Is LYST Legit? Unveiling The Truth About The Fashion Marketplace

Lyst is a shopping app and fashion technology platform that provides customers with targeted and personalized shopping experiences using its proprietary data engine.

Despite being in existence since 2010, Lyst became an overnight success in 2020 after the pandemic made its business model more relevant and crucial than ever.

Since then, the platform’s popularity has continued to grow, attracting millions of shoppers from across the globe.

The convenience of shopping via Lyst combined with the amazing deals and prices it offers, has made Lyst one of the most frequented online fashion marketplaces around.

But great deals and recommendations haven’t stopped people, especially those who are yet to patronize the platform, from wondering: is Lyst legit? How can you trust that what you’re getting from the website is authentic?

This article is going to answer these questions and uncover the truth about Lyst by dissecting its user reviews, security measures, product quality, customer support, and more.

So if you’re having doubts about whether to buy from Lyst, check out our analysis before making a decision.

What is LYST?

Lyst is designed to function as an online marketplace where you can shop the latest fashion and accessories from stylish brands all over the world. However, Lyst differs from traditional marketplaces in one key aspect; it doesn’t have any inventory or stock.

What this means is Lyst isn’t the one selling the items it lists on its website or app. It is merely acting as a conduit between the brands making the products and the consumers who want to buy them.

At the moment, Lyst claims to connect shoppers to over 17,000 leading fashion brands and stores that they can shop from. Some of the brands available on Lyst include Gucci, Valentino, Prada, Monster, Fendi, Off-White, and Burberry.

When you search for an item like wristwatches for example, Lyst will show you results for all the retailers and brands on the platform that are selling wristwatches.

You can filter the results by gender, category, sale and discounts, price, shipping, color, material, designer, or stores to find a product that suits your desires.

You can also browse through curated collections or search for products from specific designers. After selecting a product, Lyst then shows you more product details as well as the official brand or retailer selling the item.

It also gives you the option to compare prices from other retailers and to buy directly from the brand (Shop Now) or via Lyst’s checkout service (Buy Now).

If you click Shop Now, Lyst will redirect you to the official site for the brand or retailer so you can place your order directly with them. At this point, Lyst’s job is done and the brand you’re buying from will be solely responsible for everything pertaining to your order going forward.

However, if you choose the Buy Now option to order via Lyst’s integrated checkout, the platform will help place your order with the brand and send you a confirmation email afterward.

Nonetheless, the retailer will still be handling shipping, tracking, returns, and order cancellations. The perk of using the integrated checkout feature is that you can rely on Lyst for assistance if you run into any issues with your order.

By serving as a search engine and helping shoppers find amazing fashion products from different brands, Lyst makes shopping more convenient.

Traditionally, if you wanted to shop from three brands, you would have to scurry from one website to the other and go through the process of browsing categories, adding things to your cart, adding delivery details, and making payments.

Lyst eliminates this challenge by housing different brands and stores under one platform. So you can shop from all your favorite brands at once from a single website.

There’s a wide range of fashion-oriented products for both men and women on Lyst including coats, wallets, pants, suits, sweaters, shoes, and shirts.

In addition, Lyst is a technology-heavy platform. Using a talented team composed mainly of data scientists, engineers, and product specialists, Lyst is built to do more than just list fashion products.

It also provides highly-personalized recommendations for each user based on their preferences, shopping history, and other variables.

Lyst also curates and authors detailed research and insights on the fashion industry via the Lyst Index and Year in Fashion report. So if you’re wondering what the hottest products and brands are in the world of fashion, Lyst has the answers.

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Popularity and user base of LYST

According to the company itself, over 150 million shoppers flock to Lyst each year to discover new fashion items and purchase from the 8,000,000+ items available on the platform.

If these numbers are true, it’d be impossible to dispute Lyst’s reign as one of the leading fashion websites in the world.

The massive user volume would also suggest that Lyst is a legit platform because millions of people will not keep returning to a website that has proven itself to be a scam.

However, it is worth noting that these quoted numbers are yet to be verified by external sources so it might be wise to take them with a grain of salt.

Based on PipeCandy’s data, Lyst enjoys significant website traffic with over 3,000,000 monthly total visits and 592,667 monthly unique visitors.

Similarweb’s data tells a more generous story of the fashion retailer’s popularity with monthly total visits pegged at 11.9 million as of May 2023.

Demographic information available on Similarweb also reveals that 62.64% of Lyst’s audience is female and most (43.24%) of the site’s traffic comes from the United States.

Addressing Legitimacy Concerns

No one wants to get defrauded so, understandably, you might not want to try purchasing items from a platform you suspect might be illegitimate. If you feel this way about Lyst, you’re not alone.

Since the pandemic reinvigorated Lyst’s brand awareness and popularity, there has been skepticism around the company’s reputation. Many consumers still don’t understand how the website and app work so it’s challenging for them to trust it.

