Disclosure: There are affiliate/referral links in this post.
Thank you, Brandy, for keeping me up by letting me know about this email 🙂 I was all set to call it a night and not check my email box.
Readers – I am going to editorialize for a paragraph or a few about an email sent to everyone on the Decoterie email list. I want you to know that Subscriptionista has the blog set up where comments need to be approved. I am on EST and will do my best to approve them promptly. Our beloved Subscriptionista will be back in a few days. I’ve approved every comment regarding this box. I have never been contacted by Decoterie regarding my blog post or comments made on this blog.
I did my best in writing the review. I made sure to include pictures, details, and artist names. I did not like my variations, but did mention that this was of no fault of the curator.
I understand what it is like to run a business. The forums and blogs are lopsided in that the curators don’t have control over the information assimilated. This is difficult especially if there is misinformation involved. I do respectfully disagree about “redacted”. I read the posts before they were deleted. I also can see why Decoterie took offense. There are 2 sides to every story.
Here are links that may help you better understand this email. Decoterie Summer 2015 Full Spoilers and News explains how the items are made in the USA etc. This email is referenced in the email below. Decoterie – Summer Box 2015 Review is my review on the box.
If you decide to order the fall box after reading everything, please click here and use code 25CHECKOUT. This code expires 11:59pm on 7/28/15. I am going to assume that is Eastern Time.
What is your opinion of the letter? Do you feel curators should be allowed a voice on blogs and forums? Please comment below and anything else on your mind.
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I originally was so shocked I had no words. We returned to the LE headquarters after an amazing first day of curating our fall box from around the country (we may be in your city soon so follow us on instagram for coffee dates!) only to hear that the Internet had exploded with false information and petty insults about Decoterie. So now I have many words. This email is long but we had to send it. Due to our comments being blocked on forums and deleted by bloggers and no one standing up for the true information, we feel like we are being shut off from defending our own truth. You may either dislike this email or be understanding, but we cannot sit back and let our blood sweat and smiles go down the drain while the Internet anonymously attacks our hard work and the work of our design partners. Grab some wine, here we go! Let us start at the beginning. We never planned or intended to do a huge launch. We feel that home decor and lifestyle design is a very personal thing. And customer service was an absolute top priority above all else. It is how we run the Letitia Elizabeth luxury lifestyle brand seamlessly and with thousands of fans around the world. We wanted to bring that same level of attention to detail to Decoterie. By selecting only a small amount of bloggers to help spread the word and no marketing whatsoever, we aimed to have a small exclusive sign-up list so we could gather feedback and learn about our customers personally and improve future boxes thereafter. Unlike false information spreading online, we have absolutely not sent any free boxes to anyone or provided any special treatment. We simply asked a handful of like minded individuals to help spread the word. When Liz of My Subscription Addiction (MSA) heard about our box we were flattered that she was interested enough to purchase a subscription for herself. We did not expect that she wanted a discount code but when she asked to use our promotion that we had running for July 4 on her own website we hesitated but went ahead and offered it as it was very late in the day we did not expect or foresee what would happen next. We truly apologize as this was our first mistake that we regret. We did not reach out to her on our own for the very reason that we did not want a big following for the launch. The moment after we provided the code we were bombarded with requests and while that may seem like a good thing it is not what we intended to do since our sole focus was to perfect our customer service and shipping logistics. I want to apologize in advance for the complete transparent honesty I will have to use in this newsletter because we have not had anyone really standing up or defending us while our hands are tied. So the first truth we have to say is that even though we have tried repeatedly to post comments and respond with customer service on Liz’s blog they have been removed each time which has led to more frustration for customers. Truth #1 is that Liz originally asked for our 40% off discount code to be extended for 24 hours. That’s it – no more or no less. And when people did not realize that it meant the code expired 11:59pm naturally they were very upset that they missed such a huge promotion for an expensive box. We understand this because we too are subscription box fans and of course try to get bargains and deals when we can. There is one thing to be upset and another to feel entitled. We felt bad in the beginning and repeatedly had to keep offering the code for those who were a bit threatening and berating our customer service team. So we honored the code and our customer service team worked until 2 AM in the morning assisting customers even though the code had expired. But hundreds of people wanted this promotion and we simply cannot run a business by offering the code over and over again past expiration when that is not what we promised to Liz. We sincerely did our part and we did nothing wrong and honored the promotion to the expiration date that was agreed upon between both parties, however it took hours of emails back-and-forth and almost a week to even get Liz to post a correction that we indeed did not say it was a 48 hour sale but simply a 24 hour extension. One favor we did for a blog with a very big following turned out to bite us in the back. If we could do it again we would not have offered that promotion at all since people now think that we are being unfair or trying to take advantage. That was not our intent at all and truly apologize to anyone who was confused or still is upset for missing out on the sale.
