Your Online Order Has Been Delivered—and It’s Teeny Tiny
Sigrun Haraldsdottir knew something wasn’t right with her online order when she saw the delivered package fit inside her mailbox. Haraldsdottir, 57, had been looking to purchase a ramp for her 11-pound Yorkshire terrier, Emma, who needed some help hopping onto the sofa without hurting her joints. She saw just the thing advertised by a now-defunct website called penblast.com for $35 on Facebook.
She clicked “buy" from her home in Norway. Something very different arrived. The contraption might have been great if Emma was a hamster.
“When I opened it I didn’t understand what it was until I put it together," Haraldsdottir said. “It was just so tiny." Online shoppers—to add to the specters of shipping delays and front porch-theft—have a new annoyance: accidentally ordering doll-size versions of things. It turns out it’s not uncommon.
Online marketplaces sell tiny pink cowboy hats. They also sell miniature pencil sharpeners, palm-size kitchen utensils, scaled-down books and camping chairs so small they evoke the Stonehenge scene in “This Is Spinal Tap." Many of the minuscule objects aren’t clearly advertised. Emma Platt, 41, learned the hard way—twice.
The U.K.-based graphic designer in 2013 purchased what she thought was a small Christmas tree online and received a version “literally the size of my thumb," she said. Years passed, and the incident was almost forgotten. Then in September she bought a set of coat hangers labeled as “small" from the Chinese fashion site Shein for her part-time business selling secondhand children’s clothes.
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