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This is the craziest mash-up of high-tech/low-tech shopping we've ever heard: e-commerce start-up Suddenlee.com lets you shop from over 300 different stores and brands in the New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania area—just install the Suddenlee bookmarklet in your bookmarks bar and add things to your Suddenlee shopping cart. Then, when you check out, Suddenlee HQ dispatches actual humans to brick-and-mortar physical stores to buy your stuff—and then ships everything to you in one package (and for one shipping fee!) overnight.
What? Someone actually goes out and shops for you? And more importantly, does this mean you can get things online via Suddenlee that weren't previously available online—hello, we're talking to you H&M and Zara.
We haven't tried Suddenlee yet, but did a thorough read of the company's FAQs, which clearly specify that they buy the merch from a physical store:
How do you know if the item that I want is in stock?Has anyone here tried Suddenlee? We'd love to know about your experiences, tell us in the comments. What's mindblowing about this whole service is how it's a practical business model—sending people out to pound the pavement picking up merch from a variety of different retailers. Brilliant, but slightly mad.In most cases, we won't know that an item is definitely available until we get to the store. We work closely with our retailers to locate what you need, but sometimes items are in such limited supply that we just can't locate them. After giving each request our best attempt at purchase, we'll send you an email to let you know when we aren't able to find what you need.
Why can I only order items that are available in stores?
Suddenlee acquires your items from a physical store, so “online only” merchandise can only be purchased directly from the retailer.
Can I use discount codes that are available only online from the retailers I shop?
Suddenlee purchases your items in store, so online only products, prices and discounts are not applicable. We will purchase your items at the lowest price available in-store and will pass along any savings we receive to you.
· Suddenlee [Official Site]