What is Marisota?

Marisota is a mail-order retailer similar to Jacamo and SimplyBe, which allows customers to shop online for clothes, electricals, beauty products, and many more products.

These types of online-only stores are extremely popular, not just because of the wide range of products they offer, but also because of the saved time and effort visiting store after store.

Fast and cheap delivery has also bolstered these online stores by allowing them to get items out to customers as fast as the next morning after ordering.

Marisota is a part of the J D Williams franchise, which is ultimately owned by the N Brown Group.

Marisota has followed the successful business models created by the likes of Jacamo and SimplyBe under the J D Williams umbrella by focusing their efforts on providing the ultimate mail order service with quality products available at a quick delivery time and with options for credit purchases.

How Does Marisota's Credit Account Work?

Marisota’s credit accounts work similarly to other brands within the company, with customers wishing to purchase items on credit being required to fill in a standard online application that provides Marisota with their personal details, address history, income details, and permission to carry out a search on their credit file.

Using all this information, Marisota makes a decision on whether the customer is eligible for a credit account or not. If the customer is eligible for a credit account, it will also advise them of their credit limit.

Marisota’s credit accounts are subject to J D Williams’ interest rates, which is applied to all purchases. However, if you pay the full balance before the due date of the first statement, you won’t be charged any interest at all.

With a credit limit, you can shop any time using your balance, and the amount will be added to the monthly payment you’ll be required to pay. Your minimum payment will be either £5 or 4% of your outstanding balance, whichever is great.

If you miss a payment, you’ll be liable for a £12 late payment fee, and if you continue to miss payments without speaking to Marisota.

Your account could be closed, and your outstanding debt handed off to a third-party debt collection agency who will pursue you for the money, which could result in further fees being added and court action.

What Products Do Marisota Offer in Its Catalogue?

As we’ve mentioned, Marisota have a mammoth product range with everything from clothing to beauty products on offer, so we’ve broken them down into sections to explain a little more about the product ranges.

Clothing

Clothing is probably the biggest seller throughout all of the J D Williams brands, with different brands focusing on different demographics. However, Marisota provides a genuinely complete range for men, women, boys, and girls, in both fashionable, casual, and formal styles.

Buying expensive fashion online and with credit has become very popular in recent years, with people tending to want their products sooner rather than wait until payday to make the purchase. This has meant that credit demands have soared for mail order companies.

Footwear

Exclusive, modern, and downright strange footwears have dominated the fashion scene for a while now, and as the popularity grows with sneakerheads and collectors, the thirst for footwear grows.

Marisota provides a great range of products from elegant heels to casual trainers, and the range only continues to grow as more shoes are released over the years.

Beauty

Beauty products have probably never been as technical as they are today, with a lot of science, technology, and money being injected into the industry to support the growing number of innovative products that are released each year.

However, these products can also be relatively expensive, considering the number of different products that someone can use. This is where Marisota’s credit options come in handy, allowing you to purchase expensive goods but pay for them in a much more manageable fashion.

Home

More stores are beginning to stock homeware each year, with Marisota being a leading player in this market. The homeware section has products ranging from beds to BBQs and everything in between, ensuring a vast range of options for their customers in a wide array of styles.

Electricals

Similar to the homeware section, the electricals product range is a fairly new addition to most stores. However, it’s certainly a popular addition considering customers can use their credit limits to make costly electrical purchases on things like microwaves and TVs.

TV’s tend to be the most popular product in this section due to their high price and everchanging technology. The ever-growing demand for games consoles also proves to be a big hit on with Marisota, as they stock top of the range consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.

Toys & Games

Marisota stock a vast range of toys and games for children of all ages and even a few options for adults. With birthdays and Christmas proving to be such costly affairs, it’s never a bad idea to have a credit account with a store like Marisota to help you out with presents when you need it most!

What Marisota Catalogue Deals Are Available?

A real selling point of Marisota and similar mail-order online stores is the discounts, savings, and deals they can offer to their customers.

At any time, Marisota can run multiple deals and discounts, saving you tons on purchases. These can be a percentage of the price of all products, free shipping, interest-free credit purchases, or free gifts.

At the minute, Marisota’s Black Friday deals are live, offering unbelievable savings on their entire product range from clothing to toys. They also run regular new customer deals, and the one that’s available now is 20% off and free shipping for new customers to Marisota.

Benefits of Shopping at Marisota

There are many benefits that can be gained by shopping with Marisota from excellent customer service to quality products. Still, we’re going to delve a little deeper into the top three benefits here.

Save on Delivery With Its Delivery Subscription

Marisota offers a delivery subscription for the small price of £9.95, which allows customers unlimited and free delivery, across any of their delivery options, for 12 months.

This service is common amongst J D Williams’ brands and proves to be incredibly popular amongst its customers, especially considering standard delivery costs £3.99 itself.

Various Payment Options

Marisota is incredibly flexible when it comes to payment methods. Of course, you can pay for your products using a credit or debit card as you would almost anywhere else. There are also other payment methods that we will explore in a later section.

You can also pay for your products on a credit account, either paying off the balance before the due date to avoid paying any interest or by spreading the cost over the course of months.

Ongoing Discounts and Offers

Probably the best benefit of shopping with Marisota is the discounts and deals they offer. Not only are these deals in abundance throughout the year, but they are varied to ensure that each customer has the chance to capitalize on a deal that suits them.

These discounts and deals become really useful around Christmas time when money is usually tight for a lot of people.

