The Sore Truth Behind Sephora's Epic Rewards Loyalty Redemption
Earlier this week, Sephora caused an online debacle so huge that sent fans snapping pictures of their Sephora purchases for return and sharing them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and swearing to boycott Sephora for alternative online beauty stores such as Ulta.com and Nordstrom.
One ex-customer of Sephora had made tens of thousands of dollars worth of purchases and had 14,000 points in their account. (USD$1 = 1 point)
Most of the angry customers felt that Sephora tried to pull a fast one by fraudulently marketing items that were not available to the general public.
A so-called rewards programme for their loyal customers who were called "Beauty Insiders" had flopped miserably. Customers were told to spend as much as they can during a golden week where their membership points would be doubled, tripled or quadrupled depending on their level of membership.
On Aug 10, the very day of the event, no information whatsoever was provided on the timing of the event resulting in thousands of people pulling an all-nighter to redeem the items.
When the Sephora "Epic Rewards" event finally begun at 12 noon (Pacific Time), all the items for redemption were gone in less than a minute leaving customers awestruck - and not in a good way.
The event was not only misleading as Sephora had marketed it as a "redemption" instead of a contest, the unethical beauty company did not reveal how many sets were available for redemption. Such unfair business practices put a global French brand to shame. Sephora is under the LVMH or Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE group.
To make matters worse and add a slap to the face, these so-called exclusive redeemable sets were just normal product items available for purchase on the online shop and in Sephora stores.
It was even used as a promotional photo for make-up new arrivals on the Sephora homepage.
Rumours on social media have been circulating around that there were as little as 80 sets of rewards for 1000, 2000, 4,000 and 10,000 points set redemptions, of which, most have already been snapped up by Sephora employees.
Note: The redemption was open to staff and relatives, something that is completely unheard of in any contest or company marketing programme.
Sephora is well-known for being racist and its staff - snobby.
Snapshot from Sephora's Facebook page of an Asian Chinese customer complaint claiming Sephora is racist as she was treated differently from the rest.
It was reported that some people from overseas were unable to purchase items during the promotion period and their order was cancelled under false pretences of card authentication failure. Even after calling up Sephora, orders were still stopped from being processed.
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