Some of the common concerns consumers have about Lyst revolve around the platform’s trustworthiness, safety, and data security policies. We’re going to analyze Lyst based on these factors to determine whether the concerns are misplaced or justified.

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Lyst’s security measures and data protection policies

One of the signals of a company’s legitimacy is how seriously it approaches security, privacy, and data protection. Oftentimes, a fraudulent organization will not bother to create or share policies explaining how it safeguards the personal information of its users.

On the contrary, Lyst has comprehensive data protection policies that are clearly laid out on its website for everyone to see.

For starters, Lyst only shares users’ information like cookies, IP addresses, names, and credit card details with approved third parties such as partner brands, payment processing systems, affiliate networks, advertisers, and agents.

Lyst leverages firewalls, pseudonymization, encryption technology, and information access controls to protect the privacy and integrity of all the information you provide it with from unauthorized use and access.

Your user data is stored and hosted in compliance with ISO27001 standards. Also, Lyst only stores your information for as long as is necessary to enable it to provide its services to you, for as long as you have a Lyst account, or until you ask for your data to be deleted, whichever comes first.

Additionally, Lyst is GDPR-compliant which means that if you reside in the EU, you have the legal right to request access to copies of your personal data held by the company at any time.

Every Lyst user also has the right to update their account information, opt out of receiving marketing communication, and even ask for their data to be deleted.

The fact that Lyst is compliant with several global data protection regulations is proof that it is a legitimate business. You can take legal and disciplinary action against the company if you think it has acted in contravention of these data privacy laws.

Customer reviews and experiences with LYST

Lyst is accredited by Trustpilot in Europe. This institution is independent and dedicated to protecting consumers and ensuring they’re safe when buying from or using the services of businesses.

It’s a point in Lyst’s favor that it is considered a safe and trusted website by the software review platform. But how do the people who have purchased fashion items via Lyst feel about the service and what kind of feedback do they give about their experiences?

A cursory analysis of ratings and reviews available online indicates that most customers have positive things to say about Lyst and the times they have shopped from the fashion website.

On Sitejabber, Lyst has a rating of 2.96/5 from 26 reviews. This might seem low and discouraging but it’s actually pretty decent considering that only a few reviews have been recorded on the platform so far.

Justuseapp offers a more rounded view of what customers really think about Lyst. Based on the site’s analysis of 56,269 reviews across multiple platforms, Lyst has a 4.8/5 customer rating, 44.5/100 safety score, and 64.8/100 legitimacy score.

Reviews.io gives Lyst a good rating score of 3.8/5 based on 1,719 reviews and even goes on to state that 68% of reviewers recommend Lyst as a great platform for shopping for fashion pieces.

Reviews on Trustpilot also seem to approve of Lyst’s operations, which explains why Lyst currently has an impressive 4.2/5 rating on the platform based on 3,137 reviews. Of those reviews, 75% are 5-star reviews, with only a combined 11% attributed to 1-star and 2-star reviews.

The majority of reviews across all the above platforms are filled with customers talking about the good experiences they’ve had with Lyst.

The comments are also full of praise for Lyst’s bargain prices, speedy customer support, ease of shopping, massive range of products, and satisfying user experience.

Assessing the Authenticity and Quality of Products on Lyst

Are the items being sold on Lyst authentic or are you likely to end up with a fake in place of the original product you ordered? Is what you see, what you’re going to get? Can you bank on the quality of the items you order from the site?

If you’re wondering whether Lyst is legit, these questions have probably crossed your mind. Even if Lyst is a legitimate fashion retail platform, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be getting your money’s worth. Or does it?

The good news is that since Lyst partners directly with fashion brands, official stores, and accredited retailers, it pretty much guarantees that any item listed on the website is authentic.

The Prada bag you order from Lyst is exactly what is being sold by Prada on its website and in its brick-and-mortar stores, it is not a knockoff. The same is true for every other product listed on Lyst. What you see and pay for is what will be delivered to you.

When ordering luxury items that come with authenticity certificates, you will be issued the certificate as well so you can verify the item’s value.

Remember, Lyst does not stock any products, it simply helps you find what you’re looking for and connects you to the retailers and brands who make and sell the goods in question.

Examining the seller verification process on LYST

Lyst doesn’t just list any and every fashion brand’s products on the platform. Before it agrees to promote a brand’s products and list them in search results, the seller first has to apply to become a Lyst partner and get vetted by Lyst’s dedicated Partnerships team.

Once a partnership request is submitted, the team swings into action and begins investigating the designer or retailer to see if they’re a legitimate brand selling authentic items.

The team also looks into potential partners’ websites, user interfaces, and reviews to determine whether they provide great shopping experiences. Only brands and retailers that are deemed a good fit on all fronts are contacted and invited to join Lyst’s partner network.

Trustworthiness of Sellers and Transactions

Something else you need to consider before definitively answering the question “Is Lyst legit” is the trustworthiness of the brands the platform partners with and what recourse is available to you if something goes wrong with your order.

