Luxire Custom Clothing - Official Affiliate Thread

[fhusuqinet]

@luxire

Many people complained here that they still wait for their orders placed before Black Friday. My case is slightly different. I am still waiting to get the properly fulfilled order placed ten months ago for a single shirt. No typos here: ten months and a single shirt from in-stock fabric (note: I am Luxire customer since 2016, not just some first-time picky guy who don’t understand the peculiarities of ordering process etc.).

The story:

1. Placed order in March 2018, single shirt, pattern replication, sent shirt to be replicated via pre-paid service.

2. After two months I inquired about the order. The standard response "sorry, lot of work, will be ready soon". Received the shirt in June, and the replication was completely botched up - probably made in great hurry, the shirt was unwearable.

3. Contacted Luxire, attached pictures. Paddy requested to re-send the original shirt and replication so they could make the correction. He promised to prioritize the order and refund the back-shipping. Send the package in July.

4. After two months I inquired about the order. The response style "sorry, it will be ready soon, we didn’t remember, Paddy is no longer working with us" etc. Received the order soon – but the same story, the replication was incorrect again. Luxire blamed the result on some miscommunication, after the exchanging few emails we came to an agreement: re-send the shirt for the third time, it will be either replicated within four weeks or the whole series of orders refunded (it was a very explicit agreement). The package was sent on Nov 13, 2018.

5. No info, no explanations, I contacted Luxire three weeks ago, the standard copy-paste reply "it will be ready in two weeks". I asked "but what about our deal?" – no response to that at all, no further communication. Still not received the order, after over ten weeks, regardless of explicit promise of four weeks.

To sum up: this is not bad consumer service, this is pure grotesque. Something definitely deteriorated in Luxire business last year, and – at least from my experience – it does not seen to be returning back on track. I valued Luxire for its elasticity and good price-quality ratio, but now I am extremely disappointed.

Kind of the same thing here, though not as bad. Made a first (quite detailed) order for a trouser and a shirt based on an existing pattern with some heavy adjustments (for the trousers) on the 21st of August. Shipped on the 26th of October and received it a few days later. The trousers fabric was simply terrible (https://luxire.com/products/blue-plain-cotton-pants?variant=7545937297463), super shiny and does not feel like lightweight denim at all like its description suggested.

Went on to email Luxire for a month and a half to correct that, for which an understanding has been decided (remake for 50$, no need to send back the existing trousers which have been given out for free in a garage sale a few days ago).
Made the new order on the 5th of December, for which Luxire assured me it wouldn't take long. Since January I get the classic "lots of work, will be done next week" every 10 days or so.

I truly like Luxire's offering but it seems really confusing to see an existing order, supposedly already in production since early January, being delayed by new orders. Especially when that order is a remake caused by a deceptive description made by the company. Shouldn't it be somewhat prioritized to ensure a good customer satisfaction?

I personally am fine about it, though it makes me think twice about ordering again... I don't think any "regular" customer would like to deal with half of that, which means a lost customer forever...
Not posting this to bash on Luxire, but this is clearly alarming for a business and transparency would be much better than the "It will be ready in two weeks" everyone seems to be getting.

 

[luxire]

I do agree that there have been some issues with delivery timelines and customer service.
Though more than 80% orders are being delivered on time, we are having problems with the complex ones, where we need an expert to get the order initiated and moving.

Will explain the situation below:

PART 1:
As had mentioned a few weeks ago, almost the whole customer communication team left in early December.

As some of you would understand, the quality of our communication is usually very high and the members are extremely well informed.

If a small part of the team leaves, the new members learn from the new ones and come to speed. This time, we did not have such an option.
The new members struggled, without being suitably mentored and the problem got magnified due to the pressure that came at the peak of the season.
So, some of the new members left too. It has been a struggle, but seems to be improving now slowly.

PART 2:
With the old team, their own processes and inter-division of task also went. Earlier, when they would inform a customer of a delivery date, they would do it with enough research and then also have a good follow-up mechanism.
The new members are still learning it. Due to this, the promised times are sometimes not realistic and sometimes pass without delivery.

