I just went from enraged to insanely happy in 3 minutes! For the last few days, I have been paitently waiting for the chance to purchase or pre-order their "Kate Spade New York Supports Japan" tote bag. With a cool $18 price tag, 100% of the proceeds will go towards the Japanese Red Cross. A win win, right?
Wrong.
Let it be known that I would buy this bag on it's own anyway. The donation to Japan relief efforts was an added bonus. But unlike the spirit of the Kate Spade brand, this experience took me from a fan to a foe within a few days.
With the hype of the adorable tote bags plastered all over their Facebook and Twitter pages, Kate Spade kept insisting that they'd tell their customers when the link was ready to purchase and made us all sit tight and wait.
"We are so thankful to have so much excitement about the kate spade new york supports japan tote. our team is working hard to make sure that it is uploaded correctly on our website. we will share more details soon!"
So the link went up this morning, and the bags sold out in 15 minutes. Their website didn't display the link properly which they attributed to "growing pains of our new website." I'm all for blaming technology, and I don't doubt the demand was high, but from a marketing perspective - it was all wrong.
As one Facebook fan pointed out, all of this could have been avoided if they made enough bags to accomodate the demand or at least filled customers in on the production status. With 212,754 fans on Facebook and a few thousand more on Twitter, they obviously drummed up enough attention. But producing a product with the proceeds going to charity will do that. I'm afraid that they just pissed off a lot more people than are pleased with their tote bag purchase.
I love the idea that their brand decided to design a bag to help Japan. While Groupons and LivingSocial pages were offering a place to donate and the company will match, Kate Spade went a different route.
A simple email blast informing everyone of the details would have saved a ton of time and less dissapointment. Right?
One nice girl pointed out that their store in Texas was taking pre-orders, so I called, gave my information, and I'll have a bag in a week and a half. I'm happy to have the bag. I'm more happy to help Japan. I just feel so silly that I got so upset over a TOTE BAG!
My thoughts go out to everyone in Japan. Don't think that this is my only attempt to help Japan. I plan on donating more to help the relief effort.
At the end of the day, I feel totally silly to get so flustered over a tote bag. Forgive me?
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