Barrister and Mann

Hey Will, your intentions were good and your heart is pure, but they'll still come after you  I'm finding that shopify, which a lot of the vendors use, has its limitations.  For instance, I changed email addresses recently and went to update the various accounts I have with various vendors.  Its not possible for the user to do on a shopify storefront.  The vendor had to do it - what a hassle.  One vendor said the easiest way is to just register a new account.  amazon's was the most friendly but I think they built their own.  Its odd because it isn't outside the realm of possibility that a customer might want to update their personal info.  

You might want to have a chat with Joseph at The Italian Barber regarding how he handles the issue of folks snapping up his limited edition DE razors and flipping them on ebay at a hefty mark-up.  (correct me if I'm wrong Joseph) He will accept an email request for one of his limited edition razors and if and when they become available and if you are a regular customer in good standing, you might be allotted one.  Obviously this system has its limitations and wouldn't be manageable if the numbers were large but for limited editions it seems to work.  Why wouldn't you reward your best customers?   After all, they're the ones supporting you day in and day out throughout the year buying the normal run products.

Mark

Hey Will, your intentions were good and your heart is pure, but they'll still come after you  I'm finding that shopify, which a lot of the vendors use, has its limitations.  For instance, I changed email addresses recently and went to update the various accounts I have with various vendors.  Its not possible for the user to do on a shopify storefront.  The vendor had to do it - what a hassle.  One vendor said the easiest way is to just register a new account.  amazon's was the most friendly but I think they built their own.  Its odd because it isn't outside the realm of possibility that a customer might want to update their personal info.  

You might want to have a chat with Joseph at The Italian Barber regarding how he handles the issue of folks snapping up his limited edition DE razors and flipping them on ebay at a hefty mark-up.  (correct me if I'm wrong Joseph) He will accept an email request for one of his limited edition razors and if and when they become available and if you are a regular customer in good standing, you might be allotted one.  Obviously this system has its limitations and wouldn't be manageable if the numbers were large but for limited editions it seems to work.  Why wouldn't you reward your best customers?   After all, they're the ones supporting you day in and day out throughout the year buying the normal run products.

Mark

Mark,

That's an excellent point and I will probably ask Joseph how he handles such things.

Incidentally, I recently installed a plugin on my site that should allow you to edit your account details as necessary. I had no idea that they were not account-holder-editable until I found the app and was pretty amazed by such a shortcoming.

It's less even the crap that we're getting about it and more that it bothers me that people think that I would deliberately or negligently screw with them in such a fashion. I just spoke with the folks at Shopify and they seem pretty bewildered by it; my understanding is that it is being escalated directly to their development team. Hoping to get it resolved quickly and make sure that it never, ever happens again.

Hey Will, I actually do like the way Joe handles it- it puts the gear in the hands of those that will use and enjoy vs. flip. Also seems to have eliminated a lot of the blowback from those frustrated with limited availability etc.

Does seem fairly high touch but he, IMHO, does a great job.

Another option, similar to what one of the earlier community members mentioned, is establish a Barrister_N_Mann "waiting list" which essentially becomes a pre-order list for those committed. Has its own inherent problems managing but you would essentially end with a forecast for production which may be nice.

Finally, no matter what you do you can't please everybody. I would love a tub of Hallows. Didn't work out this time but I also get enjoyment hearing/reading the feedback from others online and it just whets my appetite for future releases. But then again, I tend to be an optimist

Keep up the great work!

Will, what is the Shopify plug in you refer to?  I had no idea either!

Will, what is the Shopify plug in you refer to?  I had no idea either!

It's called "Customr." You can find it in the app store.

From my recent experience trying to change my email address / logon at several different sites, there are a lot of vendors that weren't aware of that App. I think perhaps shopify needs to do a better job marketing the features of their storefront to their users.
Mark

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Will, I know its tough when you are trying to diligently serve your customer base and through no fault of your own sh*t happens and its sticking to you. The web can be a double edge sword - the world is your potential market. Can you serve the world if they all want your product? I doubt it. I've preached (sermonized??) in other posts that we all need to be a little kinder to one another and cut each other a little slack and if you saw the bad dad post, we also need to go a little kinder to ourselves. We're in this because we share a common interest and its supposed to be enjoyable. We can see from the posts on this site that vendors and artisans are regular people, eat, sleep, work, shave, repeat. So long as we're all trying our best and looking out for each other, we'll be fine.
Mark

Hey Will,

Quick question for you. Will you be making another run of the Cologne Russe soap? I intended on purchasing it a couple of weeks ago but was traveling for work so I did not want to order it knowing that it may be sitting in my mail box for a few days. I went in this afternoon and it appears to be sold out as well. I should have just ordered it when I had the chance.

Will, what is the Shopify plug in you refer to?  I had no idea either!

It's called "Customr." You can find it in the app store.

Awesome! Thank you!

Hey Will,

Quick question for you.  Will you be making another run of the Cologne Russe soap?  I intended on purchasing it a couple of weeks ago but was traveling for work so I did not want to order it knowing that it may be sitting in my mail box for a few days.  I went in this afternoon and it appears to be sold out as well.  I should have just ordered it when I had the chance.

For now, no. I was extremely pleased with how the soap turned out, but I'm afraid that it's tremendously complicated to make (the fragrance is about 30 ingredients) and was thus difficult to justify beyond its initial production run. However, we're looking for ways to simplify the mechanics a bit in order to bring it back, so stay tuned!

I had it in my cart when purchasing Hallows yet the Cologne Russe was the one that got pulled from my cart for inventory issues. #timing


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