Special treatment to us means everyone is special! Truth #2 is that YES everyone received the bonus item whihch was the stationery cards and no we will not be offering 40% off again or offering any special blogger partnerships. It leads to too much confusion and we have absolutely no control or allowance to respond to customers and most blogs and forums have a policy against companies commenting or responding. We really can understand a policy like that but it leaves a small company like ours feeling very isolated in terms of customer service which is very important to us. When you are in a situation where you can only listen and read people attacking your hard work without any response, that is a very one-sided and unfortunate way to run business. That is the industry we chose to enter so we just have to take it in stride, but now will be choosing our marketing efforts based on this new situation. With that said we arrive at truth #3 which is spoilers. If I had to take a guess I would say most people are upset about missing the promotion and the others are upset about not receiving what they incorrectly saw as spoilers. To this day as the owner of the company even I am confused because we only released two spoilers. There has been no other official spoilers outside of our Instagram account and our email newsletter. The very first spoiler was the personalized ceramic trays on instagram and email newsletter. The second was the nude vegetable tanned leather clutch bag on instagram only. We apologize to anyone that might have seen pictures of Letitia Elizabeth pillows and assumed that they would be getting those in their boxes. Or those fans who browsed the LE website and really took a liking to the pillows we offered there and assume that those same exact items would be in the boxes. On the one hand customers have been insulting the pricing of our pillows and saying they are too high, and on the other hand they want those pillows inside a $150 alongside other high end items. Logically we just cannot see how those two thoughts coexist. We cannot offer limited edition pillows or $200 pillows in a $150 box. We try to drive home the fact that we are not a company that produces items in China. These are made by real people with real hands right here in America who deserve a fair wage. We simply would be a charity at that point giving away product if we were to include those same pillows in these boxes. But we have definitely learned a lot with our first box and are excited to share that we will be using the same materials and design process for future boxes now that we have a good subscriber base behind us.
