Lunch with Pipper Hudson, and now Consumer Talk featuring Wendy Nola and Wendy is back with us in studio this afternoon for a slightly different kind of show today, because rather than tack tackling a customer's conundrum of some sort, we're doing a more educational segment about how to read between the lines of online product listings to help us
properly understand what we are going to be getting. We have an expert guest who is going to guide us through this, who are introduced in first in a moment or two. But first, Wendy. Great to have you back with us as away, Thank you, Paper, good to be here, and to listeners. As always, if you want to join the conversation or comment on something you've heard, you are welcome to send a WhatsApp to seven two five six seven one five six seven or give us a call
on two one four four six five sixty seven. Look Wendy. Obviously, anyone who's bought items online knows that it can be a bit of a game of Russian roulette. It's not always easy to know whether you're getting what might look like a high quality product in the listing and it ends up junk or vice versa. We've covered lots of those incidents, the hose pipe that was meant to be
a gardena and ended up being rubbish, for example. The photos don't always tell us the full story, and often we don't get a lot of information to help put together a story either, do we no?
And for me, the absence of detail is always a red flag. But in cases where there is a wordy product description, I can't say that I fully grasped the significance of those technical descriptions. Really don't know. Does that mean it's good, does that mean it's average? What am I looking at here? And of course the downside of buying online is that you can't pick it up, try it on. In the case of clothing shoes, you can't feel the texture. I'm very tactile, and when it comes
to clothing, so away from clothing. In the case of cutlery, for example, weight is crucial, but of course you have no way of knowing what something weighs on the photograph, and so that's where the descriptions come in. And when there's very little description, then I think it's safe to assume and the prices on the cheaper side. I think it's safe to assume you're going to be getting some rather cheap, flimsy, liable to rust kind of cutlery rather than a great bargain.
So I was.
Particularly interested to learn recently that Cape Town based One Day Only's team does in many cases give products a thorough going over before putting them up as one of their three hundred daily deals.
And we're going to.
Share some of those insights because are then dug a bit further to say, oh, let's share your insights, because they can't put them in every listing. There's just you know,
space is an issue. So this is one that certainly if you're going to take notes, this is the show because there's going to be quite a lot of technical detail and you might not be in the market to buy that particular product category right now, but at some point you will be, and it'll be important helpful for you to know what the wants to look descriptions mean.
And it's going to be everything from towels to rugs to glass back containers, backpacks, et cetera. So I would I would echo Wendy's advice grab a pen and paper or grab the notepad on your app, your phone or your tablet, whatever it, maybe you take notes on because you might want to jot down a few of them. And Wendy Okay, So yeah, Wendy came to be saying last week, in fact, saying, I've just been at this presentation by one day only and was really intrigued by
by everything that I learned. I think it's information we should share. And at the time, Wendy, you actually said you weren't familiar with the with the platform, I.
Was familiar with it, but I'd never had any personal experience, and I I thought, maybe me check out it. I don't get complaints, which is usually a sign that they're doing a draft. I did do a search, and there were a couple that I'd missed. Shamefully, I missed a few which were sort of fairly minor literally two or three going back to twenty nineteen and this this retail site has been up since April of twenty ten, which is fifteen and half years, so that's pretty good going.
They had four ceales in that first month. Today, more than three hundred deals are loaded every every evening at midnight, from tech to furniture, cosmetics, shoes, underwear, pretty much the standard general fair that you'll get on in a number
of sites. So this is not so much about one day only, but more about my realization that what there is this vetting that happens, and in many cases they have a studio where they shoot their own take their own photos if they feel that the photographs that have been supplied don't give enough detail for potential customers, which I thought was interesting, But more than anything, I wanted to pick Director Lauren's brain in terms of how do we not just on this site, but in any rate
online retail site, how do we how do we interpret the technical stuff that that is there?
Okay, So again I want to emphasize this, This isn't a sponsored segment. The information you're going to hear is going to apply to any online shopping platform that you use, so I think important to emphasize that upfront. And it is a great pleasure to have with us one day only, Director Lori and fenter to share some of this insider knowledge because Laury and clearly your team takes it very seriously to give customers as much information as possible as
you can put into an individual listing. So thanks for taking the time to join us today and talk about how you do that.
