Sew Essential Reviews 

I ordered some crepe fabric and thread. As I’ve ordered from them before and had good experiences I thought I’d make an account too. I got my order acknowledgment immediately, then the next day I went into my account to track it but nothing was in the ‘my orders’ section. I emailed them and got a reply the same day (within 3 hours) to say that the order was fine and to make sure I was logged into my account when ordering otherwise it goes through as a one off order. Seems I created the account after I’d ordered! So, my fault. The parcel arrived only a few days after ordering. So, another good/quick experience and excellent customer service from Irena.

I ordered a pattern from them on 5th May 2021. i got an email acknowledgement but since then have heard nothing.
I went into my account to check the order on my account . it said there were no orders but they I have charged my credit card £27. I emailed them to say that as it was taking so long I wanted to cancel the order but so far not received a reply.
I will not be ordering from them again and will be contacting my credit card company to get the money back

Ordered a dress pattern, on 24/04/22, payment taken
Immediately, still waiting for pattern to arrive.
No customer service available or reply to my email enquiry requesting a delivery date. Very disappointing.

Twice tried to purchase an item yesterday and the process took me all the way to the paypal payment where I went all the way to the "buy now" button on paypal, which I thought was the completion of the sale, only to be taken back to their website with no sale, no message and no way of knowing if or why the sale had gone through or not. I went elsewhere and bought the pattern online at another shop and paid with paypal..all fine. I wrote to them just to make sure they were not about to retrospectively charge me for the purchase and was told that "you have to fill in your details correctly as it is not an autofil. The county needs to be filled in as well as checking the shipping box." This is my take on it : It is usual that if there is some error either in the address or some other protocol which is a prerequisite to making a purchase then the error is flagged and the transaction held up at that stage, until the information is entered correctly. In this case the sale process continued, no error message was given or as far as I was aware flagged. This meant that the purchase went all the way through to the log in and completion of the sale in paypal. After completing the sale I was brought back to their website but there was no message or any hint of whether the sale had gone through. After trying this twice I gave up, checked that my paypal was not showing a purchase and went elsewhere. I have never had a sale go this far and not complete. This gives a bad impression.
I use google chrome and successfully bought the pattern elsewhere and used paypal to pay for it with no problem just minutes after leaving the site.
I strongly suggest that they introduce some better communication over the problem areas of their site : non autofill, need for a county as well as a relevant postcode, need for boxes to be checked etc. and build in a brake which stops the sale progressing until all their requirements are filled.

Ordered a dress mannequin and arrived very quickly and it looks and works great! Thank you

Ordered Dec 19th for an Xmas present and as of Jan 15th nothing has arrived and no communication

Not impressed with the service so far, I am two weeks into waiting for my product that was promised to be sent within 48 hours.

I have used sewessential many times for small haberdashery items, patterns, fabric and most recently a very fancy new sewing machine and over locker. The best thing about the company is the advice and wealth of knowledge not just about the products they were selling but about the projects I was attempting. I am an amateur sewer at best and having taken on a patchwork quilt found I was floundering with the type of batting I would need and also the correct foot for my sewing machine. Their advice meant that I purchased the right item first time and also didn’t waste any precious material by using the wrong foot for my machine and project. Thanks sewessential you are my first port of call for all my sewing needs.

Ok, only received one of the three items I ordered. Waited ages for the first item to appear, had marked 'to follow' on the packing note for the other two things. No direct contact though, had to email them in the end to see what was happening. Not really responsive enough and in the end I received a refund for the other two items but had to chase them for that too. If I hadn't been contacting them who knows how long they would have left things.

Placed my order on 26 November. It was an order in excess of £100 for a number of presser feet for my new Pfaff. From the outset the order has been beset with problems.
The website gives no indication as to whether the items are in stock when placing the order. No PayPal but verification received via Sage. When returned to the website, message showed “order not found”. I contacted direct & received a curt response that my order had been received - the order numberbore no correlation with that on the Sage confirmation & order did not show on my account page.
I had cause to chase order on 2 December. At this point I was told that half the items were not in stock & that the part order would be despatched by Friday 4th. On Wednesday 9th, having received nothing, I received a long explanation as to why I hadn’t received my order, but no evidence or record of either my order or part despatch. I was later advised that part of the order had indeed been despatched on Tuesday 8th & that the final 3 items had been received & were being despatched that day.
I was told that an auto-confirmation could not be generated that was connected with the official online order? This did not make sense, as my order was clearly an official online order as evidence by the Sage receipt.
Today Monday 14th I am still waiting for these extraordinarily expensive virtual presser feet processed through an unofficial online order!

