Pages

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Bath & Body Works has it in for me


Every time I find a scent I love at Bath & Body Works, they go and discontinue it. Every time. First it was Honey Almond - wonderful, not too food-y smelling. Then it was Fresh Ginger Lime, which was really refreshing in summer. Then it was Rice Flower & Shea, which was light and smelled great layered with almost any perfume, and now it's Brown Sugar & Fig.

I asked two different sales associates why they discontinued certain flavors and not others and got two different answers: 1) "They didn't sell well enough" (understandable. Hard to believe because they are delicious scents, but whatever) and 2) "We discontinue some to encourage you to buy others".

Huh?

You are discontinuing (yet again) a product that made me like you in the first place so you can force me to try something you think I should like better? I trudge all the way to the mall specifically to buy this specific product (okay, and maybe some shoes, and Sephora is just across the way, but I digress) and you think taking it away is going to make me more loyal? The basic principle of the law of supply and demand is that there is some supply to begin with.

Thank goodness for the "fond farewell" section of the BBW website, even if you have to dig on their site to get to it.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must admit... the logic is escaping me so far...

Jeanine Marie said...

This always happens to me with the limited edition products. I love the seasonal scents but find they are sold out by the time I get to to the store. If this happens, I go to Ebay and stock up.

Pseudo said...

We don't have a bath and body works over here. I like the gifts I get from there though.

Maybe the sales girl was making stuff up that made sense to HER. And she's high.

Marie Louise said...

The answer is something I am all too familiar with. Someone in corporate needs to justify their salary and the only way to do that is to come up with new scents and consequently discontinue old ones because it would be too costly to produce them all. Don't don't try to figure it out - it makes no sense from a marketing standpoint.

cheatymoon said...

Yet another comment lost to internet hell. I thought I'd commented this morning. But then, it was 5:30 a.m.
Anyway, Body Shop discontinued my favorite Bergamot line and I bought up all I could when it went on clearance. It's finally gone. No fair. I am picky about things that smell and I really liked that one... oh well.

Alicia B. Designs said...

They did the same thing to me with make up! I know you're not supposed to buy make up there but I started getting it when I was a naive teen and then they up and took it away from me! Now I have to wear make up like a real adult! UNREAL. ps-westfarms mall??!! LOVE (slash hate...but still love)

Robin said...

Paola, welcome back ou were missed.

Catnip, welcome to the asylum.

Pseudo, I think she was high from sniffing all the new scents (but not the old scents).

ML, I think you are right, after all, the customer is never as important as meeting corporate goals.

Erin, I think it is Blogger's new commenting format, it is possessed.

Alicia, yes, Westfarms, aka the fifth circle of hell (I also love/hate)

Anonymous said...

Fresh ginger lime, now that one I loved. I used to stockpile scents I loved just to avoid this. It wasn't BBW's passion for discontinuing that first fueled my desire to stockpile, though. What kicked it off was when Ben & Jerry's discontinued White Russian ice cream. Damn them. That one action taught me that you can never rely on corporate America.

Fifi Flowers said...

My favorite was white cherry blossom... sad! It smelled soooo good!

Anonymous said...

My favorite, and first brush with BBW, was a Christmas gift of "Winter Festival." Smelled like full strength Pine-Sol at first but then was more like fresh wintery air. Loved it. And alas, it is no more...

Does anyone remember Fa? That was the best!

Unknown said...

It wasn't BBW's passion for discontinuing that first fueled my desire to stockpile, though. What kicked it off was when Ben & Jerry's discontinued White Russian ice cream. Damn them. That one action taught me that you can never rely on corporate America.
===================
Bath and Body Spa Products