Thanks Stepan, Wendy, it's great to be with you today.
Let's start with what Wendy has already said that a lack of product description of vague listing or description is a big red flag on any platform. Do you want to elaborate, Yeah, absolutely.
I think I think online sales are really really tricky in many many ways because you can't touch and feel, as Wendy was mentioning, you have to be able to sort of really understand a product very very well by the description. And if there is a lack of description, it generally means that people are either covering something or just actually haven't taken the time to put that detail in.
Because the only way that people can truly understand what makes one such cutgory different or one day other bag or one backpack different from another one is the product descriptions. And I mean, you know, for example, on our side, we sell the very cheap items, we sell the very expensive items, the beautiful branded items, and we sell everything in between. And how do how do we convey that? How do we explain that so that customers know and they actually get what they paid for?
And I think the very detailed photographs zooming in on stitching, and that kind of detail is often missing in some of these online listings is really important because the photograph can tell a story about quality in itself, not alone, but it certainly does give you a better idea of other quality of the product that's on sale.
Definitely, And as I say, it's not just to say this is a beautiful in credible expensive item, it is also to say, okay, cool, this is a really reasonably priced item. It's a ninety nine round item. But what you're going to get is you're going to get really good value for that ninety nine round. It is normally a three hundred round item, et cetera. So as much detail, as close up as we can take on photographs, more information we can put in the better.
Do you have a sense, Laurian, of which category of goods is most confusing to consumers or consumers have the least amount of knowledge about and so it would be then liable to make a purchase which turns out to be not what they were expecting. I mean, it's probably a difficult question for you because your team goes to a great lens to provide as much detail and clear photos,
et cetera. But from the feedback you've got, is there any category that stands out for you that's particularly problematic in terms of what people think they're getting and what they actually get.
I think clothing and homeware are probably the more difficult ones because people are very specific about fabrication, about feel, etc. But I think probably the biggest challenge is whether something is branded or non branded, because if you've got a sunlight soap, usins and sunlight soap, then it's just unenterpricing and it's an easy one to compare. I think when something is either non branded, generic or with an unknown brand, then it becomes so much more important to really go
into the details of what you're getting. And the reality is that you can in chat, YOUBT or Google and really find out a lot more information about those specific items. And obviously today we're here to discuss that as well, just to help to educate to get a little bit more information out there.
So what we're going to do today is run through a couple of categories where there are really interesting insights into things you might not know you need to look at, and we'll get through as many of them as we can in the time we've got available. When do do you want to start us off?
Yes, let's start with the outdoor umbrellas, where quality, it seems to me, is of autmost importance given that here in the Western Cape there are some to extreme weather in terms of both wind and sun. And funnily enough, I had a case recently I haven't taken it up where one of these umbrellas shot off and actually impaled the carbon it someonet parked nearby. Terrible, but yeah, they can do a lot of damage. But we're talking particularly here of you know, collapses and really fabric that's not
designed to deal with extreme weather. So what are the things we need to know, Lauren about outdoor umbrellas when we're looking to buy one beyond the price that is?
Yeah, so I think outdoor umbrellas really do vary in sturdiness based on their material frames. So there's ribs, you know, the poles, the fabric. You've got different kinds of frames, which can be aluminium or powder coated. Steel frames are stronger than plastic. You've got wooden frames, and it really depends on your use of what you're needing it for. If it's just for a little bit of outdoor use and you're mainly going to store indoors, then you don't
need something as hard wearing. But if you live at the coast, then you're going to need something that's really going to be much much more hard wearing. If you're going to be in Cape Town, obviously something has to be a lot stronger than plastic can extremely heavy. And then I think also the ribs support the canopy, and the more ribs you've got, the stronger the umbrella is going to be. So that's really an important fact for us to remember.
Can you talk us through how many ribs a premium umbrella would have versus not so premium one?
Yeah, so genuinely premium umbrella will have eight ribs and then your cheaper products have forty six. So that's a good good number to remember.
Right, So eight is the gold standard with lots of support. Okay, And what about the fabric.