Truth #4 is again about pricing. We tried to explain this in the last email newsletter but seeing the amount of complaints, insults, and misunderstandings online we assume that not everyone got a chance to read it. So we will not repeat ourselves to annoy you, we simply ask you to please go to Instagram and look at our hashtag to read about our pricing information and the story behind the high price of our products. We do not even make a profit on our pillows. That is an absolute fact. We mark up just enough to be able to donate our goal amount to charities and to pay our overhead and employees but we do not currently have a profit margin. We hope to in the future as it will allow us to grow our business (and we are fans of the Shark Tank show so we know profit is everything!) but our price simply reflects making our items domestically and having a domestic team and in-house PR and marketing for a small company. Read more #truthytuesdays Truth #5 is about pricing in a different context. First off we have to put to rest this misunderstanding about Etsy. We actually were there when Etsy started and helped to make them what they are because it was a small idea born in Brooklyn that has now become the beast that you see today. As true design aficionados and big fans of independent creators we jumped at the chance to promote and support this concept years ago when it first came about. Etsy is not a place to demean work or craftsmanship of those who are on it. Infact our very expensive pillows are also on Etsy. Etsy is simply an outlet like any other and is used by everyone from stay-at-home moms buying $4 knitted mittens all the way up to buyers at huge department stores looking for new talent. Etsy does not mean you are less talented or less deserving of selling your items for a high price point so we really hope to educate those who have been attacking and offending those designers we partner with on Etsy. They have websites of their own but it does not come up in Google as easily as you’ll find them on Etsy when you’re searching for value information becaus Etsy is more popular in search engine results. We also have nothing to gain by lying or inflating our pricing. We had a surplus of absolutely lovely and generous people reaching out to us once they heard about our launch who offered very sound advice about subscription boxes. We definitely listened to everything and took it close to heart. We would not then go and do the absolute things they said not to do by inflating prices or lying about the price of our items in the box. Again this was explained in the last email newsletter but it seems that the amount of false information being commented online perhaps means many are not paying attention to the information we are trying to be transparent about. We know that reviewers will go to search for value of the items so by lying about our costs would really just set us up for failure. We absolutely have custom designed each and every piece in this box and so the items you see online are not going to be the true price. Everything from the fragrances in the candles to the amount of extra gold leaf on the coasters to the ceramic trays was custom designed. Even an extra inch is more work and more material that’s needed and a new fragrance is a new essential oil that had to be purchased and tested. And the volume and shipping and other things go into play means that the items have the very same value that was listed on the info card. That was the true value of these items. We very much stand by that, but apologize if we could have done better to explain this on the card and lead to less confusion. And we noticed some comments really hurtfully insulting our silk scarf pricing as well. We challenge anyone to find designer silk for less than $30 a yard. What you sometimes think is silk is actually polyester rayon. This is what we have been born to do, have been trained to do and have been doing for a living for over a decade. We know our industry inside and out and have the very best resources. And at this time as a small company you cannot buy certain items for a cheap price unless you buy them in volume and since we do not yet have 100,000 subscribers our cost is going to be a little bit higher. Silk is a very expensive fabric to produce and a custom printed one is even more. So we standby this pricing as well. However we absolutely would like to repeat that it is our most prized priority to make sure we work on the cost of our box, the cost of shipping and the cost of all of our items to be absolutely affordable in the very near future. We wish we could be like other boxes that charge $30 or $50 with items made in China inside, even our beloved French inspired boxes that are importing items from France are actually in turn having their items made in China. We stand by our ethos and mission to support made in America or locally designed products.
Our last truth is about our customers. I am a customer myself and we all deserve the right to our own opinion, but I truly hope we can learn to be more respectful of one another when voicing opinions online. I have been completely mortified, embarrassed, and saddened to see the way our customers and fans have behaved online. I have had to spend time writing apologetic emails to our design partners and vendors preparing them to see the most offensive insults about their work. We have answered numerous emails and done tons of customer service to try to educate our friends and customers about the items in the box in the process of how they were made. We do again apologize that her info card should have more information about this and we did note in our last email newsletter that we will definitely work to do that. However we still cannot understand the irony that those who signed up for cheaper boxes with cheap products are very excited and satisfied with them when they review it but when they get the same items in the box that is supposed to be luxury they are very offensive towards those items. Of course we are mostly speaking about the coasters in this case. For a box that costs $10 the coasters might have been more appreciated but since our box is $150 these items that were lovingly handmade by real artists and designers have gotten the worst treatment I have ever seen. The coasters were made in a process called papier-mâché. There are world renowned artists and sculptor’s