Review on OOLY by Robert Davidson

I never heard about this store before, not even a little hint. With a rather annoying typo I found it via google and did some research if they are trustable or not. It turned out that the store had been on business for over 10 years now and have a good reputation. They also got their own domain which is more than you can say of many other stores out there.

After reading though the site I decided to give OOLY a chance since their shipping is free worldwide . You get three variants of colors in every marker-pen with at least more than 15 colors in both broad and fine version! How cool is that?



The shipping took exactly 4 weeks (ca 2-3 weeks for processing and 1 week for shipping) which is really cool. If you take into account that I ordered from Germany it's even better since German post's service sip big time!

When I finally got them, they came in a little recycled box with some airbags to protect them. On top was a sticker written: "pencils please - fragile". Indeed, this is pretty delicate stuff we're talking about here; markers are not toothpicks or pens but more like drinking straws filled with ink and all those color leades inside plus what would happen if something heavy falls directly onto them?

The markers are wrapped in paper and the caps covered with foil. I had high hopes for this one but my excitement was shifted to disappointment when I unwrapped them... they weren't even properly wrapped inside! Just like I got them directly from factory with no quality control at all.  For example, some of the color leades were broken or marker heads weren't attached to the body correctly (but still writeable). Some colors didn't even appear when tested against white card.

I guess the conclusion of this story is that you get what you pay for. The low price and free shipping sounds great, but when it comes to products like these I would rather spend a little more money on better quality than have markers break after just one use or colors not show up at all. If OOLY had done some quality control in their factory before sending them out they might be able to keep customers happy with high-quality materials instead of settling for lower standards because of cost.