Well, that also matters. You've got outo fabrics and much BEUV resistance and one hundred and eighty grams or a GSM or higher. That's a really good quality fabric that can last a little bit longer. Otherwise it fades really really quickly.
Yeah, sorry, Laurie, why'd you just explain what GSM means? Please?
It's the weight and the and the sort of weave of the fabric to higher the GSM. So something at one eighty and above is going to be a good quality and something that's like a one sixty GSM or one twenty GSM is a much lower weight, much thinner, slimsier fabric that is not going to be a shade resistance.
And if you don't see the GSM rather scroll along.
I would say, yes, yes, okay, okay. So the fabric is important, that the number of ribs is important, The substance that the pole and ribs are made out of is important, I would guess particularly and kept on what is waiting the thing down at the bottom of the pole is crucial. Lourrie Llorio, Well.
This week, this week, you know that you get a big web base rate. But this has to be disclosed and it's going to be heavy enough to prevent it from tipping and flying off and stabbing a carna bone. And if the listing claims wind resistance with art specifying the rip can't and the fabric weight and the base requirements, it might notwithstandards outdoor conditions, So you can always go back to an online site and ask for more information about the product.
That's a good point. Yes, it's to stop you saying please, can you tell me?
Yeah, how many routes and yeah? Ok some of the fabric?
Yeah okay, So that's that's the umbrella that's going over our heads. Let's talk next about what's going under our feet, Laurien. What do we need to look out for when buying something like a rug or carpet?
So, rags for carpets, the quality is determined by how they're made, where they're made, and what sort of knots they are. So if you've got something that's hand woven or hand knitted in a rag, that's your most premium option. Obviously, a single artisan can create the pattern by tying thousands of individual knots together, and a large rug can take three to six months to complete. I've just been to India last month and it was fascinating to watch them and weaving these things. Crazy.
Okay, then you're at the end of the of the scale. You've got the machine made ones.
Yeah you do. You've got machine made rugs and they're faster to produce. They're much more affordable. The plant patterns are then either printed on or they are mechanically woven injured. So that's really important. You need to know whether you're your pattern is printed on or if it's mechanically woven in. If it's printed, it's going to be less expensive than the woven and I.
Would imagine it also going to be a risk sorry that it starts to flake at some point in the future.
There is that risk, but again it's down to passing. So if you're wanting something that's going to just look great, you don't have a huge budget, and you wanted just to have it for a couple of years, then you know, go for a printed rug. But if you're wanting something that's going to be a piece that's going to be in your home for years and years and years, then you're going to want to go for something that's a higher quality one potentially of war, et cetera.
And outdoor rugs are a much bigger thing than they used to be. Yes, yeah, talk a little tell us that what we should be looking for there.
So outdoor rugs are incredible. I've seen some that look like beautiful indoor rugs but they can literally be outside in the rain, which is crazy. And one of the really exciting things that I saw now in India is that they are recycling your pet plastic bottles so that
they can handle sunlight, moisture, and rain, et cetera. But the thing is that it is absolutely revolutionizing the recycling industry and they're actually running here and they're actually running out of plastic bottles and instead of starting to import from all over the world. It's crazy.
Sure, Okay, well longer that continue. Please use as many as we contruct the way, Where do I know that the next category we're going to take a look at as one very close to your.
Home, very very close to my heart as a consumer journalist, leather lounge sureets going horribly wrong, peeling and cracking and all the rest. It is very much in my wheelhouse. I know that the L word is often very much misused, as in pu leather in other words, poly plastic in other words, Could you share some leather buying tips with our listeners please, Lorient.
Yeah, I think the other word is actually vegan leathers. It's interesting, it sounds amazing that it is also a plastic. Sometimes it's made of apple. There's all sorts of crazy leathers that they're making at the moment. But if we're talking sort of bovine leather, there is a very dramatic difference in quality in the grade of the leather. So full grain leather that's your highest brand. That's the top layer of the hide, and it's so strong, it's breathable,
it develops a beautiful natural patina over time. So that's your that's your.
Top top the most extensive.
Yes, then if you're going one down, you're going to go to a top grain leather. It's also high quality. It's a been lightly sanded, it's got a slightly more uniform surface. And then genuine leather is also a bit of a confusing term because it sounds premium, but that can sometimes be.