using the same process. The fact that I had to apologize to our design partner that she would be reading reviews that called her work “childish” and “ugly”and “pathetic” has made me saddened to no end. There seems to be a discrepancy on with the word luxury actually means. One of my favorite books I highly recommend you read is actually called How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas. Luxury is not always about gold and diamonds and while we saw comments that we had to laugh off about our pillows being so expensive they might as well be made out of diamonds, that is not what luxury means. My intention with my “upscale” design process is to always have luxury mean something that feels like an heirloom. I’m a traditional old-school kind of girl that misses the days where you knew all of your makers by name who go and source the best quality and deliver it right in the village center on market day. That is what luxury means to me. Meaning and purpose and quality. So to say that papier-mâché is low-quality simply means that the person does not know what papier-mâché means. We would’ve loved to send our Letitia Elizabeth marble slab coasters but they were simply too heavy for this box and we are trying our best to keep shipping costs down. We will definitely try to include them in future boxes but we like this alternative of doing a marble design papier-mâché coaster yet apologize that it seems not everyone liked it as much as we did when we designed it. However the more sad part is the customers and fans who have emailed us to ask for explanations and more understanding of the process behind the box and were so happy with the response but then turned around and commented such horrible and negative things online. In particular we were absolutely horrified to see “redacted” on forums attacking not just our box but other customers as well who were trying to defend and voice how much they love the box. This behavior to us is absolutely appalling. We are glad that moderators stepped in and finally removed those comments from the forum because it seems to be getting out of hand and we wish more blogs and forums would step in to do the same kind of balancing act. There are other smaller examples and those customers know who they are, but we really truly hope that when we take the time to respond and use customer service hours to assist you that you don’t turn around with that same information and twist it to make negative comments online that will then make others join in to bash the box in a snowball effect. We want to take the time to apologize again about those who are still upset and resent the fact that they missed the promotion and are still commenting about that to this day. It was not our intention to exclude anyone but we did our part and simply could not keep extending the expiration date as it’s an unfair business practice. For those who were going to have the code honored and did not hear back from us please check your spam as we followed up with absolutely everyone, some of them we even called if we had phone numbers, but we did hear that our email was going to junk for a couple of days during that time period. We also try to do phone customer service at any time so feel free to reach out to us there as well as Instagram when you did not hear back it might simply be a technical difficulty. We cannot state how absolutely excited we are about the upcoming fall box and how we really are meeting so many amazing designers and bringing fantastic trends that will work for various personalities. We are excited for those who took the chance to subscribe for a year and thankfully those annual subscribers have really enjoyed their first box and sent such lovely praise to our team so we look forward to presenting the next one to them. Thank you again for welcoming us into your homes! As one finally to apologize and extend our gratitude for your initial support of our very passionate effort to fill the decor and lifestyle box space, we are offering one last 24 hour sale for 25% off any subscription. Enter code 25TODAY at checkout. This expires at 11:59pm Tuesday July 28. From your fellow box addict in crime,
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Hi subscriptionista!
This is Letitia Elizabeth. It’s quite passes my bed time as well but I really had to reach out and say thank you. I haven’t personally commented on a blog before but I get daily reports of all the goings ons for Decoterie and try to stay abreast of the online convos and you have absolutely done a terrific job. I’ve seen how you announced and then reviewed and shared your appreciation + dislike of the items and then saw you cancel/unsubscribe, and all of it you did so tastefully and respectfully that I had to say thank you. That is truly what our email was about. Simply trying to stay informed and be respectful and come to us when any issues of assistance is really needed instead of the blogs where we are not able to respond and really help (we are working to replace coasters for everyone as we now see it was inefficiently wrapped for the humidity of shipping). It kind of reminds me of Yelp because we find time to complain but when it comes to leaving good reviews not so much unless it’s universally beloved. I am guilty of this! And just want to say I was not “super pissed” or “have a melt down” or any of the other strange personal judgements now being casted my way. Just wanted to refresh the energy and clear up the false info about spoilers and pricing. I am a journalist before designing so if anyone believes in the right to voicing opinions by any means necessary you’re looking at her! xx
Hi Letitia,
Thank you for commenting and sharing your thoughts! I do want to clarify that I am writing as Sub Bella on Subscriptionista’s blog. Subscriptionista is the owner of the blog. It’s confusing right now because she has been traveling and unable to post reviews. She will be the new proud owner of the pillow 🙂
Hey all! Just a note on comments. i have it set up for moderation only because tons of spam, boxes trying to use this space as free advertising, and I personally like to reply to comments which is easiest to do through mod mode. Both me and Sub Bella have never deleted a comment that was from a real person and believe in freely expressing your opinion. I just have a hard time keeping up without being there to personally press OK.
