Piperlime

Full review
About
Piperlime.com is a relatively new online shoe venture from Gap, Inc. The website has a hip, young and trendy feel to it with a brown and green color scheme. They carry a multitude of brand-name shoes and are adding new ones on a fairly consistent basis. Piperlime carries shoes for men, women and children with prices that are comparable to those that you would find at major department stores across the country. The site also has a sale section. As can be expected at most shoe stores (online or otherwise), the majority of shoes offered here are for females.

Ease of Use
This website is very user-friendly. It’s simple to search either by brand or by the intended wearer of the shoes, and the options can easily be whittled down even further by type of shoe, occasion, new arrivals or even current trends. Finally, you can pare down the display even more by size, width, color and price. If you come to the site searching for something specific it should be easy to find. On the other hand, if you’re just there to browse and look around, that’s a snap as well.

One of the other nice aspects of this site is that a shoe style that may come in multiple colors is actually displayed individually in each color within its section. This saves time if you’re one of those people who don’t like to have to click on the shoe that’s displayed in black but indicates that it comes in additional colors, to find out what exactly those additional colors are.

When you do select a shoe to examine more closely on the site, the multiple zoomed-in views allow you to see the shoe in great detail. In addition to a main view, Piperlime shows the top, bottom, right, left, front and back detail so you’re able to get an accurate idea of what the shoe actually looks like.

Shipping and Checkout
One of the most unique aspects of this site is that Piperlime offers free standard shipping (4-7 business days) AND free returns (within 60 days). Since Piperlime doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar presence as an option for returning a pair of shoes that don’t meet your needs, you can be sure that you won’t have to deal with the unpleasant task of paying to send them back. If you enjoy the convenience of online shopping, ordering from here is essentially a risk-free purchase.

The check-out and payment process at Piperlime is similar to that of other trusted online retailers. The shipping times are also standard as well. The packaging that the shoes come in – well, that’s actually very well done. The pair of shoes I ordered came in their original shoe box surrounded by air-filled shipping “pillows” so that they fit snugly and didn’t move inside the cardboard shipping box. Additionally, the cardboard shipping box was even pretty special; the inside of it was imprinted with Piperlime’s signature lime wedge logo. For being just a cardboard box, it felt like a very premium product!

Final Verdict
I’d definitely recommend Piperlime as an online shoe store option. The shoes you find on here are similar to ones you’d find in a major department store; a lot of quality, well-known brands. As a venture from Gap, Inc. it’s easy to trust the security and integrity of the site, and the free standard shipping and returns policy is a definite lure. The touches like the “upgraded” shipping box make your purchase feel a bit more special, and Piperlime seems interested in retaining its customers; since my purchase I’ve received a couple of offers for a percentage or dollar amount off my next purchase.