A lower layer of Okay, So so don't think that because it says genuine leather it's necessarily the best quality leather. It is it is it is bovine leather, but it might be a lesser quality from a lower layer, is what I'm hearing.
Do you just want to watch up when that's bonded level? Oh?
Sorry, no, And that's exactly what I want you to talk about and whether you would stock any of that on one day only or not.
We would. We would stock it as long as as long as it is declared, and that with bonded leather, it's the lowest quality. It's basically taking leather scraps and then crushing them up and then binding them together with a backing. The challenge with that is it does often crack and peel over time. So again, if you're just looking for a nice little fashion item and you still want that sort of smell and that feel and that
vibe of genuine leather, that's great. But if you're wanting something that's going to stand the taste of time, then you're going to want to have something. Yeah.
The problem for me with these products is that legally we have a six day warranty CPA Section fifty six warranty so that you can have recourse if it goes wrong within six months cracks, peels, whatever, But these products team to only do that long after six months or a year, eighteen months, two years, and then you've got no recourse.
Yeah, problem, okay, so very important.
There's one. There's one other point that's also important is that you know in South Africa We've got a lot of people where it's really important that they don't have pig leather, so it's really important as well that you can see there for SPURVN leathers, et cetera as well, so little factor they have in the next.
Okay, thank you so much. We're going to pause there to take a break for the eyewitness news team, but we will be back continuing this conversation. In the second half hour of Consumer Talk, we got to take a look at glass food containers, at cutlery, at towels, backpacks, and how else much we can fit in. I'll leave you though with one thought from Joan, which is a helpful tip that if you have a couple of large islets put into the fabric of your outdoor umbrella, it
helps a lot to prevent it from blowing away. Just gives the wind a place to blow through. That makes so much sense, Joan, rather than sort of say resistance exactly and taking flight like the sale of a yacht, So perhaps if you're having one manufactured for you, consider asking them to put in a few eyelids, Joan, that's a great tip. Thank you, cap Talk, Consumer Talk WhatsApp on O seven to two five six seven one five
six seven. Right, we are back with consumer talk. Wendy Nola with us in studio and joining us on the line, Lori and Fenter of One Day Only. And again I want to emphasize this is a the advice that is being shared here is specific, is not specific to one Day Only. Laurent is sharing insight with us that helps us understand, uh the listings that we see on any sales platform and know what to look for in the detail, which can give you hints as to the quality of
the item you're actually buying. So, if you're just tuning in now, you've missed our conversation about umbrellas and about rugs and carpets as well as leather and the different ways leather is marketed and what to look out for and what to be wary of. So if you missed that, please go and look for the podcast of the interview
to hear the bit that you missed. We will bring back Lourian Fenceer and continue the conversation Lourian with let's talk about glass food containers, a very popular way of you know, keeping leftovers in the fridge for example, or some people like to use them as their lunch pos there's huge variation in the prices, though, what should we be looking at to give us a sense of what is a good quality glass container and what's not so good quality?
Absolutely, I think a glass food containers are honestly one of our best sellers at the moment, which is crazy. They love everyone is food creeping like crazy. But I think the most important factor is the type of glass used. So Boroughs silicon glass is actually the premium option. It withstands extreme temperature changes, and I think this is really important.
You've got to find a glass that it's going to move from freezer to the oven without cracking, that can go into the dishwasher, because obviously these things are things we want to use. You know, you throw them into a lunch box, you throw them into a bag, and you want to make sure that they're going to be strong. And I think cheaper containers they can get made from soda arm glass and they are sensitive to heat, shark
and to breaking. So I think that's really its material always true, Okay, But I think the quality container is the actually should list temperature tolerances and safety compliants, and they should specify that they are lead free. And DPA free, so those are really important. And then the last point is that you must have really strong ceiling. It's it's super important. Lid's with locking clips and a silicon gasket are more air tighted and leak resistance and your fruit's going to last longer.
Silicon gasket being that learning that.
Looks like a sort of a rubber band around the room.
Yes, yes, that's the one.