This way of doing things might stop interesting discourse and so I’ll look into better avenues! We both have other full time jobs (I’ll be flying back to SD tomorrow!) and I’m not tech savvy lol
Sorry everyone we will work to get the kinks out! 😉
I can see why after seeing the spam this blog receives. I did receive a recommendation for a different commenting system that may work better. I think the personal touch is an important part of your blog.
I will totally change it if you find something better! I’m clueless lol
yay our comment was published! Thanks so much subscriptionista blog we really appreciate it. I’m with the west coast customer service team and love helping our subscribers so it means a lot to finally have a blog where we can help those who need assistance or get confused by any blog info since not everyone realized we have live chat support available. Also just want to confirm that indeed we received word we are announcing returns for all customers unhappy with their coasters, no questions asked, and we will be sending real marble from the Letitia Elizabeth collection instead! Thank you!
Kasey – That is generous of your company to send out Letitia Elizabeth Collection marble coasters. I look forward to the official announcement to subscribers. I’m going to pass on it because I do like the colors of the coasters that I received. I’m also no longer a subscriber.
I gave it some thought. I prefer curator/customer service comments here and not on my review. I can direct people to this thread if needed. I feel this is the best solution for the blog. It allows commenters to comment on the review. It allows a response here. It’s not a perfect solution, but at the same time I want commenters to feel comfortable making a comment. In a sense, they are our customers/subscribers. I want to do what is best for them.
Wow, this was a very interesting letter. It makes me appreciate Decoterie much more. It’s too expensive a box for me, but I very much appreciate that the products are made by American artists and artisans. If I had an extra $150, I’d buy it for that reason. For the time being I’m happy to spend a fraction of that on Little Lace Box.
Perhaps the real problem was in how customers understood the box. But really, I do think we should give her a break. She didn’t include any cheap custom jewelry and claimed it was worth $300.
I am surprised that Liz has not allowed her comments to be posted. Perhaps it’s an issue with how long they were? But Liz let the guy from Linen Crate post the same comment over and over and over, so I don’t see her being particularly censorious.
Good point on the jewelry!
It was a very very tough decision to include any mention of Liz in the email newsletter that we sent out. Of course she is a beloved blogger and her commenters will defend her over any box at any time which we understood while taking the risk to mention her. But again we are not simply making up this information as an excuse, we did try to resolve customer service issues via commenting on the blog and we were emailed by her which we still have this email where she recommended that we do not comment because it is seen as a defensive move by boxes. We insisted and commented anyway and brought it up again and she emailed that it would not be seen for a while since it was our first comment and they have to be manually approved. after a while we simply gave up and felt a little helpless as incorrect info on spoilers poured in and we had no email for commenters to answer questions individually. Definitely do not think that she did this maliciously at all, it probably was a simple oversight but we had to mention it because we very much did intend to be more active in our customer service instead of letting incorrect info get out of hand and upset potential subscribers. We do appreciate that she eventually stepped in and announced her mistake for the promo but no one saw it as it was done days too late. And again we never released a pillow spoiler but there are tons of new comments still stating that we “misled” and false advertised the box. Since we can’t, we just wanted to post that here and mentioned we never claimed any info about the marble coaster being marble or about pillows and apologize for any confusion or pictures people might’ve seen on other outlets. Thank you!!
She’s right. I was one of the bloggers they reached out to. They offered me half price on the box to do a “coming soon” and a review over the box. Honestly, they were super nice about the whole thing- And a lot less demanding than some boxes who have asked me to review. Even though I decided against buying and reviewing it, I can’t stress how polite they were.
