A double whammy: one "Metro Gray", and one "Candy Blue" t-shirt from Greatcitees.com to celebrate the town of Napoleon in Ohio. As promised, they're decent, everyday t-shirts with a resilient design which - unlike most of the other tees I've reviewed - is not a transfer, but specially embedded ink. The shirts are 100% cotton, and are fairly heavy, but look understated and represent pretty good value at just $13 a piece plus p+p.
My only complaint about them is actually a complaint about the USPS delivery time, which cost me $12 and got me worried for the first time since I started reviewing Napoleon t-shirts last year. I placed my order on 27 October 2009, and the product shipped from the US to the Netherlands on 30 October. It then took until early December for me to receive the package, by which time I'd begun to think it would never turn up.
Now, I'm not blaming Greatcitees for this, as their website does specify that "estimated delivery time by USPS First Class International is 2-4 weeks", and this only took a week longer than that, but it does seem like a ridiculous amount of time to wait:
My only complaint about them is actually a complaint about the USPS delivery time, which cost me $12 and got me worried for the first time since I started reviewing Napoleon t-shirts last year. I placed my order on 27 October 2009, and the product shipped from the US to the Netherlands on 30 October. It then took until early December for me to receive the package, by which time I'd begun to think it would never turn up.
Now, I'm not blaming Greatcitees for this, as their website does specify that "estimated delivery time by USPS First Class International is 2-4 weeks", and this only took a week longer than that, but it does seem like a ridiculous amount of time to wait:
Distance from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Amsterdam, Netherlands: 3453.11 miles.What unsettled me further still was Greatcitees.com itself. In a way I think my doubts were a backhanded compliment to the sheer efficiency of the site, which offers a multitude of different options for each shirt. For the Napoleon, Ohio t-shirts I ordered, there were a choice of five different colours, 11 different sizes, and a total of 15 fonts. Trouble was that once I'd paid up, and started waiting, the site started to look very impersonal to me. Hundreds of different cities available in every combination you can think of... Too good to be true? I'll admit that for a few days, I began to wonder if it was a scam. Would I ever get the shirts? I was about to call the number listed on the site when a Google search revealed an @GreatCitees Twitter feed. Though locked, its very existence finally gave the site the human face it had been lacking, and I relaxed. Sure enough, the shirts arrived two days later.
Delivery time for this order: 5 weeks = 35 days = 840 hours
Average speed = 4.11 miles an hour.
I COULD HAVE WALKED IT FASTER (plus a bit of swimming...)
All told, I'm pleased with these t-shirts, and content in the knowledge that any time I need one, there are 825 different combinations of Napoleon t-shirts waiting for me at Greatcitees.com.
Total cost: $13.00 x 2 + $12.00 for international posting = $38.00
Delivery time: 5 weeks from USA to Europe.
Verdict: Good choices from a vast selection of custom t-shirts.