Okay, So locking clips for a silicon gasket as part of the seal. And then look for let free, look for BPA free, and if you want the very best of the best, you're looking for Boris silicate glass. Thanks for the tips on that one. Wheny the next one, when I know that you went down a real rabbit hole, Well.
This actually started and I was sitting in the media conference a few weeks ago and the team, I can't even remember what the other product category was to demonstrate to us the kinds of vetting the team does, but the cutlery one stood out for me and that's what sent me down this rabbit hole. What do we need to know when shopping for cutlery online? And the answer to this question really came as was very illuminating to me, it was something that I hadn't really considered, to my
shame really, because I should have. So over to you, Laurent, please explain what those numbers mean. I'm never going to forget.
Yes, So, cutlery quality is determined by the stain is steel grade, and these grades are written as numbers, so you will see on them that you'll sometimes see eighteen ten or eighteen eight or eighteen zero. So the first number, that eighteen indicates chromium and that prevents rust, and the second number indicates how much nickel is in it. So if you've got a nought nickel, it's going to be less nickel, and if you've got a ten, it's going
to be more. But what the nickel does is it adds shine, so it makes it beautiful and shiny and lustrous, and it improves corrosion resistance. So eighteen ten is the highest quality. It's used in premium hospitality items. Eighteen eight is durable ideal for everyday use. That eighteen zero contains no knickel, so that's what actually marked tarnish over time.
And would that also be the very lightweight stuff there, No.
I think the other thing is just weight. It signals quality. So you've got the tube things, you've got the materials, and then you've got the weight. The heavier cutlery is forged, it's stronger, and then your sin lightweight pieces are going to bend easily. So if a listing doesn't state the grade, it's usually got a low nickel content.
What grade?
How do they specify grades with cutlery from high quality to lower quality?
No, it's just on the it's on the nickel and.
The okay got you, Yes, okay, I'll vouch for that. Having made the mistake of buying the less expensive light weight country for uh yeah, to go off to res it came back in all kinds of shapes that it did not leave in, is all I will say. Yeah.
I do want to say though, that there's spaceful for all. And you know, even with us, we do sell the expensive items and we sell the cheaper ones. And the reason is if you're going to have a Christmas party and you want to have beautiful gold cuttery and you want an amazing look, and you don't really it's not long cheers, not your Yeah, it's just a fashion item, right, then go for it and buy the cheap quality one.
And just take a bit of care, make sure that you don't believe it lying in water or leave it lying in the in the wet to the steam after you've dishwashers to wipe it.
That's a very good important Yeah. Those marks you get on the cuttery is because you've left them sitting there steaming and not drying immediately after dishwashing. Thanks for that. Okay, let's go next to one which I know. People get very very highly hit up with personal opinions on the quality of towels. Some people like them lightweight and quick, quick try. Some people want them spongy and fluffy and feeling like you've been wrapped in cotton.
And often a couple has to need the SAME's.
The challenge, if ever there was, What can you tell us about towels, Laurion, tour quality.
Is determined by the weight. That again that we're GSM. Your grandspaster, there you go and father competition competition, so your in terms your grands scream meat. It refers to your fabric density. Gers them obviously thicker, softer and more absorbent. So towels between a five hundred and a six fifty GSM they plush they're luxurious, and towels below four fifty GSM are thinner. They drive faster, but they must feel less premium.
Yeah, so it depends what you want. I mean you might not want You might enjoy that flush feel, but then get irritated because it doesn't seem to be drying your fis effectively. And then the thinner ones seem a bit cheap and nasty.
But they've got better absorbent some people, Laurien, what about the fact that not all cottons are equal.
Yes, I think this is really important. Cotton remains the gold standard and toils because it's naturally absorbent. Sometimes tiles have got to poliest in them that to me, they don't feel very nice. That you retain their color very well, but you know, I just don't like to feel of it at all. But Egyptian and Turkish cotton have longer fibers, which means that they can actually create a softer, more durable towel, and it can improve with washing. Microfiber tis yeah,
which are made from priest. They lightweight, they fast drying. It makes the ideal for gym or travel, but they definitely don't feel luxurious or premium.
