The Not So GlossyBox

Yesterday morning I was rather excited to receive my much hyped 'Luxury' Harrods Edition GlossyBox, my excitement was heightened by the fact that the postman knocked on my door at 9am on the dot and that never happens in the depths of the countryside that I call home.

I raced downstairs to open my box of goodies but what lay before me was not the luxury assortment that I'd seen people blogging and tweeting about. Where was my Burberry Lip Mist or my YSL Forever Youth Liberator???

In their place were items that I could have picked up in any high street Boots store. I decided that I'd been sent the wrong items and went back to check what it said on the GlossyBox blog.

My box contained: Lancome Hypnose Mascara, Molton Brown Bath & shower Gel, SK-II Signature (nice), Clarins Firming Body Lotion, Valentino Valentina Perfume, Shu Uemura Cleansing Beauty Oil.

Below quote from the GlossyBox blog...

"This month we teamed up with the world of luxury... Harrods! Harrods is most well known for having the largest and most luxurious beauty hall and in this month's GLOSSYBOX we bring you the luxury to your front door.

Here is the selection of samples that are in the box this month..." 

Whizz forward 24 hours and the first tweet I chanced upon this morning was from someone blogging about her GlossyBox (hereby known as #BloggerA), so I went over for a read.

She had exactly the same contents as me and she was similarly disappointed. I tweeted #A to let her know that she wasn't alone but all around my stream people were raving about the awesomeness of their deliveries.

By this point I was becoming increasingly annoyed and I tweeted GlossyBox to tell them so. I tweeted them a fair bit, @messaging to include them in the conversation trail that was panning out but they didn't reply at all.

They had hyped up the arrival of this Luxury box, packed with luxury cosmetics so much yet I had been sent a box of tat.

I stepped away, but everytime I went back to Twitter the situation had escalated. Blogger A had been in dialogue with GlossyBox throughout the day, via Twitter and email. I joked about not being influential enough to warrant a reply from them.

Then another blogger (lets call her #B), who just happens to be a GlossyBox ambassador chips in and questions Blogger A's integrity, saying that she should have stated that she'd been sent the non luxury special edition Harrods GlossyBox as a freebie sample.

Ouch. As a brand you don't really want your ambassadors to be sprouting that kind of stuff do you?

No you don't. Cause you can bet your ass that if Blogger A had posted a glowing review then GlossyBox would have been re-tweeting it from the rooftops.

So to my second issue in the ongoing GlossyBox saga.

This is where I became aware that most of the GlossyBox conversation was coming from bloggers / tweeters /  who had also been sent their boxes free of charge. 

That's fine. I'm a PR myself but what isn't fine is when the views of paying customers are completely ignored or when different boxes are sent out to 'elite bloggers' to secure favourable reviews.

Over the past few months I have seen many posts, pics and tweets about GlossyBox boxes, yet not once I have I seen it disclosed that the boxes were freebies.
Think about it... 100 or 200 free subscriptions to bloggers = lots of brand mentions and positivity each month but unless conversations like this take place bloggers don't realise that they are being used by the brand and that they ARE the marketing plan.

It leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I will be cancelling my GlossyBox subscription as soon as I get back from my business trip and if anyone one can suggest another beauty box, but with good customer service, please do say.