Our online shop has been offering a fine selection of gothic clothing since Octobre 2002, going online shortly a year after we opened our first store in Luxemburg. Since that day our store has grown into one of the ten most popular gothic stores worldwide, continually improving our service and product range, adding new designs, new clothes and accessories all the time. We have earned our reputation through hard work and dedication, through commitment to our customers.

While the early days might seem far away, now that we have already reached and crossed the million visitor mark, we have lost none of our hunger and dedication to do things differently, to provide best service, great clothing and that at a fair price - and the will to bring that level of professionalism to the gothic scene everyone has wanted for so long.

Since the very first day in November 2001, when The Black Angel first opened it’s gothic clothing store, we have never cared about conventions and rules, things you’re supposed to do and say if you want to belong to the gothic underground scene - we have pursued our own aims and goals right form the start, made our own rules, and our aim has always been providing great clothing with great service. Professionalism is a word that sounds like commercial exploitation to some people in our scene, it is an evil word, it’s taboo - and we don’t care.

We don’t care because we believe that offering great customer service, quality control and quick delivery along with all the safety for your payment details and privacy you can get is not a bad thing. It is something everyone has the right to expect, and the gothic scene is not an exception to that. Because seriously, who enjoys waiting for 4-5 month before receiving their order or being let down?

So we don’t think professionalism is a bad word - we’re proud of it. So if some people might consider us sell-outs because of it, so be it, the other 99% percent appreciate our prompt and friendly service, and that’s why they keep ordering their gothic clothing from our online store.

Customer service is he one things making a difference between a happy and an unhappy customer, and it’s a difference we care about. That’s what we put all our efforts into - why? Because just like anybody else, as a private person, we buy things on internet too and know how frustrating bad service can be - we have experienced it firsthand! So when we founded this gothic store, we made an oath to make things differently, to make a shop we would enjoy buying from ourselves.

That’s why we have set ourselves goals to continually improve both our quality, our service and our speed. An in order to achieve these goals and stay on top in these fields, we have three main criteria we focus on:

• Quality - we only work with designers and labels who have a solid reputation for delivering quality goods and making original designs. There is so much copying going on in the gothic clothing scene, we proud ourselves in working with the original brands, the original creators of design, like Raven S.D.L., Sinister, Laughing Vampire, Aderlass, Mode Wichtig, Omen, Strange Ways and many more. These are all brands with many years of experience, the original creators of many popular designs and reputed for their quality. Don’t contend with cheap copies when you can get the originals.
  

• Speed - waiting for your order to be ready for shipping is frustrating. That’s why our second priority right after quality is speed. We work only with brands and labels able to supply us quickly should something be out of stock, and we carry a large stock ourselves too - at all times, we try to have every item available in every size we offer online. Over 85% of all orders are shipped within two weeks time, most even within three work days, and the remaining 15% of all orders in less than 4-8 weeks. When your order is not going to be ready within the first two weeks, our team will contact you and give you a status update.
  

• Simplicity - our website is kept simple in design and technology to warrant that it is easy to use for everyone, even those not so familiar with new technologies and surfing on internet. We avoid fancy flash-intros eating up your bandwidth and time because you’ve come to our website to see our gothic clothing, not the skills of our graphic designer.
  

We are very proud of the clothing we carry, because we know that the designers and brands we work with care as much for quality and unique designs as we do. We are proud to work with the big names in gothic clothing, and we are proud to carry the original designs, not some cheap copy.

Too many online shops have chosen to focus on offering incredibly cheap clothing at lowest prices, but the first casualties of this strategy are service and quality, and ultimately customer satisfaction. That’s why we have decided to do things differently. Sure, it is important to offer a reasonable price, but value-for-money is even more important. So while we try to keep prices at a reasonable level, we make sure that the quality and service will be above expectation.

We achieve the high level of quality of our clothing by focusing on 4 main criteria:

• Design - we only work with labels and designers who have proven themselves as creators of unique and individual clothing, and who have earned themselves a great reputation.

• Solidity - when we first order new clothing from a designer, every new piece that is added is checked by our quality control to check that quality Is up to our expectations. Once it has been added to our online collection, we can’t check every single piece, but we still make sample checks to make sure quality remains high.

• Fabric - you can achieve dramatic savings by lowering the quality of the fabric - but we don’t want any of that nonsense! We only add clothing to our online shop that is made of good quality.