I actually heard a tip on one of those reels, you know, hairdressers saying one of the mistakes you make with our hair, and they said, you women don't realize that the normal cotton towels do a lot of damage to your hair and that you should have a special microfiber towel for your hair, which I now do.
I won one of those lovely microfiber hoodies with the button on the front. Doing it right, doo new Okay, but I will vouce for the fact that it absorbs quickly, it dries quickly afterwards as well, and it doesn't damage the hair. Okay. So that's the consistency, the quality, the type of cotton that you're using or not cotton in this case. The other thing people often trip up on Olaurion is the size of the toils.
Yeah, so baths sheet is significantly larger than a standard bath towel. It provides more coverage. Again, it just feels so much more luxurious. And it's down to people's budgets. It's down to their preferences.
And how big washing machine is and you're washing bills.
Yes, it's really important that listings clearly state the GTM cotton type the size, just to really help customers understand what they're buying.
Join the conversation. Join the conversation you're with Kate sulk right. The conversation continues with Lorri and Fenter of One Day Only and Wendy Nola and before we go to the backpacks and travel mugs, a question in from Selwyn wanting input on jewelry. Sulwyn's saying customers often duped into buying what they think might be silver jewelry, but it's actually silver looking and what arrives is something else coated in rhodium,
for example. Laurian, I know Wendy was just saying one of the Chinese platforms tries to get away with that by saying silvery jewelry. Anything you'd like to say there about what you should be looking out for when buying jewelry.
Definitely, you know there's all sorts of things. I know for myself, my ear rings are incredibly, incredibly sensitive, Okay, so you know I'm always looking for gold plated. I am very very particular about what I'm looking for. I know that you know, for example, you can look for jewelry that is tarnish free, so that you can actually charnish resistance so that it doesn't tarnish. And yeah, you can you can have again, you can buy a cheap
jewelry and you can buy more expensive. It really does matter that you you know, whether it's got gold plating on it, whether it's got vrodium plating, whether it's got silver plating on it, and those sort of details are super important.
Okay, So read the list. Don't just assume because it looks silver in the photograph that it is genuine Silver's s ninety really.
Yeah, that's my understanding. Silver ninety seven. I know it's doing silver.
Okay, fantastic, And I think also what's really really important to note is that the silver price has gone through the roof for this year, okay, And so jewelry silver, jewelry, if it's genuine silver, is going to be shooting up in price.
Okay. So if it's if it's at a really really reasonable price, it's probably not silver, and you should be very very very suspicious. Okay, thanks for that so one, Thanks for flagging that one. Right back to the list we set up in advance for the next one, Laurent travel Mugs or the rage Everybody's trying to do there but for the planet and not re use disposable cups and bottles and have a reusable travel mug that goes with them. But what do we need to know when choosing one.
I think the phrase to look for there is double walled vacuum insulation. Vacuum ventilation mugs retain temperature for hours, while mugs at only state double walls do not, so it's really important. Also what the material is for your own safety. So the interior must be an eighteen slash eight food grade standard steel. It's similar ratings to the cutlery, and the lid should be pa free free and should
be leakproof. I don't know if you've had any trouble bags in your car and they've knocked over water all over your floor.
Well, rather water than protein shake or smoothie, I guess, but still it's not funny, and it's not funny if it gets near the electronics of the car either, or if it's hot water for that matter, not funny.
Yeah.
No, So the keyword there.
Is vacuum, and I didn't know that we know that by the double walled thing, But to look specifically for the word vacuum, I didn't know, so thank you for that, Lorian. And then finally, this strikes me as an era that one should really, you know, be careful when purchasing because you do rather want your backpacks to unless it's just a cheap little thing you're going to take on a beach walk with two things in it. You want your backpacks to be of a high quality. So how do
we go about doing that? What do we look for enlistings? Larian?
