Mary Kay Product Returns Gone Wild
What would you do if 1o women from a bridal party all purchased Mary Kay products from you, and then all wanted to return them and get refunds a month later? If you’re like many MK ladies, you shriek that you don’t have the money to give them refunds, and… HOW COULD THEY!!??!!!!
It stinks if you’re the Mary Kay lady, especially since we all know how broke they are because it’s nearly impossible to turn a profit. On the other hand, they use the 100% satisfaction guarantee when they’re trying to sell products, so they have to expect that some people will take them up on it.
But does that make these customers “terrible” women? Aren’t they allowed to decide that they don’t like or don’t want the products?
Visit the
Ah, our dear Ellen Bowman Cox showing how kind, polite, caring and full of the “Go Give” spirit of Mary Kay.
Bless, as they say, her heart. If she’s got one.
The more likely scenario is the bride-to-be was horrified when that faux make-up session turned into a cheesy sales presentation, and she did not know what to do in the moment. The other attendees were probably just ordering to be nice for the sake of the bride. Then, in her (justified) anger after realizing what had just happened, the bride probably asked the rest of the ladies to return everything.
It would be interesting if this became a thing. Imagine if this became so common the KBots would no longer be willing to risk doing these faux make-up parties for fear of losing so much money.
We can only hope!
And naturally, the huns start writing fanfiction about how these terrible women must be serial returners or else one of them signed up with MK/another makeup MLM and got mad. Either way they deserve bad karma and oh let’s dogpile on Tara for what she’s doing, or not doing, or who cares, piling on is fun!!!
Or maybe these women just want the company to honor its freaking policy without getting a huge runaround. Taking it to social media is a really darn common tactic when a company doesn’t play by the rules. A month is just about long enough to discover that the expensive face flak you were strongarmed into buying isn’t working miracles, or that you’re allergic to a product or that it’s aggravating an existing condition.
And to whoever egged and TPed Tara’s car, shame on you and grow the hell up. I hope someone had security camera footage and that you’re caught and punished. Nothing gives you the right to damage another person’s property. The huns are unethical, but you’re a criminal.
“Or maybe these women just want the company to honor its freaking policy without getting a huge runaround.”
Exactly. The MK consultant says they are the business owner of a retail make-up business. Good…welcome to the real world. Every retailer has to deal with a portion of their customers using (and in some cases, abusing) the “return policy”. They build that into their pricing to balance customer service and profitability.
If you don’t want to honor the return policy, tell your customers up front. Then see how many customers still want to purchase your overpriced products when they carry the full risk.
Popinki, there was a serial returner in the small town where I once lived. She would find a new consultant, buy products from her, and then find ANOTHER consultant saying her original one was no longer in business and she needed to exchange formulas. (This is when the basic was five pieces.) The products were easily 3/4 empty, and just NOW she decided she needed new formulas. This continued for a few months… until she called one of my team members. My team members told her that I was still very much in business and that she needed to contact me. Then serial returner called another consultant, who was an adoptee in the same unit as me. It got to the point where no one wanted to service her. I think the director finally agreed to sell her products, but she put the kibosh on her shenanigans.
Oh, I know serial returners exist. When I worked retail they were one of the many, many banes of our existence; store management was never on our side and couldn’t kiss a customer’s ass hard enough even if they were costing the store $$$. We were always having to take back stolen/broken/damaged/ancient merchandise, some of it not even from our store (then get lectured on shrinkage and return policies. God that place sucked rocks.) What grits me is that the huns are assuming bad faith right out of the gate with a hefty dose of “how DARE they!!!”
Ahhh… our dear Ellen Bowman Cox is back! One thing Ellen is right about: Karma has a very long memory and loves to bite people in the arse.
Regarding the egging and TPing the car — that’s vandalism. I don’t care how pissed off you are about the return process. You don’t go vandalize someone’s personal property. I truly hope there are some doorbell or security cameras out there that caught whoever did this. OP, file a police report.
Codes and a reason — eons ago when I did a return or refund, I remember the form requiring the product codes and a reason. That’s nothing new. MKC wanted to know why the (supposed) customer was returning products, especially if it was due to irritation or an allergy. I get that the OP was asking how to handle this situation, considering the dollar amount of products. I give her kudos for saying that she WAS going to do it when she got back into town.
this part was cute from Laura Hamilton Holland:”Omg how much retail is this?” “surely Mary Kay will help you out.”
Wow. So much for “your own business”
Funny that our kind Ellen is talking about Karma. Tempting fate much?
Maybe if MK Corp had a better return policy for the consultants this wouldn’t be an issue. You have to be active to get a product credit for return & they only give you product credit (not your money back.) I can’t remember if MK covered Shipping & handling on the replacement product or if that was on the consultant, but it’s just another way MK Corp screws their consultants.
Of course, given their business model is “recruit & front load” it would drastically eat into MK’s profit margins if they did have a return policy that was more fair to the consultants.
Back in the 90s I bought several items from a fellow church member who sold Mary Kay. One of her big selling points was that all items were 100% refundable. Well, it turns out that the mascara was just too irritating to my eyes, so I took her up on her return policy. She gave me back my money with no complaint. I naively assumed that Mary Kay was eating the loss. (After all, it’s their product, right? And she works for them, doesn’t she? It wasn’t her fault if their formula was too harsh.) If I’d realized back then that she was losing her own money, I’m not sure I’d have had the heart to return it. That’s why I’d much rather buy that kind of product from a retail store. If I have to return something, I can rest assured that the refund’s not coming out of an employee’s pocket.