Thank you for commenting! I love the name of your blog and posts about Italian meatballs and homemade Marinara sauce – yummy 🙂 I plan to make sauce and freeze it this year if I don’t lose my tomatoes to late blight. I did the last couple of years.
It will seriously blow your skirt up. Let me know how it goes! Good luck on the tomatoes- I may have to just raze my garden this year and go to a farmers market. The garden gods have not smiled upon me- Alas!
Correction. I went back and reread the emails. They offered me 50% off the first box, a code for my readers for 10% off, and then a free fall box once my review went live. I decided against participating, as I’ve never reviewed a box I didn’t buy, and they had to send me a correction on the initial coupon code. I get cagey.
They were very kind and stressed customer service, which makes me wonder about the comments regarding broken and missing items. I hope they get the proper stuff out to the proper folks- No one should get broken or missing items in a box, especially one this expensive.
I maintain my overall impression of Letitia and her team, in that they were quite lovely to correspond with. I have a pretty good feeling that they are going to come around and take care of the customer service issues.
Until then, may we all have a nice glass of wine, let the fires die down, and see what happens.
Okay,I’ll stop stalking this post now, cause there is so many better things to read on this site! I’m not getting work done today, obviously.
Lindsay – I hope you enjoy visiting on our site! I’ll be sure to update you if I make the sauce.
Girl, I’ll be sticking around over here for a hot minute. Y’all are hilarious! More cats please! And you can cheat on the sauce with canned tomatoes if you are feeling frisky (read: not wanting to waste your toiled tomatoes on sauce, cause they go so well with cheese)
I decided to unapprove the comments that may or may not be from Decoterie. I have not seen an announcement about the coasters. I do not wish to add to the disinformation and confusion surrounding the box.
I apologize to Decoterie if the comments are truly from their company. I also apologize to our readers if the comments are false.
I’m working behind the scenes to decide what to do about the comments. Thank you!
I reapproved the comments because the coaster email was sent out. I’m going to post the email to the blog. I might as well follow this to the end.
It would make me feel much better if Kasey emailed me to my address on file stating that the comments are from her company. I’m going to let the comments stand for now.
Whooooooa. Just whoa.
It had to take courage to write a letter like that, especially one that is so transparent about the issues they faced once what is arguably the most popular sub box blogger picked up the box and advertised it. Honestly this is not the first time a box advertised by Liz backfired in such a way, as Little Lace Box went a similar route though with disastrous PR (this is basically what started the trend of boxes not commenting on reviews). Kloverbox got hit pretty badly too with all the delays with their collaboration, and Liz’s 2nd Quarterly box wasn’t very well received.
Not that she isn’t a lovely woman and highly respected, but her following just has a lot of vicious backlash associated with it. After getting so many subscription boxes, the novelty and the new does wear off, so most people subscribe with very high expectations. There’s heavy blame put on the blogger too, if the box doesn’t deliver (Subaholic and Shikibox, and myself with Blue Velveteen back in the day). Another point too is when a box is priced above a specific threshold (let’s say 15$), the expectations are often unreachable. The box will never be “truly perfect,” and you’ll have commenters and critics who don’t see the nuance and curation and only focus on the items, picking them apart and devaluing them.
In short, people can and will be jerks. Especially to bloggers and the customer service team over the box for – any – reason – at – all.
I understand why Decoterie doesn’t want to advertise to bloggers anymore, and frankly I don’t blame them. Their box fills a very specific niche and honestly I felt it was beautifully done. Not necessarily the best, but their style isn’t the same as my own (as in glitter, glitter, and more glitter), so I wouldn’t expect the box to be a perfect home run for me each time. I actually like when a box gets to defend itself too, it shows that the box is paying attention to crucial feedback and correcting any misconceptions and misrepresentations, but this is me being a communications nerd. Good PR is a double edged sword.
