Complaint Review: Bondi New York - New York New York

Be advised this is a very lengthy report which includes email correspondence from the company in question.

Bondi New York is a new company that was established in March 2013 selling nail polishes and polish subscription boxes.  It started off well enough with great customer service and a good product.  My first order was in July, which was for a prepaid year subscription (3 polishes and a beauty product every month).  One of Bondi's perks to being a subscriber is that you would be able to purchase add on boxes (again 3 polishes) for a discounted price. I personally made purchases from the spring/summer line with no issues at that point in time and received my August box as promised.  Additionally, Bondi had a contest where 5 winners would receive their first box free.  The winners did in fact receive the first box free from the Spring/Summer line of polishes.   

Fast forward to September, when subscribers received this email:

"We're getting ready to start shipping our September box!

We know many of you took advantage of a second box, in fact many of you ordered a third and a forth to complete your Fall by Bondi collection (thank you!)

It's nearly that time of the month when we close off and start getting ready for the October box. This is our final call for ordering an additional box or two (or more) from the September collection before this offer disappears faster than last weeks mani.

If you would like to order more colors from our forthcoming Fall/Winter collection in multiples of three, simply follow this link and check out with code FALLBYBONDI 

This will bring the price to $16 for three full sized polishes, saving of $21.50 on full retail price.

Your additional box order/s will ship at the same time as your regular subscription box.

Terms and conditions apply*.

With love from the team @ Bondi New York

*Additional box orders will ship at the same time as the primary subscription box. The additional box purchase is for three polishes only and does not include a beauty gift. No substitutions allowed. You must have an active subscription to be eligible for this promotion. Additional box orders must be placed before midnight EST on September 13th 2013. No additional coupons or discounts are permitted with the additional box. Coupons are not stackable."

Of course many subscribers, including myself, took advantage of the deal and ordered additional boxes. However, 9 days later customers received an email addressing issues with the September boxes.

"Bondi New York customers have come to recognize us for transparency and openness and this has enabled us to build a strong following of customers and fans who place their trust in our brand.

Recently, we have let you down in that transparency and openness. You will have noticed that there have been delays in responding to posts on here and on our social media channels. I acknowledge that our growth has caused some challenges and I take full responsibility as the guy in charge for this. We have been fast to address these through recruiting more staff and responding as promptly as possible via social media, email, telephone and our live chat service.

We are one of a small handful of subscription services that do not have millions of dollars in venture capital in the bank. This is a double edged sword as it means that we can provide a level of service which is not driven by one thing - squeezing as much revenue out of you as possible without a care for customer service. Equally we cannot be wreckless with money and hire hundreds of staff nor throw money at problems when they arise to buy ourselves out of the dog poop.

For us, this truly is our "glossy gate" moment.

The delay in the September box has been two fold. Firstly, the ability to customize your color choices has added a delay to shipping. I recently announced in a blog post that we will be moving our shipping date to the 15th of each month to allow a 14 day window for you to choose your colors and place an order and for us to pack and ship your box. In no way has the delay to the September box been related to the additional box orders as some have speculated.

Our biggest challenge and the cause of the delay for the September box has been the production of the Fall/Winter colors. Typically it takes 6-8 weeks for polish to be produced. I was not happy with the formulation of the collection and improved the formula to meet my expectations for wear. This lead to a delay, however I was confident we would meet a shipping date of this Friday.

Regrettably, we have been informed today that there is going to be a four week delay in us receiving this polish from the manufacturer on the West Coast of the US.

I am sharing this information here first as I consider each of you Bondi family. This is ahead of an email that will be going out later today to all of our subscribers.

What this means is that our September box will actually be shipping during the second week of October. This will also be the same time that we ship the October box. We were mindful of possible production issues for boxes going forward and have ensured that we included the new colors for October, November and December in the delivery we are now awaiting so that we are not back here in a months time with the same problems.

So to recap, what I am saying is that the September box will ship second week of October and the October box will ship out the same week.

Naturally I appreciate that as a customer, you may not be forgiving of this issue. What I will say is that I am not going to ship poor quality product and I stand by my decision to request a reformulation. It is disappointing that our manufacturer has not met their delivery deadline, however I take full responsibility for not being more transparent earlier in the process.

Given the challenges and issues at hand, it is only fair that I recognize and compenste you accordingly.

If you are a prepaid 3, 6 or 12 month customer, we have extended your subscription by one month with my compliments, in addition, within the next five days you will receive a voucher for $12.50 off your next order (excluding subscriptions).

For our month-to month subscription customers we will be issuing a $15 voucher for use with any purchase on our website (excluding subscriptions). If you would like to cancel your subscription and receive a refund, please email [email protected]. Please allow five business days for the refund to be processed and to receive confirmation. If you cancel your subscription, you will not receive the $15 voucher.

If you ordered a one time box, we will issue a $10 voucher for use against a future order. Please email [email protected] with your order number so that we may process this for you.

The team and I do not wish for you to cancel, we understand that you work hard for every dollar you spend with us (for our international customers pounds, euros, bhat etc!). We have been working hard behind the scenes to improve the service going forward. Some of these improvements include:

Redesigned packaging for a more luxurious experience (without an increase in price) and to protect the polish in transit - launching December 2013. Changing our shipping partner to FedEx from the September box to allow full tracking of the package (USPS will manage the final leg from FedEx depot to your door - continuing to support unionized, American jobs).

Full account service from November 2013 - including the ability to change your card information, skip, and select colors without needing to use coupon codes!

Making our Fall/Winter and subsequent collections permanently available for the season for you to choose from, in addition to introducing 3-6 fresh colors each month. Increasing staffing to ensure that telephone, email and live chat support is available 24/7/365 - effective from October 1st 2013.

Providing swatches for all new colors and comprehensive descriptions and shade clarification - effective from October 2013.

We have many more improvements based on your feedback over the past couple of months.

I hope that this post answers any questions that you have and sets out what has happened and what we are doing to compensate and to improve going forward. As always, I am available via email - [email protected] for any questions.

My team and I truly do value each and every customer. It is not easy letting you down, it makes us more determined to make sure it gets done right going forward."

Since customers were offered a discount voucher for the delay, many customers including myself again took advantage of the offer.  

So now here were are on Oct 16 and customers received this confirmation email:

"We're writing to provide you with an update on your subscription service with Bondi New York.