Just before the holiday season (at our home in Massachusetts), we received a package from Zulily addressed to my mother-in-law, who lives in New York. She asked that I bring this package home, as she was not allowed to have it ship to New York State.
When I inquired further, she told me that she ordered a kids hoodie (for a 3-year-old), but Zulily has a policy of not shipping hoodie sweatshirts to New York State (but apparently they CAN ship to Massachusetts). The reason told to my MIL was because of changes in policy after the Boston bombing.
I am having difficulty trying to understand this reasoning on many levels. Apart from the customer service rep outright lying to my MIL, if this is indeed Zulily’s policy, it defies all rational reasoning.
Has anyone ever come across something like this? I mean, for years I couldn’t have wine delivered to my house in MA due to state law. Fortunately, I worked in CT, where it was legal to receive out of state wine. But in my opinion, Zulily’s policy makes no sense.
On a side-side note, I will take this honest shake-down over the sites that will let you browse, build an order… but not see shipping or any final total until you enter a page of registration and purchase information.
Where can zulily ship?
We ship to the United States (including all territories and APO/FPO/DPO addresses), Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom/Ireland and more than 100 additional countries. To view the products available to you, change the country where your purchases will be shipped most often by clicking on the flag icon located on the upper right corner of the zulily home page.
Yes, I also checked their web site, and there was no statement of this policy.
So I literally cross-examined my MIL like a lawyer deposing a hostile witness. She told me that when she went to place this order online, the system would not let her complete the order. She had to call Zulily’s customer service department, who explained the policy stated.
I guess its possible that the customer service rep was outright lying to her, but she did allow the kids hoodie to be shipped to MA. What possible benefit would Zulily gain by doing this?
Also, since the online website prevented this order from being processed, I have to believe that there is some validity to what the rep was saying. Which, again, is very ponderous to me.
I have an idea why she might have done it. I moved to NY last year and, in this state, we have to pay sales tax on most shipments. That wasn’t the case in my previous home state (Illinois). I wonder if your MIL’s ploy was just an effort to avoid paying the tax?
So the issue appears to be “children’s items with drawstrings.” I guess the law has something to do with accidental strangulation or something? Certainly nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing.
I’ll bet it has to do with the drawstrings. My friend was walking by a playground once when she heard cries for help. She ran over and saw that a small child wearing a hoodie had experienced partial strangulation when the strings of the garment had got caught up on the playground equipment. My friend, an emergency room nurse, did CPR and the child survived but it was a near-run thing.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a reg in New York prohibiting kids’ hoodies with strings, just as there are regs banning venetian blinds with cords from children’s bedrooms because of all the kids who have strangled in them.
That particular pamphlet makes no mention of when the law was put on the books, but definitely no earlier than 2010, since it’s from Andrew Cuomo’s tenure.
If you’re going to argue about a “nanny state,” I think claiming that a state child safety law is such a thing’s beginning will get you laughed out of the tea party social.
