- You will no longer get 10 points per sample from your box when you review them. You will get 50 points for the first 5 samples you review, and that's it. Ever. There has been some confusion as to whether this meant 50 points per box, but here is a recent comment that the Birchbox rep made on their own Facebook post: "You’ll receive 10 points for the first 5 reviews you leave on or after July 11th. After you’ve left 5 reviews, you will no longer earn points for your sample reviews throughout your subscription. New subscribers will receive 10 points for the first 5 reviews they leave in their subscription. Please feel free to shoot us a private message and we'd love to chat! xx"
- All points now expire in 6 months, instead of a year.
- But you can now redeem your points in increments of ten, instead of 100.
- You still get 1 point for every $1 spent in the store.
I think this is going to tank Birchbox, which has been showing signs of struggling lately. The generous points system was one of the only things they had going for them during the last year or so, and it sounds like a lot of people aren't going to stick around now. Without it, they are just sending people a bunch of hotel toiletries and running a website that barely loads and a store without competitive pricing where everything is out of stock. I don't see much incentive to buy from Birchbox rather than Sephora or Ulta or Amazon.
Or maybe the store was a failed experiment and they are going to phase it out entirely and stick to the subscription service. [ETA: Apparently not--in fact, they are trying to expand their retail business.]
What do you think?
(Their Twitter is pretty funny now. Just a constant stream of, "Sorry to hear that! Keep in mind you still earn points from purchases!" Ha.)
(Their Twitter is pretty funny now. Just a constant stream of, "Sorry to hear that! Keep in mind you still earn points from purchases!" Ha.)
Totally agree! I've enjoyed my Birchbox sub for years, but thinking about cancelling it now. I haven't gotten any earth-shattering samples that changed my life and without the points system to incentivize me, I'm not sure why I'd use their online store instead of Sephora/Ulta/Memebox/Amazon/etc.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when I first subscribed way back when I was introduced to some new and interesting things, but the last round it was mostly about the points.
DeleteI'm glad I ended my subscription in May. I was tired of samples of lotions and shampoos I never used. The only product I will miss and will need to find an adequate replacement for is the Beauty Protector detangling leave in conditioner.
ReplyDeleteBtw, the first sentence of the article "...a trio of customers" before the store opened. I hope this wasn't referencing the grand opening! :-/
I got that Beauty Protector spray as a sample with an order a while back, and it's really nice! Is Birchbox the only place that sells it?
DeleteYes :-( I guess I'll need to stock up on 1oz bottles from eBay.
DeleteWell, you can still shop from Birchbox without a subscription, and you'll get the same 10% back in points from your purchases. Unless you are planning to boycott them.
DeleteMy subscription ends soon and I don't know if I'll renew. Mostly because I make a lot of the things I use and don't use makeup frequently. Bit of a bummer, because I love mystery mail. I get why they're doing this, though. Using saved points and choosing freebies, I got around $70 for about $14. So imagine if everyone was like that.
ReplyDeleteStill, I much prefer Birchbox to ipsy which is all kinds of disappointing.
Yeah, a couple of years ago I switched from Ipsy to Birchbox because I was getting sick of off-brand mascaras and black eyeliners and grape-flavored glitter lip balm. At first I really like Birchbox, and I got nice, big samples. But by the end of my subscription I had got Gilchrist & Soames products (hotel toiletries) in a full 50% of my boxes, and the other samples were going downhill too. But the points were always worth it, and I did like getting a surprise in the mail too.
DeleteSome people are calling this decision "business suicide" and they have a point (no pun intended). Point system was their main competitive advantage and I don't know how many subscribers Birchbox is going to keep without it. I was wondering for a while how Birchbox can afford such a generous rearward program. Apparently they can't. I totally understand business need to cut costs, but I'm surprised they didn't realize the need to do so earlier. Plus, they could have been more graceful about making changes. Like not telling subscribers that these changes are based on THEIR feedback and not bringing quality of the reviews into this discussion.
ReplyDelete