Lululemon: If You Can't Beat Your Customers, Ban Your Customers
from the interesting-strategy dept
Clothing maker Lululemon appears to be schizophrenic. I know, weird, right? But that's the only conclusion I can come to for a company that started off by mocking Olympic trademarks, then dipped into the realm of suing other designers over patents on designs for yoga pants (side note: when will this yoga fad thing be over?). In one moment it's "Trademark? Lulz!" and the next they're bludgeoning poor Calvin Klein with a freaking yoga pants patent. But it might be time to do a wellness visit on the company, since it appears to have completely lost its damn fooled minds.
See, Lululemon hates when people resell their clothing more than ants hate sociopathic children with a new Sherlock Holmes play set. Previously this manifested itself with a sternly worded FAQ on their website and very strange stocking techniques that amount to a not-making-much-of-our-shit strategy. That appears to have changed, however, since recently reports of customers attempting to sell clothing on eBay being harassed by Lululemon employees and banned from buying more products on the website have come flooding in.
Several customers told Business Insider they had been confronted by company representatives after attempting to sell items on eBay, and even more are complaining on the brand's Facebook page. Many said they have been blocked from buying items from the company's website. The policy is frustrating to customers because of Lululemon's stringent return policy, which only allows returns of unworn merchandise within 14 days of purchase, even if the item was a gift.Let's be clear here: Lululemon policies make it nearly impossible to return clothing, regardless of the reason for the return, even it was a gift. Anyone looking to unload these items, new or used, on the secondary market is facing confrontation with the Lululemon Gestapo and then being blocked from purchasing more stuff from their website. Should it not strike you immediately, this is insane. In many cases, the items being sold are no longer produced or in stock by Lululemon. They aren't even attempting to compete with these sellers. On top of that, many of these sellers are, of course, loyal Lululemon customers. This isn't taking your ball and going home, it's taking your ball and then lighting the other kids on fire. Which, I'm told, isn't a nice thing to do.
Both Kristin and her husband were loyal customers who have "closets bursting with Lululemon," she said. She decided to sell the item on eBay because it didn't fit and she had missed the return window. Kristin says she was unable to persuade Lululemon to unblock her IP address from the online store, and felt the company treated her "like a criminal."Not anymore, Kristin. Lululemon appears to be telling you quite clearly that what you thought was appealing about their clothing doesn't actually exist. Pretty nice of them, actually. Now you're free to spend your money on apparel by companies that don't have an eight-year-old's understanding of the right of resale and how to treat customers.
"They said we are welcome to shop in their stores, and in that case, I should have donated the item," she said. "But part of the appeal of purchasing Lululemon products is that it does hold resale value."
Eric Lewis, founder of the blog LuluMen, said he was also chastised by the retailer for trying to sell a pair of pants he bought at a recent warehouse sale in Canada. After the college student posted the pants online, he said a Lululemon representative phoned him to say his actions were against policy and he would be banned from its website if he continued selling items on eBay.Who can say, Lewis? But I'd highly recommend running an experiment designed to see if any other clothing companies are as insane as these folks. It's an easy experiment that mostly just involves buying from anyone other than Lululemon and seeing who manages to treat you like a human being.
"Why is Lululemon targeting a student who is selling some used items on their own eBay account?" Lewis asked. He estimates he's spent $10,000 on the brand's clothing in the past five years, but has sold fewer than 10 items on eBay.
Now, perhaps you're thinking that there must be some rational explanation for this. I mean, Lululemon wouldn't do something so obviously harmful to their own business without a competent reason, right?
A company spokeswoman told Business Insider that the policy is for the good of customers, and is meant to protect them from buying counterfeit products. "Bottom line, if it doesn’t come from us, we can’t educate, we don’t know the history of the garment, and we can’t guarantee its’ authenticity," the spokeswoman, Alecia Pulman, said in an email.Ah, yes, scary counterfeit products that nobody is actually fooled by are the reason this is good for your customers. Unless their names are Kristen or Lewis, you mean? Or anyone else who dares to sell something they bought legitimately on the secondary market? Wait, who is this helping, exactly? Because I can promise you this won't help Lululemon's brand image.
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Clothes are much, much, much easier to find other brands than some markets with artificial monopolies. Pokemon clothing should remember that. (Seriously.. Lululemon?)
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Re: companies hate customers
in a related incident: got nailed by a driver making a left turn RIGHT FUCKING INTO ME, then that spun me around with another vehicle hitting me...
not a good way to start the day...
pretty truck is not so pretty now, only about 8 grand and two weeks and it will be pretty again...
(ironically, car dealership had sent a mailer the week before offering full sticker price for my two-year old truck... yes, they are that popular they can sell 2-3 year old trucks for MORE than new ones... they take advantage of the young and stupid good ole boys who have no/bad credit and can't get in a new truck, and charge them 3-5 thou more for a used one... as long as they get a monthly payment they can afford, they go for it...)
meanwhile, dealing with insurance company is annoying: agent was GREAT, company is a POS: got a message on my phone to call them (won't mention their name, but they run 10 billion commercials an hour) about them needing some info on the other drivers in the accident, blah blah blah...
okay, thought I had reported everything i knew in the accident report, but i better get back to them ASAP...
so i called the number listed, and it took me to a robo-ad for some discount card they were flogging...
IMMEDIATELY, i am pissed off: i'm calling because you left a message (AND an email) that there was accident info you needed, and it turns out it was ALL ABOUT getting me to buy this stupid discount card, and had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACCIDENT...
