🍀 My $600 purchase

Here’s what I bought yesterday and why. It’s from the brand Veronica Beard. 

🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱

It all started when I saw this IG post yesterday from the Veronica Beard brand trip (I follow an influencer that was at the brand’s boat day event)…

THAT RED SET COULD BE GREAT. I don’t want shorts though so really my quest was just to see if it came with matching pants or just matching shorts.

I just wanted to find that out. I didn’t want to purchase. I knew better. I wasn’t planning on shopping on this day! As mentioned, I knew better LOL.

So 1st I went to Veronica Beard’s IG and clicked from their stories to the website. The item wasn’t tagged in stories but I just swiped up on a random story and once on the site I then searched in the search bar, ‘red’:

Notice that the 1st item returned at the top of the search results ISN’T RED. I remember feeling defeated (THE SPECIFIC RED ITEM I WANTED WASN’T IN THE TOP 4 RESULTS and I worried the search items weren’t going to be accurate because the 1st returned search wasn’t what I searched at all), but I persevered and scrolled down because there were 27 results after all.

Bingo. Found it: 

P.S. Returning a non-red item on a red search is actually very disruptive and if the other 3 search returns weren’t red, I would have given up right there. That 1st mistake was allowable because 3 accurate results returned. If 2 others had been wrong, I truly woulda walked away. 

But it was a Saturday and I found what I wanted in about 10 seconds. Good.

I found the jacket! So, I click through to the PDP. 

All looks good. It’s in stock in all sizes. It’s more expensive than it looked to me but maybe just wishful thinking on my part.

I then scroll down on the PDP because the jacket is merchandised AGAIN with the shorts (this is the exact outfit I saw on IG that started this escapade). 

The jacket with the shorts is everywhere on this PDP:

I all but gave up. I don’t want shorts. I WANT PANTS. And, pants are nowhere to be found on this page – the SHOP THE LOOK doesn’t show pants. So, no pants upsell or sign of life. 

But, I’m seasoned. If you look on the PDP, you’ll notice that the variant color is BRICK RED. 

Back to the search I go:

Here’s what shows up 9 items in when you seach BRICK RED:

Brick Red PANTS!!

But then the worry kicked in again for me (at this point I really wanted the set).

1. It’s expensive. $268 FOR THE PANTS ALONE.

2. BIGGER PROBLEM. This PDP doesn’t show itself with the matching jacket. It’s not upsold anywhere or even present. I worried (and honestly still worry) that this isn’t exactly the same red or that this isn’t actually a matching set that works with the pants.

But I feel comforted because of 1 important factor. These pants are BRICK RED. 

Same name of the variant. And, to my eye, looks like it matches perfectly!

I’m almost convinced. But, I had to text for reinforcement (texted Carly as always LOL) : 💿

I was almost ready to pull trig. But then the BRICK RED thing really got to me.

So, I did what I do best… I read the fine print. It was a Saturday after all! I had time! 

21 days for a full refund. No harm no foul. So if…

1. The Red Bricks didn’t match, back it goes.

2. If this wasn’t the SICKEST outfit ever, back it goes (it’s over $600 and that’s not what I was planning to do! NOT IDEAL! But BRICK RED AND SO SPECIAL RIGHT?)

3. If it didn’t fit PERFECTLY, back it goes. 

I then referenced the size chart for a good 5 minutes and went back and forth on what size to get for the pants. They had a fit predictor which is cool, except I couldn’t use it because none of the brands that are suggested as references are brands I shop. So, just guessed. Again, a little frustrating because another speed bump in my purchase, but I rebounded and just used the old fashioned size chart as my reference point:

By the way, the brand I wish was on this list is AGOLDE. That’s the reference for size that I was looking for when I clicked the drop down (I know my size in AGOLDE and their jeans fit me well). 

Anywho, I had my size picked (I guessed but feel good about my guess), and did the final step… SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER FOR 15% OFF.

I cleared the popup the second I landed on site. I was not going to sign up for a discount code before I knew what I wanted. But, I was ready now. GIMME MY 15%.

So, I scrolled to the footer and luckily found this: 

Then, things almost derailed. I put in my email, submitted, WAITED, then the welcome email finally arrived, and then it said to CLICK TO ACTIVATE. 

The code wasn’t listed in the welcome email, it’s appended to the button when you CLICK TO ACTIVATE.

That’s cool, if it works. BUT IT DIDN’T! I clicked through, went to my cart, and went to SHOP PAY and the discount code wasn’t applied. I then went back to the homepage, saw the discount code had taken over the promobar, copy and pasted the discount code into SHOP PAY, and then my 15% off applied.

A normal customer wouldn’t have made it that far. No shot. I just happened to be SHOPPING ON A SATURDAY and happened to be a DTC marketer. 

The solve here is to LIST THE DISCOUNT CODE OR TO APPEND IT DIFFERENTLY OR TO CHECK THAT THIS TRICK WORKS WITH SHOP PAY. 

My vote is to list the discount code AND to append it. No prizes for making this hard to redeem. 

So, in summary, I bought my RED BRICK OUTFIT THAT I ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLED UPON BUT ACTUALLY DIDN’T STUMBLE UPON BECAUSE I HAD TO DO ABOUT 10 MINUTES OF HARD SEARCH DETECTIVE WORK, TEXT A FRIEND FOR VALIDATION, AND TRIGGER THE WELCOME DISCOUNT EFFECTIVELY MYSELF.

Also, I must mention, my order ended up at this price: $666.66. It’s my fault I shouldn’t have paid for 2 day shipping but I want to wear on the 4th of July LOL. Spooky. I’m choosing not to read into it LOL. 

I hope this outfit works out, and I hope this is helpful. 

Action items for you:

🧱 Go search your store by color and see what shows up. If it’s the wrong color, fix. Red, Orange, Yellow, etc etc. 

🧱 Go make sure your welcome offer email 1 is easy to apply and applies correctly on mobile across all payment types.

🧱 Make sure that you show more all accompanied products as upsell opportunities on the PDP. AND IN SLIDE CART WHILE YOU’RE AT IT The shorts and the pants should have been shown on the Jacket PDP. The jacket should have been shown on the pants PDP. Imagine if someone had the shorts and jacket added to bag and then saw the pants in the slide cart. They’d maybe add those on to get better usage out of the expensive jacket. 

🧱 Invest in brand activation events. I only bought this because of that boat day. I don’t even have a huge affinity for that influencer or the brand. I just like the color red. And sometimes it’s that deep. I wouldn’t have seen this SICK RED OUTFIT if that hadn’t had that boat day. And, BTW, there’s no attribution software that can tell that that influencer on that day influenced this purchase. But, that is in fact how the cookie crumbled. 

🧱 Consider a 21 day returns policy. 30 is standard. But 21 didn’t defeat me at all! And, 9 fewer days of exposure for the brand. I would update your returns policy as a test and see what happens. Could be glorious. I’m going to try.