I found the website easy to use and the postage cost was clear from the start. I ordered a sewing pattern and some fabric, the price was cheaper than on a rival sewing company website. The items were despatched within a couple of days and arrived in excellent condition and were as described . I had a query about my ordered and my email was answered to my satisfaction on the same day. I have faith in this company's customer service and would use again with confidence

Excellent service and range from Sew Essential. Delivery times are good and communication on deliveries excellent without being bombarded with emails.

Website easy to navigate with good filters.

Placed an order late last Thursday and had received it first thing Monday morning, amazing friendly staff and great customer service couldn't recommend enough!

This is my first order from this company & I am extremely disappointed. I ordered a Hemline folding cardboard pattern cutting board to be delivered to my daughter for a birthday present. It arrived damaged at the edges, in a way that clearly was done before shipping. I was very upset to have sent her a damaged present. Having read reviews here about the problems with returns, I feel it's not even worth trying to get it exchanged.

The staff were really helpful. When my item was not in stock, they offered me a more expensive alternative at no extra charge. They kept me really well informed at all times.

They are so lovely and helpful people ordered my my stuff on line and only took a day to get to me thank you so much for your hard work. Will definitely be using again

I have placed various orders with this business throughout the lockdown since I was in need of an online store given the closure of local sewing stores. I will try to keep this review as objective as possible:

pro:

- orders of small items and haberdashery were processed fine and delivered in a timely manner considering lockdown delays

- friendly tone if you can reach them

con:

- no order confirmations whatsoever

- I ordered two larger machines from them: the first had a warranty issue on the first day of use. It took me various email to reach them, and when I finally got through, they redirected me to the manufacturer even though I asked for a return (manufacturers can not handle returns). This was just an unnecessary delay, it passes the problems and work on to me and I perceive it as an act of mistrust - since it seems to be rare that those machines have faults, the employees obviously thought that I had caused the damage somehow. The manufacturer obviously sent me back to sewessential and I had to contact them a second time.

- Last but not least: I was so naïve to order an alternative machine from them after the first one was delivered faulty. Now, after only a few weeks, the knifes (it was an overlocker) became blunt which is absolutely not the standard as far as I can tell. I am not professional tailor, so I can not claim to have experience with a wide range of machines but given my research in the internet and my personal experience with my previous overlocker, these knifes should last years. Again, I tried to contact them, giving them the opportunity to get a picture of the problem and to work on a solution. But this time I did not even receive an answer. Update on the problem though: after disassembling the knifes and inspecting them under proper light it turns out that they are abraded over the whole of their length. This happens when they repeatedly rub against one another under the wrong angle and it makes them blunt. Hence, the only logical explanation for this is that the knifes were assembled slightly incorrectly so that such wear can happen. However, again, due to their complete lack of a response this time, the problem again gets pushed to me, the support of the manufacturer tells me again that I have to contact the seller directly and they can do nothing. This leaves me with the no other option but to buy knifes myself, which are not even in stock in any british online store (!). Extremely time consuming and the costs will be upon me as well, not to speak of the downtime of the machine.

Overall: very unprofessional and not customer friendly. None of the problems can be blamed on the lockdown or on simple delays. I will not order anything bigger than haberdashery from them if anything again. I have got in contact with two other british online stores in the meantime over lockdown period and they provided top quality service and support compared to this one. If I would treat my professional contacts like this in my work life, my career would be over, no matter what excuses (eg lockdown) there are.

Update: After I published the review, Sew Essential was quick to contact me and to resolve the issue.

pro: They got the issue resolved - I got new knifes free of charge and they also offered to take back the machine if I wanted to. Hence, one star more.

Con: Why just one star? For some reason they ignored what I wrote on two (!) occasions and hence talked about a scenario that did not happen, even after I corrected them. Furthermore, they suddenly contradicted their own statements from earlier and the manufacturers statement when bringing up issue #1 again. I understand that everyone is stressed during a lockdown, but this fails to leave a professional impression on me.

Such quick delivery on a very bulky item. Cheaper than I've found it elsewhere and no delivery charge. Can't rate them highly enough based on this order.

Love Sew Essential! Fantastic selection of products with everything you can think of to help with sewing projects and lovely, personal customer service.
Can't recommend highly enough!

I have only just come to learn of Sew Essential. I had bought a Janome overlocker about 18 months ago and after using up the thread which came pre-threaded on the machine, I got a bit stuck. I had been told about the trick of feeding the new thread through from the soon-to-run-out thread but I had not bargained on the fact that some of the cones will run out before the others (i.e. the upper and lower loopers). I then ended up getting very confused about which overlocking thread to buy. The stuff I bought did not work and I ended up snapping a needle. Trying to work out what I needed became a headache but Irena and Angela from Sew Essential were so helpful. They spent time with me on the phone explaining what I needed. It felt like what shopping used to be like. They were patient with my many questions and met my request to have my items sent out by Special Delivery. I will definitely be using Sew Essential again!