A Message to our Clients about Epic Rewards

[sephoraadmin2]

Sephora is committed to offering our valued Beauty Insiders exceptional rewards to thank them for their loyalty and for being part of our community.  Yesterday we held an Epic Rewards promotion, and while we have held similar promotions in the past, yesterday’s promotion was the largest number of Epic Rewards we have made available to date.

Despite our best efforts to predict the response, demand was overwhelming, resulting in our being out of stock very quickly. We deeply regret this and apologize to our Beauty Insider clients who did not get a chance to participate.  

At Sephora our first and foremost priority is to give our clients an exciting and fulfilling shopping experience.  Those Beauty Insiders who were unable to get one of our limited quantity Epic Rewards, please email us by Tuesday, August 25, 2015, to epicrewards@sephora.com and include your Beauty Insider account number or email address associated with your account. 

Beyond that, please know that we are committed to learning from this experience. Thank you for your ongoing support. We greatly appreciate you.

Sephora is committed to offering our valued Beauty Insiders exceptional rewards to thank them for their loyalty and for being part of our community.  Yesterday we held an Epic Rewards promotion, and while we have held similar promotions in the past, yesterday’s promotion was the largest number of Epic Rewards we have made available to date.

Despite our best efforts to predict the response, demand was overwhelming, resulting in our being out of stock very quickly. We deeply regret this and apologize to our Beauty Insider clients who did not get a chance to participate.  

At Sephora our first and foremost priority is to give our clients an exciting and fulfilling shopping experience.  Those Beauty Insiders who were unable to get one of our limited quantity Epic Rewards, please email us by Tuesday, August 25, 2015, to epicrewards@sephora.com and include your Beauty Insider account number or email address associated with your account. 

Beyond that, please know that we are committed to learning from this experience. Thank you for your ongoing support. We greatly appreciate you.

**********************

Updated August 17

Thank you to everyone who has been reaching out to us about Epic Rewards. We value your feedback and recognize your ongoing loyalty to us, and we are working to get back to you quickly.

To that end, please know that if you have contacted us you will hear back from us in direct response to your inquiry during the period between Tuesday, August 25th through Tuesday, September 1st. The timing of the response to you will depend on when we received your initial contact regarding Epic Rewards.

If you haven’t contacted us yet, please email us at epicrewards@sephora.com. We’ve set up this dedicated mailbox to collect the right information quickly and accurately, separating you from the queue for general Sephora inquiries. When you email us at this address, it will generate an automated response that confirms we’ve received the message. You can then expect to hear back from us as quickly as possible with more information.

Please know that our team is listening, and we take your concerns to heart. We value your support, and we will be in touch soon.

With our sincerest thanks,

The Beauty Insider Team

*************************************

Updated September 1

Thank you to everyone who reached out to us about Epic Rewards. We have reached out to all of those members who emailed us on or before August 25th, and are no longer accepting new submissions. epicrewards@sephora.com has been closed. Please contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672) regarding any other questions or concerns. We have reviewed your feedback and are taking it into consideration as we plan for future promotions. Our loyal Beauty Insiders are enormously important to us.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like some "inside beauty insider" trading is going on with Sephora employees.  

[wheeeee]

Ok, you got greedy. I am just gonna say it!  

Not sure if I am understanding correctly. 1 of EACH 5k reward????

That is what you wanted????

But, I agree, with you. This was Sephora's intent! Get people's hopes high by releasing some very beautiful rewards and people went to town spending and racking up those 2x/3x/4x points.

I also wanted the Dry Bar. But, I looked at the reward and picked everything I wanted and bought it all myself!

Yes, I treated myself and spent during the event. The only difference is my mentality! Now, I have all the DB and my points! This is why I am not disappointed. 

But, I am upset because now I understand that these rewards are not for 'Customer Appreciation' but a greedy marketing scheme because they created thousands of shoppers with your mentality. That is not cool, either!

I am also upset because Dry Bar is consider Hazmat and will arrive tomorrow! heheheheheheh! 

[laketom]

Here you go desert dancer so you can read again...

" my plan was to try and score at least one of a few of the 5000 point plus rewards"

she very clearly says at least one, not one of each

so sick of people criticizing others. Everyone has a right to feel whatever way they want about the situation. Just please stick to the facts and don't incite by misquoting people. 

[wheeeee]

Thank you! Not criticizing but sympathizing with her. I did request clarification, so, No, not misquoting. 

This caught my attention because I was in the same boat as she was, but I was not going to spend hundreds of dollars hoping to score some free shampoo! 

Spend that $500 on the 5,000 reward!   When you try to do both then yes.....that is greedy!

I am glad she posted and her honesty is refreshing.  This also proves Sephora's real intention.

After she admitted she shopped solely to rack more points...........Now, she is on this board complaining  that the points are useless and threatening to take her business somewhere else! 