Well, I think you're so right. I did the Utter Trail with a burrowed backpack from a really kind friend of mine, but it was very old, and you know, it stuck into my back, it wasn't holding in the right temperate places, et cetera. And I have never had a more uncomfortable five days in my life. So it is something that's very close to mark off. But backbacks need to be assessed on their fabric density and they're stitching because you don't want any of the stitching to
come apart as you're busy hiking. You know you're carrying very heavy items and when things start to go wrong sometimes there three or four days away from help. So durable bags use ripstop, nilon or polyester graded between the six hundred density or twelve hundred density. So those are just words to look for, So ripstop nilon and six hundred D or twelve hundred D. And then the higher the number, the sick and tougher the fabric is. So
that's really important. And then reinforced stitching, padded straps and improved comfort and longevity make you know, really premium outdoor bags. And it really is about the economic support where the weight is going to sit on your back is really important.
And adjustment. I think there's also how much adjustment you can get. Definitely something which is really worth considering. And we heard about this off air. Is this zip to look for the YKK zips because I've thought something on one of those foreign retail sucks. It looked great and the product was fine, but the zip was so cheap and awful that it just ruined the experience, the lived experience of the item. So you just talk us through that a little bit Flurent.
Yeah, if something's got a y kksip, you know that it's going to be very good. I mean, there are other zips that can be very good, but it is really really important even if you get your item and it doesn't have a zip that you're happy with it to rather send it back because again, on a backpack and when you're hiking, if you're just doing a quick beach walk again, you know, you can buy a cheap
item then if that's its purpose, that's great. But if you're going on a big, proper high then you need something your zips are not going to break and even you're not going to come tumbling out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've just while we're thinking of zips, it's something to look at when buying handbags as well. The zip or whatever the closure is is take the time to zoom in on the photograph. If there isn't already a close up photograph of the closure of the bag, pay attention to it because you can absolutely ruin the bag. You can buy what looks like a very expensive, beautiful quality bag made for wonderful leather, and if it's got a dog cheap zip in it that's going to break,
you don't want to use the bag. Yeah, you're gonna have to then go and invest more when having as a replaced For example, and simplies to the Wabi talking bands, just off the top of my head, the strap on a bag. It's something I became aware of and almost fell for the last time I was overseas. I was gonna buy myself a nice bag to bring home, and the sort of over the shoulder strap was all folded up and neatly tied together, so all you could see
was a very short section of it. Thankfully, I said to the lady in the shop, I want to just open this up so I can see how long the strap is, only to discover that that little bit peaking out, which was beautifully leather coated, was the only piece of leather on the strap. Underneath it was basically a woven rope. But it's it's an important thing to look out for.
And if it's all particularly packaged up. And I know they're packaged like that because it's easy to transport that way, and to stuck on the shelf easier, but it's too easy to hide.
I'm yeah, I'm just looking this up on this bag upward from an artisan and on the what do you call it, the what's that area of the wilderness there? What's that the garden root? And it's it's so it's a beautiful little bag, and I'm looking at this ziph it's got a big KK on it.
Excellent. I think we can squeeze in one last listener question before we have to wrap up, Laurie and are somebody asking about the significance of thread count when choosing bedding.
Yes, so thread count is very very important. The higher the thread count, the better the quality. In general, sort of a cheaper quality is a two hundred thread count, you know, getting to something more premium is a three hundred, four hundred, five hundred thread count. So the higher the thread count the better, which is super important. But it is also really really important that you know that you don't just know the thread count is. It can also
be about the quality of the cotton. So if it's a long stap or cotton, it can outperform something with a much shorter five And again that one is one that often is not necessarily included in product spect I think also the weave is what matters, whether it's a pekale or a satin those sorts of words. You know, satin is something that's I've got sort of a shinier
feel to it. So it really is important that you really look into the details as much as possible, and you know these days with chat EPTE, with Google, it is important that we can really understand what are the things that we like it as we become more savvy on products, and you know, it makes us better consumers.
Indeed, Lauren Fencer, thank you so so much for helping with the consumer education this afternoon. Lots of deeply granular detail, but so important, and I hope listeners have been making notes. I've certainly been making notes on the towels because mine are looking thread best, so I know exactly what to look for and not look for. Thanks for the advice, Lauria, and appreciate your input on the show this afternoon, Wendy, as we appreciate yours as always, thank you so much.
Thanks Loan, keep well, Rien Fenter. One day, Oni and Wendy Nona reminded that you can reach out to her via her website Wendy Nola dot co, dotz a