Exploring the reputation and credibility of LYST sellers

Lyst has a Partnerships team whose focus is to evaluate potential partners and ensure they are trustworthy businesses and not scams before onboarding them into the platform.

It is home to thousands of brands, all of which have been deemed reputable so the chances of finding a brand on Lyst are slim to none.

However, there have been some customer complaints against sellers on the platform for canceled orders, long delivery times, high shipping charges, delays in refunding payments, delivery of the wrong items, and other inconveniences.

While the existence of these negative reviews can dissuade more risk-averse customers from using Lyst, it can also be chalked up to the usual challenges of shopping online. These experiences are not unique to Lyst’s sellers.

Whether you choose to place your order through Lyst or not, the chances of your item not arriving on time or a brand sending you the wrong size, or refusing returns are never zero. They can still happen even with brands you trust and patronize frequently.

Investigating the security of payment transactions on LYST

Lyst accepts different billing methods including credit and debit cards and it partners with several payment processing companies like Klarna and Stripe to provide easy and secure payments.

According to Lyst’s terms and conditions, it takes reasonable care to make the website secure and ensure details about your payment transactions are kept private.

Lyst fully encrypts your customer and billing information before transmitting them and only uses the data to process the transaction you initiated and nothing more.

Analyzing Lyst’s User Experience and Customer Support

One of the first things you’ll notice when you visit the Lyst website or log into the mobile app is how minimalistic and user-friendly it is. Nothing feels out of place and there are only a few essential buttons to help you navigate the platform so you’re not going to get confused along the way.

The company has done a fantastic job providing shoppers with an amazing user experience and making it incredibly easy for them to find what they want or haven’t discovered yet.

This suggests that Lyst is indeed a legit website that cares about how it presents itself and has invested in making sure that all of its brand assets look professionally designed and well thought out.

Lyst also seems to take customer service very seriously. It strives to respond to messages and address customer concerns swiftly.

This zest for helping customers is evident in how quickly and frequently Lyst responds to individual comments left by unsatisfied customers on Trustpilot and other review sites.

The fashion shopping website gives users several means of getting in touch with the customer care team if they have concerns, questions, or complaints. You can reach out to Lyst’s customer support directly via email or by filling out a contact form.

Despite Lyst’s commitment to training great customer service, it has fallen short of this goal on several occasions. Some customers have complained about not getting a response after contacting the support team to table their issues.

Ease of returns, refunds, and exchanges on LYST

Most of the negative reviews for Lyst tend to revolve around the issue of returns and refunds. Sometimes customers order an item that happens to be sold out so their order is canceled but it takes weeks for them to get a refund.

Other times, customers might receive a product that doesn’t correspond with their order and try to initiate returns to no avail so they give Lyst a bad review.

Lyst has very clear policies for returns, refunds, and exchanges and it’s likely that these unhappy customers are not aware of them. As stated earlier, Lyst does not stock items or fulfill orders, it’s just a search engine to help you find and order products at competitive prices.

Based on this fact, Lyst’s policy emphasizes that it is not responsible for processing returns. So if you get the wrong or damaged product and you want to return it, you will have to contact the retailer that sold and shipped it to request an exchange or return.

This means that if your order was placed with Adidas, you have to visit the Adidas website and contact their customer support team to process the exchange, return, or refund.

Different brands have different returns and refund policies that are outside of Lyst’s control.

In the case of a refund, Lyst’s payment partner can only credit your account with the original payment after the retailer has received the item you returned and issued a refund accordingly.

How long this takes is up to the retailer and its policies, not Lyst.

However, if you’re having difficulties getting your request processed by the retailer, Lyst encourages you to contact their own customer reps so they can assist in expediting your complaints.

It doesn’t guarantee that it will get the results you want, but it promises to do everything within its power to help resolve issues you might have with your order.

Many customers seem to think that Lyst is responsible for returns and refunds which is why a lot of blame is heaped at its doorstep and not that of the retailer when an order goes wrong.

To avoid being disappointed, frustrated, or blindsided, you might want to check out the return and refund policy for the retailer or brand selling the product you want before you complete your order.

Recap – Is LYST Legal?

Our investigation reveals that Lyst has been in existence for over a decade. It is unlikely that a scam website would have survived this long. Not without the majority of people including investors and customers catching on to the grift and denouncing the company publicly.

Lyst has a well-designed website and app, transparent and published policies, a massive user base, effective security measures, and a swarm of customer reviews expressing satisfaction with the platform.

All of these are strong indicators of trustworthiness and legitimacy.

Sure, you may encounter issues like protracted delivery times and unsatisfactory products from time to time when you shop through Lyst. But that doesn’t automatically make Lyst a bad website that should be avoided.

As long as you take some time to research the partner brands and retailers you’re shopping from and understand their policies for cancellations, refunds, returns, and shipping, you can minimize or even eliminate displeasing outcomes.