[avanhooser]

I am curious as to the logic in how I got greedy.  The whole system as you stated is for loyal Sephora shoppers to spend money and build up points to use on these types of events.  I am surely not saving up my points to obtain a sample size lipstick.   So yes I spent $500 on items so I could make sure that I had over 5000 points no matter what since the last event had a glitch as well and they miss calculated my total points so I missed out on that event as well.

I spent the money also because three to four times a year I stock up on items I use regularly such as my favorite shampoos and make up products.  When I do this I do a large order and make it count when its a bonus event such as this.

I never said I did it solely to rack up points but I did ensure if I was going to select a big ticket item there would not be a failure like there was last year and I wanted over the amount needed for the rewards,  By the way I had already attained 5000+ points that I had but again last year I was screwed as well since I had 4911 points in my account and the day before the event I purchased 100$ of merchandise and some how those points did not get added till after the event.  Lesson learned so I made sure to shop differently this year. (The reason this is relevant is because normally the points hit your account immediately.)

I am on this board complaining because I spend over the $1000 dollars that Sephora stipulates each year to maintain a status they predefined.  I followed there limited rules for this event and once again I was shown that while they had rules saying employees are exempt and that it was one epic reward per customer that in fact employees were able to score the rewards and customers that did succeed were able to get two and in some cases three rewards.

I am complaining because as a paying customer whom signed up for this program and follows all the rules can see in evidence on some of these threads that Sephora did in fact set up a system that let rules I followed be broken and failed to provide a fair contest for all of its valued customers.  You may call that greedy but I call it lying to the loyal customers that participated and all they experienced was an epic failure.

And by the way it was not just free shampoo it included a blow dryer, curling iron, straightening iron and enough products for hair care that I would be set on hair products for quite a few months.  I have been a loyal customer participating in the rewards program since inception and I feel there is nothing greedy about saving points to use on these events but when every event ends in a snafu then its the customer getting screwed and Sephora needs to step up and fix it.

[cruising87]

Sent my email...interested to see how Sephora intends on making this right...

[Feibeast]

So what kind of consumers can be treated as those who tried to get rewards?  For those add a reward in their basket and when they placed order, the reward was gone and finally they were angry and gave up? Or just for those that succefully placed the order without getting the rewards. 

All of us tried to win the rewards and will you compensate all of us? For all of us that spend thousands of dollars, especially one week before, who do not wanna get the reward?

it is really a ridiculous response and reaction. 

[trishavt]

Here's where the 10,000 point Paris trip went. The Sephora CEO enjoying a nice meal in Paris with Sephora execs. HAHA!

Curious to learn more about this "strategy plan"

[notcreative]

Guess he is used to nice restaurants. If he takes me up on my lunch offer, I better treat him to something nicer than fast food!

[thatshortchicky]

Sephora is a French company...

[bratknits]

Strategy 1 -  We can expense this right?

Meeting over, drink up!

[jellybean917]

Bahahaha! 

[Queenieeeeeeee]

And sephora never apologizes for locking up Chinese people's (who live in the US/Canada and use email address with Chinese domains) accounts.

[CindyshiSH]

I refreshed my page on 3:00, and the website got stuck 30 seconds, then the only reward i saw was 2000 points and only two choices. I highly doubt the quantity of the reward. Even Sephora only prepared limited reward, it cannot be run that fast. 

[nightsnow]

I appreciate the apology and effort to make it up to consumers, but seriously? We purposely racked up points, kept refreshing the site for nothing. And to make it up we get more points to redeem what? 

Not sure what to redeem now after the EPIC disappointment of not being able to redeem the EPIC reward (feel like this promotion must be an urban legend, all a bad dream) 

[Anonymous]

Here's an idea...

1000 points-$100. At least for the people emailing. 

[BeautyBee92]

I think that's a good idea. I mean, perks are great.....if you actually like the products and they are a decent size. However, I'd love to see Sephora offer to turn points into gift cards with a 5-10% return (so spend $1000 for 1000 points, get a complimentary $50-$100 GC to spend).

[vchotia]

If you spend $1,000 at Nordstrom, you get $20 so I don't see Sephora offering giftcards at 5-10% return. Would be nice though.

[H216]

Spend $1000 at Ulta can get you at LEAST $50 gift card. 

[ktina1219]

Not even ... I've spent $625.50 at Ulta this year and have 1646 points. Never shopped there prior to 2015, so all 1646 points are from this year. 1600 Point Value = $70.50

So I've spent $625 and have $70.50 available to me in rewards - and just think, the 10x point event hasn't even happened yet!

[BeautyBee92]

Exactly! That's why I think them considering a reward worth 5-10% of total money spent doesn't seem unreasonable. I know each store operates differently, but I think Ulta is probably considered a big competitor and they seem to do a better job with rewards in general.