Stellamelbourne Avis 

This shop seems like a scam. Parcel never arrived, and no cooperation to organise a refund for a no-show product. When asked, the customer service team would not provide details of the ‘courier’ my parcel was with, despite saying it was with them (for about 4 weeks) and I’ve not received correspondence from AusPost (apparently the partner courier according to the website) as it’s clearly not with them.

Phone number on the website does not exist, and through emails you will have (what sounds like) AI-generated responses.

Do not recommend buying from here, please be careful.

Some quick updates to clarify: have been told multiple times that there is nothing the company can do until the order is delivered, and only then can I request a refund. Questions about who the courier is with have been evaded (despite claiming the parcel is with a courier), and no correspondence from a courier like AusPost. Similar to Donna, they’ve now also said they’d issue a full refund if I remove my review - “we request that you remove the negative reviews you have posted. Once we have checked and confirmed their removal, we will immediately issue your full refund”. Please be careful.

Another update: I’ve also received a notification soon after the company’s reply on here that my parcel has been delivered (no correspondence still through a courier) even though no parcel has come in.

I ordered two items from Stella Melbourne, but only one arrived. The item I received was poor quality and significantly smaller than expected.

Despite advertising on their website what appears to be a standard returns and refund policy, my experience trying to arrange a return has been extremely disappointing.

When I contacted the company requesting a return and refund, I was offered a 20% store credit instead. They claimed that returning the item would likely be too expensive for me, but provided neither a return address nor any indication of the actual return costs.

When I challenged this response and raised concerns about the legitimacy of the business, they increased their offer to 35% partial refund without me having to return the items (no good to me if the items are unwearable as they don’t fit). Again, no practical return instructions were provided.

I also discovered that, despite the Melbourne branding, the business identifies itself as being operated by a company registered in the Netherlands and appears to ship from China.

When I originally posted this review they asked me to replace it with a positive review, and once I had done so, only then would they provide me a full refund.

They did have excellent communication and all my requests for assistance were responded to promptly. However my concerns aren't with whether they responded at all, it's with how they responded, that their responses were all focused on offering me something other than a full refund (without me doing something for them in return), and that due to their set-up, if I were choose to return the items, it was made clear this would be at great cost. This meant my only feasible option would be to keep something I couldn't wear, and accept a fraction of the cost I paid as a refund OR write a positive review and receive a full refund.

The combination of poor product quality, an as yet still undelivered item, a lack of transparency around returns, attempts to substitute store credit for a refund (despite a 30 day money back guarantee), and holding my refund to ransom pending a positive review has left me with very little confidence in this retailer.

I would strongly caution others to research this business carefully before purchasing. My experience has been frustrating and not what i would expect from an ethical retailer.