One key member, who processes the old, complex orders, had to go on leave and has not been able to return for 3 weeks. Is expected back on the 10th.

PART 3:
In all this, we have insulated the tailoring team from any kind of delivery pressures. They continue to focus of quality so that it remains to the order it is expected to be.
Once an order goes into production, it flows smoothly through delivery. Only exceptions being if the fabric is unavailable to the tailors have a doubt.
The bottleneck remains the initiation, where we need to understand the order and document it for the tailor.

CONCLUSION:
Things are improving. I do not know when they will get back to normal. Looking at the backlog and the current team strength, we are expecting Feb end to come back to normal production-delivery cycles.

 

[JoeBlack0]

Thanks luxire for the tranparency, really appreciate it

 

[Blake Stitched Blues]

I'm a regular-ish Luxire customer and have never had to wait more than 3 weeks or so for a shirt. Trousers a little longer than that. Communication has always been quick and helpful so far. Any disappointments have been down to me doing dumb things like ordering MOP buttons and 3.5" BD collars on large-scale check flannel shirts.

@luxire Is there any particular name for the contrast stitching around the collar and placket on the shirt below? Can this be specified when placing an order?

 

[Caustic Man]

I’m a Luxire customer that is very happy. Yes, I’ve seen some delays, but I’ve never had to return a product. Fast turnaround is great but I’m more concerned with consistency. Keep improving and keep up the good work.

 

[patliean1]

Is it in poor taste to ask why almost the whole customer communication team left in early December?

 

[_coelho]

Can Luxire make garment-dyed, slightly faded nantucket red chinos?

 

[kapelo]

@luxire - I don’t fully agree with your explation. My October order has not been delivered yet although I’m returning customer and made very little changes to my already existing trouser pattern (such as -1cm from waist and + 1cm to cuff, thats about it), and still it has taken very long time and I’m also on my 3rd or 4th row of ”sorry we will deliver next week, I promise” now.

I love your products, but this level of issues with communication/production is starting to get unacceptable on my standards. I work on a big4 consulting company and a lot of my colleagues as well as clients have asked where I have gotten my so well fitting and good looking clothes, and thusfar I have recommended you guys until very recently as one my client’s told me that he had ordered from you and it has taken very long and and the customer service has been poor. As you probably understand that puts me into very awkward spot and undermines my authority.

So in a conclusion, I hope you will be able to fix things asap, and more importantly, don’t give any promises you know you cant’t keep in at least 99 % of the cases. It is always, and I can’t stress enough the word always, to say ”we’ll deliver asap” rather that saying ”you’ll get it next week” and then fail to do so on multiple occasions on regular basis. Very simple, yet extremely important customer service 101.

 

[luxire]

Is it in poor taste to ask why almost the whole customer communication team left in early December?

Can only be described as a set of coincidences. Almost each left for a different reason. Couple of them left for better career opportunities. Only the timing was unfortunate.
Our attrition rate has been quite low over the years. So, this was a bit of a shock. Did teach us something. Hopefully we have learnt.

 

[EZB]

I do agree that there have been some issues with delivery timelines and customer service.
Though more than 80% orders are being delivered on time, we are having problems with the complex ones, where we need an expert to get the order initiated and moving.

Will explain the situation below:

PART 1:
As had mentioned a few weeks ago, almost the whole customer communication team left in early December.

As some of you would understand, the quality of our communication is usually very high and the members are extremely well informed.

If a small part of the team leaves, the new members learn from the new ones and come to speed. This time, we did not have such an option.
The new members struggled, without being suitably mentored and the problem got magnified due to the pressure that came at the peak of the season.
So, some of the new members left too. It has been a struggle, but seems to be improving now slowly.

PART 2:
With the old team, their own processes and inter-division of task also went. Earlier, when they would inform a customer of a delivery date, they would do it with enough research and then also have a good follow-up mechanism.
The new members are still learning it. Due to this, the promised times are sometimes not realistic and sometimes pass without delivery.

One key member, who processes the old, complex orders, had to go on leave and has not been able to return for 3 weeks. Is expected back on the 10th.

