Santal Auster New Release Date: March 14

There will be more aftershave, toner, and salve for sale at ChatillonLux.com on Saturday, March 17 at 11am Central as it sold out so quickly today. Sorry about that. I used historical sales trends to predict the stock, but demand went so much higher than expected. I apologize to anyone disappointed.

Its always great to see an artisan succeed, especially when its one of my favourite artisans , well actually two of my favourites (Chatillon Lux and Declaration Grooming) but why wouldn't you save yourself the frustration of trying to predict the unpredictable and go the pre-order route?

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to type out the myriad reasons why we don't, but there are many, many reasons. There are many things that can go wrong, vs. one thing on a regular sale: you miscalculate demand. Of course, we have been pretty spot on for almost all of our releases so the method has been working.

There will be more aftershave, toner, and salve for sale at ChatillonLux.com on Saturday, March 17 at 11am Central as it sold out so quickly today. Sorry about that. I used historical sales trends to predict the stock, but demand went so much higher than expected. I apologize to anyone disappointed.

Its always great to see an artisan succeed, especially when its one of my favourite artisans , well actually two of my favourites (Chatillon Lux and Declaration Grooming) but why wouldn't you save yourself the frustration of trying to predict the unpredictable and go the pre-order route?

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to type out the myriad reasons why we don't, but there are many, many reasons. There are many things that can go wrong, vs. one thing on a regular sale: you miscalculate demand. Of course, we have been pretty spot on for almost all of our releases so the method has been working.

Also, I would like to point out that I am not the soapmaker, so I can not speak about how Declaration does business. I only speak for myself. It would be presumptuous to say that I am speaking for any business but my own.

Its always great to see an artisan succeed, especially when its one of my favourite artisans , well actually two of my favourites (Chatillon Lux and Declaration Grooming) but why wouldn't you save yourself the frustration of trying to predict the unpredictable and go the pre-order route?

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to type out the myriad reasons why we don't, but there are many, many reasons. There are many things that can go wrong, vs. one thing on a regular sale: you miscalculate demand. Of course, we have been pretty spot on for almost all of our releases so the method has been working.

Also, I would like to point out that I am not the soapmaker, so I can not speak about how Declaration does business. I only speak for myself. It would be presumptuous to say that I am speaking for any business but my own.

Agreed. Although I would say, at the risk of sounding like a fan boy, you’re both doing just fine. Get some well deserved rest, and feel confident you made the right career choice.

Its always great to see an artisan succeed, especially when its one of my favourite artisans , well actually two of my favourites (Chatillon Lux and Declaration Grooming) but why wouldn't you save yourself the frustration of trying to predict the unpredictable and go the pre-order route?

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to type out the myriad reasons why we don't, but there are many, many reasons. There are many things that can go wrong, vs. one thing on a regular sale: you miscalculate demand. Of course, we have been pretty spot on for almost all of our releases so the method has been working.

Also, I would like to point out that I am not the soapmaker, so I can not speak about how Declaration does business. I only speak for myself. It would be presumptuous to say that I am speaking for any business but my own.

Hi Shawn, sorry, I'm not involved in any way on your side of the business so I can only imagine the challenges with various approaches. I in no way intended to be critical of either you, Scott or the the process, I was merely providing feedback as to how I feel it would would work best for me as a customer. Interestingly, of the 4 vendor/artisans where the SA release is/was available, there are 3 different approaches to the point of sale. CL and DG both used the date/time limited release approach, Top of the Chain is using the sign-up for email notification and he'll email you when the product is available and Canadian Beard & Blade (formerly Canadian Blade Co.) is using the pre-order approach (he's not getting the soap however). Of these three approaches my preferences would be the third approach (obviously) followed by the first approach - its fair enough to have a date/time shotgun start where everyone gets a shot. The second approach is my least favourite because of the uncertainty and the fact that if a person is away from their device for whatever reason they won't see the notification right away and in the case of high demand items will likely miss out.