NOT ONLY does it ask me if i want this super deal, and i press 2, 'No', thinking that would be the end of it, and i would be connected to a claims clerk...
no, connects me to ANOTHER robo-ad that SURELY i want to reconsider this generous offer and give me another chance to say 'yes', i say 'no', and it IMMEDIATELY says, well this line is only for people who accept this offer, and hangs up on me ! ! !
POS company, there was NO 'info' they needed, it was PURELY a marketing fishing expedition...
at first, okay, this was some kind of scam, someone had the public record and was fishing for a mark... but look it up, and NO, it IS the stupid fucking insurance company running the scam... 'cause, you know, when i've been traumatized by being hit by two vehicles and am worried about getting my vehicle repaired, etc, i REALLY want to be scammed by my insurance company to buy some stupid discount card instead of getting good service on my claim...
fuckers...
now, for the cherry on top...
go to the website and send an email to bitch about how shitty it was for them to try and scam me like that, and i get a robo-response that -you guessed it- said 'thanks for your email regarding your accident claim, but we still need more info, please call...'
yes, it was the scam number they had shuffled me off to previously which was the source of my complaint...
*sigh*
AND we are going to change our insurance company now, because they were such a-holes about that stuff...
since so many are de facto monopolies or colluding oligarchies, they GET AWAY WITH IT...
fuckers, i hate them all...
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Re: Re: companies hate customers
That use to be One of the services the government provided.
But well with all those tax cuts for the 1%.
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They're helpful people
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Yoga fad?
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Re: Yoga fad?
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the crazy thing as well is that they seem to have the opinion, just like the entertainments industries, that you cant do what you want with your own, purchased items! i wonder why that is?
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Hey, Lululemon...
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Re: Hey, Lululemon...
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Re: Re: Hey, Lululemon...
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Lululemon sends secret police to arrest granny at garage sale, film at eleven.
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We allow so many corporations special rights to keep control over items they "sell" you, why should a clothing retailer be left out?
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Entitled, much?
Fashion has less "protection" than other forms of creativity, and this is a good thing. I don't understand why anyone would buy from those people. They sound awful!
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??
???
And blocking by ip address? So anybody in the culprit's household or college dorm is banned too? How crazy are they? They're CLOTHES not precious relics. This is April 1st isn't it! OMG I've missed Feb and Mar and arrived in April.
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Actually, not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be that all their clothing was made in their factory in Vancouver, Canada. They even have a display window on the factory so you can watch the workers making the clothing.
Nowadays it has probably got large enough they outsource a bunch of the stuff to the sweatshops, but one of their "differentiators" and the reason they charged high prices was supposedly the fact that they were paying their factory employees a decent wage and benefits.
But then they went public, so who knows.
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Thanks
Thank you for the article; I think you wrote out loud what many of us had in mind. It's good to see some people still think straight.
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How does lululemon id sellers?
Does eBay help? Does it send emails bugged with ping-back images?
Does it ban base on email addresses or IP address? The latter could affect "innocent" people.
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IP Addresses are not tied to people
Yay for forward thinking companies!
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Surprised anyone still buys from them anyway...
I can't believe people are still buying from them after that, maybe this will be enough to get people to boycott and send their scumbag decision maker out of business. I love yoga, did yoga teacher training even, but that company stands for the exact opposite of what yoga is all about, and anyone who owns their clothes should take them into the street, set fire to them, and put a video on YouTube about it. make the tag something like "#IsThisBetterThanResaleLuLuLemon?"
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Re: Surprised anyone still buys from them anyway...
Yay for generalisations! As a guy named Benny said in 'Lethal Weapon 4', "Flied lice? It's fried rice, you plick!"
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Re: Surprised anyone still buys from them anyway...
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It's a very successful business model and keeps their lawyers employed. You don't want to put good, hardworking lawyers out of work, do you?
The only way to avoid this once become large enough to have merged with every other clothing company is to go nude, and then they'll arrest you for indecent exposure.
/sarcasmCausedMyBrainToImplode
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It makes it very clear that the counterfeit thing is completely made up and has absolutely nothing to do with the real reason they're doing this. I don't think anyone able to form complete sentences could believe that banning people who aren't buying your products from buying your products would get them to stop selling stuff that isn't your products but looks like it is.
It is hard to fathom their motive though. It's hard to believe that they think people banned from the online store will then come to the retail locations instead, and shape up and stop reselling clothes because the corporation told them so. Are they hoping to make an example of these (I hope former) customers, so that others won't resell the clothes? Such an idiotic miscalculation. It seems likely for every person who hears about this and stops selling their Lululemon, there will be several others who hear about it and stop buying Lululemon.
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If they can ensure that the only place to get genuine merchandise is the official store, then all merchandise available through other channels will be counterfeit, and thus illegitimate. That way, anyone who sees merchandise claiming to be theirs that isn't sold through their official store will know it's guaranteed to be counterfeit.
If people resell the genuine merchandise through other channels, then some of the merchandise available through those other channels will in fact be genuine, and that guarantee won't be there.
That only works if they can keep the 100% lockdown on resale, though... and it's questionable and potentially scummy even then.
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Lululemon
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I suggest the site to be named lululemonparty.org
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First Sale Doctrine
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There's a mismatch between supply and demand, and you're mad at the people trying to get a price that actually matches the market? Shouldn't you be directing your ire at the people who can actually solve the problem - Lululemon?
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so, the answer is vote with your dollar?
Until then, some 6 year old will probably be sued by them for buying their stuff from Goodwill or something.
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Pakistani and Indian Clothing,Pakistani Salwar Kameez,indian Asian Dresses in Europe, USA and Canada.
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Pakistani and Indian Clothing,Pakistani Salwar Kameez,Indian and Asian Dresses in Europe, USA and Canada
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