PART 3:
In all this, we have insulated the tailoring team from any kind of delivery pressures. They continue to focus of quality so that it remains to the order it is expected to be.
Once an order goes into production, it flows smoothly through delivery. Only exceptions being if the fabric is unavailable to the tailors have a doubt.
The bottleneck remains the initiation, where we need to understand the order and document it for the tailor.

CONCLUSION:
Things are improving. I do not know when they will get back to normal. Looking at the backlog and the current team strength, we are expecting Feb end to come back to normal production-delivery cycles.

Thank you for detailed explanations. As difficult as they are to state, it is a big help for us to understand the whole picture, which means we can feel comfortable placing orders

 

[luxire]

@luxire - I don’t fully agree with your explation. My October order has not been delivered yet although I’m returning customer and made very little changes to my already existing trouser pattern (such as -1cm from waist and + 1cm to cuff, thats about it), and still it has taken very long time and I’m also on my 3rd or 4th row of ”sorry we will deliver next week, I promise” now.

I love your products, but this level of issues with communication/production is starting to get unacceptable on my standards. I work on a big4 consulting company and a lot of my colleagues as well as clients have asked where I have gotten my so well fitting and good looking clothes, and thusfar I have recommended you guys until very recently as one my client’s told me that he had ordered from you and it has taken very long and and the customer service has been poor. As you probably understand that puts me into very awkward spot and undermines my authority.

So in a conclusion, I hope you will be able to fix things asap, and more importantly, don’t give any promises you know you cant’t keep in at least 99 % of the cases. It is always, and I can’t stress enough the word always, to say ”we’ll deliver asap” rather that saying ”you’ll get it next week” and then fail to do so on multiple occasions on regular basis. Very simple, yet extremely important customer service 101.

I cannot disagree. As I had said it recently on this forum, some easy orders also suffer due to the practice of prioritizing. Ideally, strict "first-come-first-served" would result in least disappointment.
The only solution seems to be a really big and strong order initiation team. We have started hiring and training for it.

As for the service level, anything poor is poor. There cannot be excuses nor can we expect leniency. Yes, there are issues. It is not nice to lose customers. We are doing our best and are on our toes to fix these.

Your feedback is noted. For now, we are removing the 1week/3week flag from the site. We will use a different flag to differentiate.

 

[EZB]

I cannot disagree. As I had said it recently on this forum, some easy orders also suffer due to the practice of prioritizing. Ideally, strict "first-come-first-served" would result in least disappointment.
The only solution seems to be a really big and strong order initiation team. We have started hiring and training for it.

As for the service level, anything poor is poor. There cannot be excuses nor can we expect leniency. Yes, there are issues. It is not nice to lose customers. We are doing our best and are on our toes to fix these.

Your feedback is noted. For now, we are removing the 1week/3week flag from the site. We will use a different flag to differentiate.

First-come-first serve will actually cause other problems. You should hire somebody with knowledge about operations management and queuing theory. The problem can be mathematically modeled and solved

 

[luxire]

Can Luxire make garment-dyed, slightly faded nantucket red chinos?

Yes. Like we do the fade wash for jeans, we also do the wash for chinos. It is $20 additional and delivers good results.

 

[luxire]

I'm a regular-ish Luxire customer and have never had to wait more than 3 weeks or so for a shirt. Trousers a little longer than that. Communication has always been quick and helpful so far. Any disappointments have been down to me doing dumb things like ordering MOP buttons and 3.5" BD collars on large-scale check flannel shirts.

@luxire Is there any particular name for the contrast stitching around the collar and placket on the shirt below? Can this be specified when placing an order?

Best to ask for the thread color by name.
So, if you choose a blue fabric for shirt and want white thread stitching, just add to the notes: "Use white thread for stitching."

 

[CDRiis]

Yes. Like we do the fade wash for jeans, we also do the wash for chinos. It is $20 additional and delivers good results.

@luxire could you recommend a cloth for that specific case (Nantucket reds)? I'd be interested as well. Ideally a summer weight cloth.