Once every so often, we’ll be throwing a blog post up to answer what our Customer Service and Social Teams tell us are FAQs, and to manage customer expectations. This month, some reminders about PIEDAYS, how dynamic pricing works, which products we’re saying goodbye to (as we make room for the new), some COVID-19 induced operational delays, and what we’re thinking of trying out at the PIE.
Due to the extremely positive response to personalised PIEDAYS, which are now sometimes offered on your personal renewal date, we’re going to continue to send these offers individually, rather than announcing them all at once. (If you didn’t receive a PIEDAY offer on your renewal date, please email Customer Service who will help! But please don’t email without waiting until the end of your renewal day and checking your spam or junk box!) If you’re new here, PIEDAYS are a day when a chosen item from our line-up is available to you to buy without the use of your Spending Limit. Annual members will receive PIEDAYS twice as often as monthly members, and you’ll always get a reminder with your personal PIEDAY promo code!
Our Customer Service team kindly requests that any member who has emailed with a query to please check their spam or junk emails for a response, before turning to social media. Often our emails get caught in spam filters, so you can’t see our responses, but it would really help us if you double-checked before flagging to us on social. Thank you for understanding!
For those who don’t yet know the difference between TOP-UPS and UPGRADES: TOP-UPS are one-time Spending Limit boosters, that we make available when we have enough stock to offer them. UPGRADES increase your monthly Spending Limit, to reserve product allocation for you every month!
Our next BIG PROJECT is to create a database of suggested skincare routines, to make it easy for new and current PIE members to navigate everything we’ve got to offer, and to make it easier to get a full PIE routine.
All of our Nail Polish is manufactured in Scotland, which is now on extended lockdown, and the manufacturing facility is not operating at all, so we may be low on a few – if not all – of our nail polish colours for a while. Everything else is going to plan, with some items having one-two week lockdown-related delays.
For Super Retinol Hand Cream Addicts one of the raw materials in this fabulous Swiss formula has been discontinued globally which means not only a slight reformulation, but a necessary rerun of our stability and compatibility testing also. Our final batch with the original formula should arrive mid-June, and we’re working hard and fast on the next iteration!
We’re very excited about an amazing new powder blush – and then cream blush – that will be coming soon, but blush options over the next couple of months will be waning (hope you don’t mind the gap)!
A new perfume sample set that includes our new Mandarin Leaf, Freesia & White Cedar fragrance will arrive in mid-June! The countdown begins (as so many people have been asking).
We have 5 new shades of the WonderGloss Collagen Lip Oil coming in time for summer, in case you loved the original, see-through version.
A shipment of Freeze-Dried Vitamin C Ampoules looks like it’s arriving in August.
Some of our Swiss Suppliers have slight delays on deliveries due to a long lockdown in Switzerland, but manufacturing is back up and shipments are now on the way. (We’ve been sending midnight emails, begging for priority.) If you’re waiting for a particular product, please sign up on the product page and we’ll let you know as soon as it hits the warehouse.
We’d also like to remind everyone that our members’ product prices are dynamic, which means that they may go up and down due to the following forces:
Brexit (cost increases)
Social distancing rules in logistic / packaging and production processes (cost increases)
Exchange rates (prices can go up or down)
Haulage/Freight costs (prices generally increase)
Rush Freight costs (prices generally increase)
Raw Material availability / shortages (prices can go up or down)
Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) variability / Buy Volume variability (bigger batches = lower prices and smaller batches = higher prices)
Re-sourcing of a new manufacturer or supplier (prices can go up or down)
Switching from Free-Issue to Full-Service (cost increases)
Packaging changes, including tooling and artwork origination (prices can go up or down
Additional safety testing, i.e. Ocular Testing (prices generally increase)
Sampling / development costs / drawdowns (prices generally increase)
User trial / safety panel-testing (prices generally increase)
Re-sourcing products with new suppliers (prices can go up or down)
Re-sizing, which can reduce cost per ml (prices can go up or down)
Higher Volume Packaging Buys – less per package (prices generally decrease)
Evolving Supplier Capabilities and Automation (prices generally decrease)
Direct Print vs Label Application (prices generally decrease)
Forecasting and committing to forward buys for bulk raw material and packaging costs (prices generally decrease)
Re-negotiation and pooling of raw materials among many customers at a lab (prices generally decrease)
Vessel Optimisation (prices generally decrease)
Packing materials and shipping boxes
...and you can see what is included in the members’ prices of our products on our Cost Transparency page. Navigating Covid-19 with our suppliers – who find themselves extremely stretched – has been challenging, but we are doing absolutely everything we can every day to keep our members’ prices as low as possible.
Last Chance For...
Our original Unbeatable Concealer (pan format) is now in last stock, to make way for a new liquid concealer, which everybody in the office is obsessed with. As minimum order quantities are 5,000 per shade, we’re waiting this one out with mixed-and-matched last stock, and holding our breath until the new ones arrive!
Because you all seemed to really love our tinted glass candles, our white glass candles are being replaced with specially coloured / etched glass (like Bahia de Miel, Sweet Tobacco, Cedarwood & Vanilla and Leather, Violet Leaves and Labdanum). So if you love our white glass candles, please stock up, as this shipment is the last of them. The new, more colourful versions of our most popular candle fragrances, including Bitter Orange & Blackcurrant and Fresh Freesia, Patchouli & Moss will be arriving in June! Some will be discontinued to make way for newness – like the absolutely brilliant, yet-to-launch Reves d’Eze candle.
Our Redcurrant & Fig and Tuberose luxury scented candles are now limited edition and we are on our last shipment. If you love them, stock up now!
The Massive Fan Wide Eyes Mascara is being replaced by Massive Fan 2, which is launching later this summer.
Our JAPANFUSION™ 10-Minute Miracle Sheet Mask, – now that we know you love the formula – is returning next year (but without the sheet)!
Our Superbrow™ Precision Pencils are coming back in August, in updated gorgeous packaging.
Superactive Hyaluronic Acid & Biopeptide Capsules overlap in benefits with our High Intensity Hydrating Superdrops™, our Triple Hyaluronic Acid & Lipopeptide Serum, our SUPERDROPS™ Flash Face Lift, and our JAPANFUSION™ Deep-Treatment Serum, and as we can’t keep everything in stock simultaneously, these are now last call, to make room for newness.