Disadvantages of Shopping at Marisota

Just as there are plenty of benefits to shopping with Marisota, there are also a couple of drawbacks that you should be aware of. Here they are in a little more detail.

Interest is Paid on Outstanding Balances

Marisota charges their credit customers interest on all credit purchases.

This means that if you don’t pay your balance before the due date set on the statement, your purchases will have interest added to them.

If this interest is added to many of your purchases, you’ll be consistently paying over the recommended retail price on your products, which isn’t a great financial decision.

Credit Checks Are Required

To attain a credit account with Marisota, you’ll be required to allow them to carry out a credit search on your credit file in order to decide whether to offer you credit and if so, how much to grant you.

These searches leave a hard mark on your file that may not affect your score directly, but if too many are carried out in a short space of time can have a negative impact on your score.

Missed Payments Could Lead to Debt and a Bad Credit Score

If you find yourself unable to meet the demands of the credit agreement with Marisota, this will lead to debt issues.

In this instance, you will be pursued for the outstanding amounts by debt collection agencies, and your credit score will be severely damaged as a result.

What Payment Methods Do Marisota Accept?

Marisota ensures their brand is the most accessible in the industry with several payment methods for their consumers. We’ve explained them in a little more detail here:

  • Debit/Credit Card – The everyday way for people to buy anything nowadays is by credit or debit card. This also affords you with a safety net should any problems occur after the purchase, as a proof of purchase with your bank.
  • BACs Transfer – You can actually move the money into Marisota’s bank account to pay for items or to make a payment on your credit account if you wish to do it in this way.
  • Direct Debit – If you bought items on a credit account, you could pay for your monthly payment each month via Direct Debit to guarantee you never miss a payment.
  • Automated Payment Line – Marisota has an automated payment line that you can access over the phone for any case that you find yourself without an internet connection.
  • Payzone and Post Office – You can visit a post office or a Payzone location to pay off your account by taking a barcode you will have received with your items. It costs 45p to do so with the post office and 33p for Payzone.

Can I Open a Marisota Credit Account with Bad Credit?

Credit reports and scores are not an exact science in the sense that there are agreed threshold which you must achieve in order to attain credit.

Instead, Marisota will use the credit score as just a factor in their decision, although it’s important to know how much of a factor this plays in the decision.

If you have bad credit, you may struggle to attain credit anywhere, and much better use of your money would be to address any issues on your credit report and begin to repair them.

Sometimes your credit score can only be repaired by attaining small amounts of credit to demonstrate that you are able to manage credit well; this will improve your credit score and make it easier to attain credit in more places.

How Does Marisota's Delivery and Return Policies Work?

Marisota has a simple delivery policy that has three options available to customers. The first is standard delivery for £3.99, in which they state 80% of orders will reach customers the next day, and at least within 48 hours of ordering.

The second option is to Click & Collect, in which they will deliver your items to a pickup point of your choice. There will always be a collection point close by to you unless you live somewhere far out of town.

The last delivery option is the unlimited delivery service that we mentioned earlier, in which you pay £9.99 and enjoy free delivery for 12 months.

Due to the ongoing global pandemic, Marisota has increased their returns period to 60 days to allow for any delivery issues.

To return an item, you have many options, but each requires repacking the products, complete with the returns form that will be delivered with your items. Once they have been repackaged, you can send them back to Marisota through the following services free of charge:

  • Courier collection – You can use the website, phone line or call the courier directly to book a free pick up.
  • Drop the package off at any Post Office
  • Use the myHermes Parcelshop – You can find details on this service on the Hermes website
  • Drop off at any ASDA supermarket

Marisota make delivery and returning items really easy with a vast array of options to ensure the best experience for their customers.

Conclusion

Marisota has followed the same type of business model that the other successful J D Williams brands have, ensuring their own success as a result.

The mass of products that Marisota’s mail order catalogue offers ensures that customers can purchase everything in one online shopping trip unless they wish to have a more traditional paper catalogue in which they can apply for a Marisota catalogue request.

FAQs

Q: Can I get a Marisota personal credit account with no credit?

A: The only way to find out whether you’re eligible for a credit account with Marisota is to fill out an application form and see what the outcome is.

If you are declined, apply for a copy of your credit report to find out where the issue may be and begin to fix the problems before attempting to attain any credit elsewhere, as multiple searches in a short amount of time can harm your score further.

Q: How often do I need to make payments with a Marisota credit account?

A: With Marisota, you must pay either 4% of your outstanding balance of £5 each month, whichever one is greater. This is defined as your minimum payment and will be outlined in your statement when you receive it.

Q: How do Marisota hand out discounts?

A: Promotion codes for Marisota are the most common way of advertising and granting discounts to customers, but sometimes these discounts are added automatically at the checkout stage.

Keep a close eye on the total amount, and if you haven’t had a discount, you believe you should have received, look for a promotional code or contact Marisota.

Q: Does Marisota offer a buy now, pay later option?

A: Marisota only charges interest on any credit purchases if the balance isn’t paid off before the due date on the statement provided, so if you do pay off the balance, this acts as a buy now, pay later service.

Q: How do I increase my Marisota credit limit?

A: Marisota will review the credit limit you have on a regular basis to make a decision on whether they can offer you a larger limit; if they can, they will notify you by post or email to advise you of this and allow you a chance to decline the increase if you wish to do so.

Sources

  1. https://www.marisota.co.uk/
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_Brown_Group