Many of us have experienced a box that was delayed due to late product. How should a box handle it?
Should it go out without product? Bianca Jade Mizzfit Spring Quarterly 2015 box was sent out on time with a product missing. She received backlash from subscribers. Should it go out without the product with the promise of a later redemption. Bare Bliss tried that with the November 2014 box. Redemption was an issue. Should the box be sent late? Subscribers seem to be open to that option if they know what is going on.
Don’t leave us hanging!
Collectible Geek sent out an email today detailing a shipping delay and options to subscribers. I’m on the email list although I am not receiving this cache. Here it is:
“Update on the Romero Cache
Alright we have some bad news. The Romero Cache is going to be delayed.
I know they were supposed to go out this week. But our order from Mcfarlane Toys has been delayed, it was supposed to be here today, but won’t be here until the 19th of August.
I wish this wasn’t the case but it is. As such we understand that some if you might want a refund.
So your options are you can wait and we will ship your cache to you once we receive the product, and we will include a $5.00 coupon with your cache or you can request a refund.
Please forgive us we have no control over this issue.“
What do you think subscription boxes should do when there is a delay in product?
Collectible Geek is a repeat offender for this – I bought the Animation Cache back in early June and it’s delayed until September. The thing is, people don’t like when you screw around with their money and they especially don’t like to feel cheated, or unimportant. Being upfront and transparent about a shipping delay with a promise of an incentive for your patience (an extra item, coupon, free shipping, etc), is a good way to win over customers and improve loyalty.
Just shipping the box without a promised item is a bit taboo cause people WILL revolt over it, and the cost to “make it right,” could be detrimental to the company. Not saying anything and just letting the box sit there forever is the worst possible thing the company can do. Many companies try to skirt around this by printing pre-paid labels when the box doesn’t move for a week. That’s another quick way to infuriate customers and guarantee you get tons of e-mails.
I’ve seen boxes also delete comments asking where a box is, or there’s a box I subscribe to now that refuses to take responsibility for boxes lost by the post office. They make that excruciatingly clear every single e-mail they send.
I could go on and on and on about this topic lol… (media comm major, sorta my thing)
Beeju – You have great thoughts! Subscription boxes need to read this. Overall, it seems there are more delays this year than last year.
I didn’t realize the animation cache is delayed until September. We ordered a few in the beginning of the year without problems.
a little off topic but still relevant enough… I’m still waiting on my turquoise ring that was missing from my JUNE LLB… they asked me if i’d take the amethyst stone instead, i should have said yes, i didn’t realize it was going to take months. on their website, it’s still up for order, saying ships august 1… i guess i should bug them again about it?
Julie, I found LLB to be responsive when I was a subscriber. I thought that I read the August boxes went out. Maybe they got caught up in that. Send them an email and let us know how it goes.
I sent an e-mail, they’ve always been responsive… I told them to go ahead and send me the amethyst if it will take weeks longer, i freakin’ love that little ring and can’t wait. you should have seen me searching through all the packing paper for it, i was a mad woman.
I appreciated how Beautique handled this issue in July. They sent all customers an email explaining possible shipping delay of one item. Customers were offered a choice of having July sent without the item and then having them sent the one missing item when it came in or having the complete July sub mailed at one time. It actually turned out to be a non issue as item came in before all July bags were due to be shipped. But I really appreciated how they let us know of possible delay before the bags were due to be mailed and then going a step further and offering me a choice of how I wanted it handled – top customer service in my book.
Robin, that’s good to hear. I bought a couple Beautique head to toe bags before. They send the cutest stuff.
I’m not sure I know exactly how a sub box should deal with a late product delivery. I, personally, would rather that the boxes be delayed (if the delay would only be a few days up to two weeks; a month delay might be excessive) and complete. However, that tactic requires good communication from the box service. From my experiences Quarterly is not very good at communication and the most recent Bianca Jade box is a good example of that. According to Quarterly they didn’t receive enough product from one vendor to fulfill all of their orders so they started to ship out boxes that were complete and hold off on the remaining boxes until they received more product. This wouldn’t have been a big deal to me except the only reason I know that is what is happening is that I e-mailed them. I think that Quarterly should have reached out to the affected customers to let them know about the delay. I have now had to e-mail them twice about the whereabouts of my box and have been told that it should ship in the next few days. So now I have been trying to avoid spoilers for the box for over a week and will have to continue for at least another 12-15 days (I live on the west coast and the FedEx home delivery is really slow). I have heard the box is wonderful and am looking forward to it. I know Bianca Jade puts a ton of work into her boxes and I have loved all of them I have received (this will be my 3rd box).
I guess that my belief is that boxes should be sent as complete as possible and that people would be more likely to be happy if the sub box companies were better at communication. I also think that some people get overly nasty about hiccups like this though – there is a way to express displeasure without being unfriendly.
Sorry if this is rambling and makes no sense. I’m halfway through a road trip back home and am knackered.
Thanks for leaving this comment. This is good feedback that I will take to heart and share with Quarterly.
Bianca, thank you for commenting! I’m sorry I wasn’t able to review your box. Quarterly decided I didn’t have a subscription. I’m looking forward to your next box!
Looking forward to your next box (anything to get me to be excited to work out!) as well!
For now the only way I foresee myself getting juiced to go to the gym is if someone hid a bag of Cheetos under a machine and I could eat them if I found them! 😉
Thanks for stopping by!
I appreciate you reading and commenting. I loved my box when I received it (and am testing out the nail polish this week). You are a fantastic curator!
Communication is key, great comments everyone.