“Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.”
– Hector Garcia Puigcerver
Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Around November last year, a friend of mine tagged me in a post from a fitness account doing a giveaway for a set of sports bra and leggings. I’m sure like many women who saw the post, I went “damn free sportswear if I just share this post? Sign me up.” And so was the beginning of something too good to be true.
Firstly, when you go over to the advertised link, the free activewear came with a ‘shipping fee’ of around 30SGD. Now, the e-shopper in me knows that shipping from China can’t possibly cost that much, and I’m sure it wasn’t coming from the US. So it was clear they were trying to make as much profit off this launch as possible, which I don’t fault them for. I do fault them for the fact that the made explicit promises time and time again for stipulated arrival time, but they never seemed to meet. It surprised me that even though I was one of the first few to make my order (my friend had an even earlier order number and she still received hers late), I was part of the very last batch.
The lack of transparency as to how they were deciding which orders got fulfilled, just floored me. By order number? No. By size? Maybe. They were sending out their orders based on which size was manufactured, and yet they weren’t following a numeric order within the size orders. Not only is it confusing but it just raises some questions as to the fairness of it all. Some Facebook users even questioned if they were pushing up orders of those who made enough noise. Highly disappointed.
All in all, I just think whoever was part of this team was way in over their heads, shooting in too many directions. They could have done some prediction as to the quantity that they were going to pre-order and maybe have some of the stock in first before launching their campaign. Even the way that the checking of orders was initially handles was a mess. Customers were encouraged to join a Facebook group for more updates when that is probably one of the most chaotic methods I can think of for themselves and for the customers. They later released an excel sheet on the suggestion from one of the Facebook members.
Just my two cents worth and reflection on this debacle of a launch.
JAN ANNE 