I wish Decoterie all the luck in the world and I hope they become very successful. <3
Beeju – Astute observations. I remember the Blue Velveteen mess.
I realize here hours later that I probably should have worded my comment better; I’m not trying to make Liz out to be the bad guy here, I actually like her quite a bit, but she can’t control her readers or the fan base. I was more or less commenting on the inappropriateness of the e-mails their CS was getting in regards to extending the coupon and the spoilers. Though if you read the comment section of that MSA review they say that they’ve received questionable CS over it, but I digress.
MSA gives people an outlet, but that outlet is often very abused.
It’s difficult to understand such a convoluted situation. Either way I wish Decoterie and Liz the best.
While I understand there are challenges deciding what posts to approve, this entire dialogue is slanted one way. It seems very strange.
Lisa – Thank you for commenting. All comments are approved. The only comments that were in question were the ones from Decoterie. You are welcome to write dialogue that is different.
Hi Lisa! Sub Bella just wasn’t sure if the box company replies were authentically from the company or if they were someone trolling. That’s why she hid them for a spell.
We don’t delete comments here unless they are spam or box self promotion. I set it to mod every comment because I like to reply to people and address them. Since we both have full time jobs it can be tough to get to it.
I am going to ask the other bloggers for help via email so that everyone can post what they want without worry of spam.
We are a small quirky blog that has no vested interest in anything but to laugh and be absurd with you all! It’s totally my fault and not Sub Bella’s as she has really classed things up around here!
I do need to email Subscriptionista recommendations that I received from a well-respected blogger. I’ll try to send them to you later tonight if the boys cooperate.
That’s us! We want to make you laugh. This is the most serious I ever been on this blog. There’s not even a cat picture in this post.
Yeah just email when you have time. I hit taco Tuesday and the Margs got me pretty good!!! Lol but I know this out please review isn’t going to write itself…
LOL. Is it that bad?
I am posting here what I posted on MSA in regards to MSA/Liz being mentioned in the email. I did not run this through Grammarly so it may differ from my writing style on the blog.
“I want to clarify that I do not own the blog. I do post on the blog. The owner is traveling which is why there are posts from me only and no one else for the past week.
I also want everyone to know that nothing I wrote is disparaging to Liz or MSA. I’ve commented on Liz’s blog for over a year. I’ve supported her endeavors with collaborations with Quarterly and Kloverbox and also by buying off her links. Even though I finally decided to give a try blogging, it is different than Liz’s style. I don’t think anyone is going to be knocking on my door offering me free boxes anytime soon.
I did post the emails because I reviewed the box and felt it was fair to post the letters and let people respond to them, whether it was here on MSA or on the other blog. That does not mean I agree with what is written. I do think there is the risk of alienating subscribers by mentioning names and comments. It has been proven in the past that this does not go over well with commenters. Mentioning Liz and MSA is a poor decision in my eyes, but I am not the curator who works with the artists. The curator calculated the risk and felt it was necessary.
Ultimately, it all goes back to with what most companies are struggling to figure out. How do you handle online criticism and negative posts when you do not have a voice? It’s a subject that has come up before on the blog and will come up again.
As for the comments about Liz and her blog, it sounds like a huge miscommunication that led to a huge mess. I can’t see Liz wanted the company to fail or being deceptive because this is the type of box that would interest her. People can view the same situation differently.
Liz has dedicated blog followers that love her. I can see that in the posts that I read today. It’s a testimony to Liz’s work and reputation that commenters are supporting her.”
Id like to point out that online commenters use the anonymity of the internet to sometimes go to cruel lengths in putting someone down. I recently made a well thought out comment on another site regarding a political issue and I was hit with extremely rude replies including being called names. So I am sure being a “nameless, faceless, company” would really draw the wolves. I feel this new company is doing the right thing by explaining how they put the box together and replacing the paper coasters, in fact now I wish I had splurged on it myself but $150 is a bit much for me. I will be watching them for future spoilers!