You Lose Some, You Win Some...

I've been "playing" this weird Bluefly.com sweepstakes game that involves... well, I'm not even sure what it involves really, but the point is that you can win "shopping sprees" on the site or the grande prize of a trip to the Project Runway finale. I admit, my initial interest in the contest was the main prize, but the thought of winning one of the smaller prizes intrigued me.

So I played the game. I clicked on the silly banner link they e-mailed to me every day for the past month (well, almost) and that took me to a flash game that made absolutely no sense and pretty much was a waste of my time. Well, today, I clicked on the link and... I didn't even get to the "game"... I just saw a screen that said "Congratulations, You Won a $100 Bluefly Shopping Spree."



According to the contest rules, I won "second prize." Over the entire period of the contest, "NINETY (90) SECOND PRIZES (two (2) per day)" would be awarded. Not too shabby, and a nice ending to a rough day...

Awesome, I thought, but what's the catch? (There's ALWAYS a catch, right?)

It turns out there isn't a catch, or at least I didn't let myself fall for it. The majority of items on the site are well over the $100 I won, and it's easy to want to buy multiple items because the shipping is "$7.65 for an order" of as many things as you want to buy. It seems this contest was rigged to give out this "prize" right after the Christmas shopping frenzy ended. Why not use this as a way to try to get shoppers to buy more of the items on the site?

Surely, I was tempted. After browsing through the site for a month I'm practically on a first-name basis with all the left-over designer items waiting the day when they will be adopted by fashion-forward savings feens. So it was tough to force myself to add just one item to my shopping cart and click purchase.

I settled on a fairly basic black cashmere shirt...



It's cute, right? A little interesting poof on the sleeve so I felt like I was getting something a little unique for my "prize" money, but without buying something that I'm never going to wear just because I had the extra cash to spend. I really hate shopping online for clothes because it takes me hours to find things that fit in the store, and it's a crap shoot at guessing what sizes in each designers specific measurements will fit my... uh... Rubenesque figure.

In the end, I spent an extra $26 that I didn't expect to be spending this evening. On one hand, that's kind of a dumb move, because I just spent $125 on Christmas gifts. But... it does feel good to get a $275 cashmere shirt for $26 (that's including shipping). Here's to hoping the shirt actually fits when it shows up!