END. Clothing review

END. started in 2005 as a single shop in Newcastle and has grown into one of the larger online destinations for menswear, with a substantial womenswear offer alongside it. The company behind it, Ashworth and Parker Limited, now runs stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, London and Milan. The thing it is known for hasn't changed much: a sharp eye for the labels that sit between luxury and streetwear, and a sneaker operation that turns limited releases into online raffles.

For American shoppers the question is less whether END. is good at choosing clothes, which it plainly is, than whether buying from a British retailer is worth the logistics. That comes down to two things: what happens on the way in, and what happens on the way back.

What it sells

The range runs from Stone Island, Acne Studios and Rick Owens through workwear labels like Carhartt WIP and Gramicci, outdoor brands such as Arc'teryx and Salomon, and a large sneaker section built around Nike, adidas, New Balance and Asics. There is also a lifestyle section with homeware, books and audio. END. describes its catalog as covering more than 800 brands.

The edit is the point. Plenty of US retailers sell the same headline names. END.'s advantage is in the second and third tier: smaller Japanese and British labels, collaborations and exclusives that are hard to find stateside. If you already shop SSENSE or Mr Porter, expect overlap at the top and real differences further down.

Materials, construction and fit

END. is a retailer, not a manufacturer, apart from its own END. Label line, so quality and fit belong to each brand rather than to END. That matters more than it sounds. A single order might combine Japanese sizing, Italian sizing and American sneaker sizing, and each will behave differently. The product pages are the place to check, and the most useful thing a buyer can bring is prior experience with the label.

Buyers regularly mention that items arrive well packed and in the condition expected, and complaints about counterfeit goods are notably absent from the reviews we read. That fits END.'s status as an authorized stockist for the brands it carries.

Shipping and duties

This is where END. does better than many overseas shops. Its US delivery page states that all shipments to the United States are delivery duty paid, with no additional charges on arrival. Orders go by FedEx, standard delivery is free above a spend threshold, a faster priority service is available for a fee, and every order has to be signed for.

Signature-on-delivery is a reasonable safeguard on expensive parcels, but it does mean someone has to be home, or you'll be collecting from a FedEx location.

Returns

END. gives customers 30 days from delivery to return an order for a refund, an exchange or store credit. The return only has to be in transit within those 30 days, not received. Once it arrives, END. says returns are usually processed within 3 to 7 working days, with refunds taking a few more days to reach the account.

The catch for American buyers is in the next line. END. says it does not currently cover return costs for international customers, so US shoppers send returns back to its warehouse in Washington, Tyne and Wear, at their own expense, with a completed returns form inside.

Tracked international postage on a pair of boots isn't trivial. In practice that turns END. into a shop for confident purchases rather than speculative ones. It also has a published fair-use policy: END. monitors return rates by account and says it may decline orders or close accounts where it sees excessive returns. Most customers will never come near that, but it confirms the store isn't built for order-two-keep-one shopping.

What customers report

END.'s Trustpilot profile has a very large volume of reviews, more than 134,000 when we checked, with an overall score of 4.3. Most of the praise is about speed: orders arriving within days, accurate items and good packaging.

Two caveats. END. has a claimed profile and invites customers to leave reviews, which tends to lift volume and lean scores positive. And at this scale even a small share of failures adds up to a lot of unhappy people. Reading the recent one- and two-star reviews, three patterns repeat:

• FedEx tracking that stops moving for a week or more, sometimes ending in a lost parcel and a refund rather than the item.
• Slow or templated replies from customer service, including live-chat promises of a quick response that didn't happen.
• Faulty or damaged items where the replacement turned out to be out of stock, even though the site still showed it as available.

None of these is unusual for a large cross-border retailer, but together they set expectations. END. is excellent when things go right, and slower than you'd like when they don't.

Pricing

Prices follow brand retail pricing, so END. is rarely the cheapest place to buy a widely stocked item. Its value is in access and in its sale periods, which are substantial. Because duties are built in, the price at checkout is the price you pay, which makes comparisons with US stores more honest than with overseas shops that charge on delivery.