South African customers so much and why can’t you get with the times and makes your e-commerce site work?

Additionally, why do you think the products that you sell only have value for 30 days since you bought them? If that isn’t a terrible sign of how much a company values its own goods, then I’ve yet to find one. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please click here.