As I've been typing this my brain has been thinking of the possible problems with pre-order - tell me if I'm missing anything:

1. Some people don't like the idea of paying now for something that won't be delivered for a month or two;

2. The time between the closing of the pre-order and the delivery is a problem because anything can happen such as some or all of your input suppliers could go out of business or change their products, you could get sick or have other pressing life situations happening;

3. The post office/courier company can lose/destroy the package with all of your scent to be used in the soaps;

4. People may want a refund if timing moves out too far which defeats the whole reason of a pre-order;

5. Once you have people's money, many of these people now have expectations and can behave unreasonably towards you; and,

6. Murphy's Law.

Generally speaking, the Limited Release sales process used by the various artisans has vastly improved since the early days with the unexpected demand and the system crashes and the acrimony. That pretty much never happens anymore. I've tried to keep a sense of humour about it all because at the end of the day its just shaving stuff and there'll be more coming along, its not like there's a shortage of it and even if there were, we'd just grow beards

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to type out the myriad reasons why we don't, but there are many, many reasons. There are many things that can go wrong, vs. one thing on a regular sale: you miscalculate demand. Of course, we have been pretty spot on for almost all of our releases so the method has been working.

Also, I would like to point out that I am not the soapmaker, so I can not speak about how Declaration does business. I only speak for myself. It would be presumptuous to say that I am speaking for any business but my own.

Hi Shawn, sorry, I'm not involved in any way on your side of the business so I can only imagine the challenges with various approaches. I in no way intended to be critical of either you, Scott or the the process, I was merely providing feedback as to how I feel it would would work best for me as a customer. Interestingly, of the 4 vendor/artisans where the SA release is/was available, there are 3 different approaches to the point of sale. CL and DG both used the date/time limited release approach, Top of the Chain is using the sign-up for email notification and he'll email you when the product is available and Canadian Beard & Blade (formerly Canadian Blade Co.) is using the pre-order approach (he's not getting the soap however). Of these three approaches my preferences would be the third approach (obviously) followed by the first approach - its fair enough to have a date/time shotgun start where everyone gets a shot. The second approach is my least favourite because of the uncertainty and the fact that if a person is away from their device for whatever reason they won't see the notification right away and in the case of high demand items will likely miss out.

As I've been typing this my brain has been thinking of the possible problems with pre-order - tell me if I'm missing anything:

1. Some people don't like the idea of paying now for something that won't be delivered for a month or two;

2. The time between the closing of the pre-order and the delivery is a problem because anything can happen such as some or all of your input suppliers could go out of business or change their products, you could get sick or have other pressing life situations happening;

3. The post office/courier company can lose/destroy the package with all of your scent to be used in the soaps;

4. People may want a refund if timing moves out too far which defeats the whole reason of a pre-order;

5. Once you have people's money, many of these people now have expectations and can behave unreasonably towards you; and,

6. Murphy's Law.

Generally speaking, the Limited Release sales process used by the various artisans has vastly improved since the early days with the unexpected demand and the system crashes and the acrimony. That pretty much never happens anymore. I've tried to keep a sense of humour about it all because at the end of the day its just shaving stuff and there'll be more coming along, its not like there's a shortage of it and even if there were, we'd just grow beards

I won't go into the soap part because, again, I am not Scott and it's up to him how he runs his business (and the soap is obviously the pain point here, not my products). All of that is correct and I do not want to get to deep into how I run my business, but I will also add that your time frame is pretty far off. We're talking more like four months. Scott and I have been working on this since December. Because we live so far apart, it takes a very long time. I send him scent, he makes a test batch and sends it to me, I give him feedback and maybe make some tweaks once I see how it interacts with the soap base.

I see how angry people get a Kickstarter delays all the time. I also know that I spent a TON of time answering numerous emails every day wanting updates on the time frame of the BBB release. Many of them were very impolite. Unfortunately, I am not a robot and that really begins to grate on me.

Also, canceling and modifying orders is a huge problem. Buyer's remorse is very real, especially with something like a pre-order.

