Carved Angel products
Back in May, we were asked if we’d like to review some products from Achica. We were already familiar with the site, having used it ourselves on a number of occasions (with both good and bad experiences).
As part of our order, we received some lovely Carved Angel products, including the Carved Angel Melt All Butter Lemon Curd, the Gold Range Chocolate Mango Sensation, Caramelised Onion Confit and the Gold Range Chocolate Cherry Sensation.
The Chocolate Cherry Sensation is divine! We’ve used it in various ways – as a topping on cupcakes, served it with ice cream and used it as a layer in a layered knickerblocker glory-style dessert (along with fruit and yogurt). Likewise, the luxury lemon curd worked really well as a cake filling.
The caramelised onion confit is a great favourite and gorgeous with cheese and crackers.
All of the Carved Angel products were lovely and definitely things we’d buy again. Hopefully they’ll appear on offer on Achica again soon!
Achica Review
Positives About Achica
We really like the concept of Achica and the chance to buy luxury food, homeware, furniture and other items at a fraction of the usual price. They have some good offers and a lovely range of products, with offers running on a short term basis for a couple of days at a time.
Anyone can look at the website, but you have to sign up for free to become a member if you’d like to buy and see the prices.
The website itself is nicely designed and a good ‘shop window’ for what’s on offer.
Negatives About Achica
Sadly, there are downsides of Achica and things that are really letting them down.
The biggest issue – and a pretty crucial one for an online retailer – is whether or not you actually receive the items you order.
The other items we were due to review from Achica have never arrived and none of the items being reviewed over on Fresh Design Blog have arrived at all.
To give an idea of time, everything was ordered in May and it’s now the end of August (to be honest, we’re wondering now if they’ll ever arrive). Sadly, this is rather reminiscent of our personal experience of using Achica, which is that it’s now very hit and miss whether or not you end up receiving items you order.
We ordered from Achica in the early days, when they first started, and the service was perfect – items arrived quickly without any problems. Last autumn, we started getting issues with items arriving a lot later than their estimated delivery times, but they did at least turn up eventually.
Orders placed this year have been less successful. Only one item out of five on an order placed earlier this year arrived on time. On enquiry, one item turned out not to be available after all (even though it had been charged for) and was cancelled and another took a while to arrive.
The final two items took months and only finally arrived after multiple emails to customer services – and even then the products were not as originally ordered.
If you weren’t charged until items were despatched, it wouldn’t be quite so bad, but when you’ve paid for items with an indefinite arrival (or, in some cases, things that never arrive at all) it’s a very frustrating situation.
When would we use Achica?
If you’re not in a particular hurray for an item and would welcome the ability to save money, then we would still take a gamble and use Achica.
Personally, and given the issues experienced, we would however be hesitant to make big purchases from Achica, especially as you’re charged when you place the order.
Have you ordered from Achica? How have you found it? Please share your Achica shopping experiences!