• Uniqueness - creativity is not bestowed upon everybody, and quite many labels in the gothic scene „borrow“ their ideas from other designers. We condemn that attitude, and we have chosen only who work with labels who make their own designs, who have their own creative team. We value creativity, and we hope you do too.

We often get asked why we don’t carry any low-price items. The answer is easy - we don’t want to. Because we prefer delivering value-for-money, we believe in delivering service and quality and we believe that quality and price come at a price our customers are happy to pay - because they know they will get a lot for their money.

After all, you’re buying a product, not a price, and shouldn’t the properties of the product matter more than just the price tag? Sure, you can get a pair of black jeans at a discounter for as little as € 20, but compared to the clothing we carry in our gothic shop, the quality can’t compete, nor can the design. Great fit, elaborate ornaments, unique designs - these things all come at a price.

So when you next time look at our prices, you have to ask yourself, am I interested in a small price tag, or in quality, service and design? Because that’s what you get in our gothic shop, European quality clothing made by the most renowned labels from our scene, at a fair price. It’s your choice.

We make many efforts to make sure our customers don’t have to wait long before they get their order, or even better, that they don’t have to wait at all. We try to keep a large stock for all gothic clothes and accessories we sell online, even for the hard-to-find clothing made by smaller labels and designers, whenever it is possible. We strive to have all items in stock at all time or to make sure they’re available again in a matter of a few days. 80% of all orders are shipped out within the first two week after the order was placed, most other orders within 2-4 weeks, which makes us one of the fastest gothic stores on the web.

If an item of your order is out of stock, we have a well functioning logistic and partnership set up with the labels and designers we work with, guaranteeing fast restocking and shortest waiting times for our customers. Still, we are dependent on the ability of our business partners to re-supply us fast when a clothing item runs out of stock. This is why we carefully select whom we work with. Despite the precautions we take to avoid delays, should it still happen that we can’t send your clothes out right away, our team will contact you to let you know and find a solution or alternative together.

If you want to be really sure that the clothing you want to order is available in our gothic store, just contact our team and ask.

Our gothic store relies on modern security and safety technologies to make sure that our customers can buy their clothes in all safety from us. We rely on state-of-art technology at all levels, starting with the shop, the privacy of customer details and the security of the payment. For all these steps, we have chosen business partners who are established leaders in their field of activity, experts in e-commerce and who offer trusted and tried technology, like ShopFactory, Globecharge and Wirecard AG. These companies enable us to offer our customers the highest security standards available for online shopping, modern encryption technologies and secure data handling. These security measure in our gothic store allow our customers to buy clothing in all security, without any worries other than “will this top look good together with this skirt?”.

The biggest risk today on the internet is that you don’t know who is going to receive your personal details on the other end of the transaction, and what they are going to do with it. Posting your personal data on a website should not lead to suddenly receiving unwanted spam emails, yet this can happen if you don’t carefully pay attention. This is why we have our privacy notice, which clearly explains what The Black Angel does to insure that your personal data is handled safe and confidentially when buying clothing from our online store. You will never receive spam or unwanted emails from us.

Even more important is how your card details are handled: the entire transaction is handled securely between your bank and the payment gateway provided by Globecharge / Wirecard AG. This transaction is handled through a secure line between your computer and the gateway, guaranteeing highest security and confidentiality - even we, the merchant, don’t get to see your card details, we only get a transaction confirmation, no card details.

As we already mentioned in the previous paragraph, the biggest fear customers have when buying clothes and other goods online is, who is going to receive my card details and what are they going to do with it. This is a legit question, and you should always inquire when buying from a merchant you don’t know.

In the case of our gothic store, when you check out and want to pay with card for the clothes you have bought, you will get a secure connection (SSL/TSL) between your computer and our payment gateway, provided by Globecharge / Wirecard. The card details you enter are encrypted and can not be intercepted by third parties (unless it’s the CIA) - the confirmation of the transaction is then handled between your bank and Globecharge / Wirecard. If the transaction is successful, we receive a payment confirmation which does not include any card details. The three only people involved in your card processing is you, your bank, and Globecharge / Wirecard.

This procedure ensures that your card details are completely safe, safer than if you’d go to a local store and buy something - your wallet could be stolen on the way to the shop, but not during this online transaction.

So buying clothing online from our gothic store means maximum security for you!