I also learned that people will be unhappy no matter what. People were unhappy with the pre-order being too long. People were unhappy with the pre-order being too short. People were unhappy with the way I sold leftover stock (I had one person who is active on Facebook attempt to blackmail me by saying he would start a campaign slandering my brand if I did not sell him one before I released it). People want to get in on a pre-order after it is closed and do not want to take no for an answer.

There are many other things on the back end that I would rather not get into because I would rather not discuss the private details of my business. I have received many, many, many messages with advice on how to run my business in the past 24 hours. We use this system because it works almost all the time. One time it did not and I am fixing it by offering a second release. So I feel like there was a hiccup and I have solved it. So basically this discussion is about making soap, which I do not have any insight to, but I know it is a far, far, far more complicated process and the materials are far, far harder to source than mine. Logistically it just makes far more sense to do it this way on our end and the majority of our customers have been happy with our process.

"I was merely providing feedback as to how I feel it would would work best for me as a customer."

I love this quote, as in everyone's mind they feel the same way, and it never works out in real play.

As an example back when RR was releasing a limited 100 or so razors at a time people were furious that he didn't wait til he had a higher production before release, then when he announced he was going to wait to release the new Mamba but not until there was a large inventory of 1200+ razors, but then again there were scads of complaints because he didn't release them sooner in smaller batches.

So back to your quote it doesn't matter what a vendor does, but a lot of people feel (in my opinion) it would would work best for me as a customer.


Back to the topic, I am looking forward to hopefully obtaining these, if not, it isn't a huge deal as I have a lot of CL, and DG product's and am very pleased with the collaboration of the two, and there is always the BST.

"I was merely providing feedback as to how I feel it would would work best for me as a customer."

I love this quote, as in everyone's mind they feel the same way, and it never works out in real play.

As an example back when RR was releasing a limited 100 or so razors at a time people were furious that he didn't wait til he had a higher production before release, then when he announced he was going to wait to release the new Mamba but not until there was a large inventory of 1200+ razors, but then again there were scads of complaints because he didn't release them sooner in smaller batches.

So back to your  quote it doesn't matter what a vendor does, but a lot of people feel (in my opinion) it would would work best for me as a customer.


Back to the topic, I am looking forward to hopefully obtaining these, if not, it isn't  a huge deal as I have a lot of CL, and DG product's and am very pleased with the collaboration of the two, and there is always the BST.

I'm not sure what you mean. What other kind of feedback could I possibly have? I can't speak for anyone other than myself. I think measured, constructive and respectful customer feedback is essential to any customer facing business, don't you? I asked a fair question and got a detailed, thoughtful response. My understanding has increased and I think hawns knows me well enough to appreciate my comments and not read more into them than is there.

Cheers,
Marko

Wow. I really had no idea. I suppose if you want to look on the bright side, if you're garnering this level of attention, you have truly arrived as an artisan.

Wow. I really had no idea. I suppose if you want to look on the bright side, if you're garnering this level of attention, you have truly arrived as an artisan.

Yeah, it's a new thing for me to deal with this kind of thing and I probably didn't handle it with the grace one would expect. My apologies for boiling over a bit. I'm a bit frazzled and sleep deprived, but that doesn't mean I can't stay civil.

Wow.  I really had no idea.  I suppose if you want to look on the bright side, if you're garnering this level of attention, you have truly arrived as an artisan.

Yeah, it's a new thing for me to deal with this kind of thing and I probably didn't handle it with the grace one would expect. My apologies for boiling over a bit. I'm a bit frazzled and sleep deprived, but that doesn't mean I can't stay civil.

Actually, I think everyone here has stayed civilized and I think that's the point.  We bring different thoughts to the table.  We castigate no one.  We learn.  Shawn has been up front on where he is and where he is taking Chatillon Lux.  All of us benefit because of it.

Shawn, keep doing what you are doiing while listening to, and answering, our varied concerns.  As far as I'm concerned, you're pulling it all together in the best possible way so thank you and thanks to all who have wondered, suggested, and questioned.  Ultimately, the very best will come from this.