Black Friday. A day of shopping joy. A day of shopping bargains. A day many shoppers look forward to for amazing sales, both online and in store.
Why then, do so many of us have frustrating shopping experiences on Black Friday?
If a retailer can’t support the demand, don’t advertise the deal!
And if a retailer can support the demand, keep it real and don’t false advertise!
Is that really so difficult??
Apparently for some.
This guest post is written by my good friend Debbie, pictured above, after having an incredibly frustrating online shopping experience. I invited Debbie to share her struggles and to hopefully educate online retailers how important it is to carefully advertise sales, especially on a day like Black Friday. Black Friday is one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. As an avid online shopper, I planned in advance what websites I would visit and what purchases we would make. Today I experienced a really bad case of false advertising coupled with a side dish of poor customer service on the Justice website on one of their biggest online shopping days, Black Friday. For those of you who don’t have tween or teen girls at home, Justice is “THE store” for all things cute, adorable, fashionable, and “must have” with the 8-14 year old crowd. So naturally, when Justice advertised “50% off EVERYTHING” before 10am on Black Friday (excluding clearance and style buys), my 9yo daughter and I went on the site at 8:30 am and loaded up our cart with almost $200 worth of merchandise.
When we went to check out, I noticed that a pair of $30 sneakers (not marked clearance or style buy) didn’t get the 50% discount applied to it. So I removed it from my cart, re-added it, and tried again. Still, no discount.
I tried calling Justice’s customer service but with a hold time of “58 minutes,” (seriously!) I hung up. I am sure the 58 minute hold time might have something to do with other people experiencing the same problem with their online orders.
I abandoned the phone call and I went to an online chat and engaged with CS, an online chat agent. I asked her why my cart wasn’t applying the 50% discount to our sneakers. CS simply responded “the discount doesn’t apply to those shoes.” When I pressed further and asked why not, it took CS about 15 minutes to respond, “Well those shoes are from our new collection so the discount won’t work.” Once again, I asked CS to explain to me why the 50% off EVERYTHING sales promotion did not include new items, but apparently, CS ran out of excuses at that point and decided to disconnect our chat.
Next, I took to Twitter. At this point, I was feeling pretty frustrated both at the waste of time and poor customer service. But Twitter was a whole different ballgame. Justice took about an hour to acknowledge my tweet (now well past the 10am sale deadline) and asked me to DM them with the problem I was having. I tweeted that I would but that it was already past the 10am deadline so the sale was over. An hour later they tweeted that the deadline was extended to 1pm and they asked me to provide specific information, which I did. At this point, there was about 30 minutes left to the newly extended sale time, and after repeatedly tweeting them “hello?” and “are you still there?” the sale ended for the second time and I had no resolution from Justice.
If you are an online shopper like I am, I KNOW YOU FEEL MY FRUSTRATION. I’ve experienced so many incredibly good customer service experiences from online retailers like Amazon and Zappos. When a situation like this occurs, with a retailer we shop at regularly, who was having an awesome sale that we really really really wanted to take advantage of, I have to wonder where things went wrong with them. Is it poor web management? Bad customer service training? Ineffective social media managers? Frankly, with Justice, I think it’s all three. And unfortunately, they’ve cast a very dark light on my online shopping experience with them – and lost hundreds of dollars worth of business from me today and in the future.
I have some advice for you Justice: manage your online property like Amazon does, offer incredible customer service like Zappos does, and engage in excellent social media responsiveness like DollarShaveClub does. You’ve got my lifetime loyalty if you value me like I value your product.
I’d love to hear your stories on how you’ve dealt with similar problems! Anyone else had a problem with Justice today? Any other frustrating Black Friday shopping experiences you want to share?
I struggle with the fine print of special deals! My niece loves Justice but I also have a hard time justifying how expensive it can be. That sounds crazy that they were that backed up!
I think all girls love Justice. Too bad Justice does not like their customers as much as the girls like the products!
Wow, what an awful experience!! I am so sorry for you, I can feel your frustration. I actually had nothing but easy, breezy online shopping so far.
It was awful. A waste of time, many hours deciding what to buy, and then trying to get them to acknowledge their own sale!! I am glad that you had an easier time, you should!
Online shopping can be really frustrating sometime so thank you for this post. I do 95% of my Christmas and household shopping online as I had failed back surgery and a trip to town is too painful to manage most days.
Online shopping is supposed to be much easier than braving the crowds. I wonder if the same nonsense would have happened in the actual store itself. Thanks for visiting!
Sounds like Justice did not prepare their CS for potential issues. Sorry you had a bad experience. Maybe call them now since the sale is over, they may honor the price?
Thanks for the suggestion, they were definitely not prepared for the 50% off everything sale they advertised.
That SUCKS! Bad customer experience is so annoying. I hope you won’t be frequenting there again!
It totally sucks! It is so hard because the kids love this store and you do not want to punish them. But I am sure after seeing my frustration yesterday they might have a different opinion about Justice after this.
What I am told is online is shopping cheaper and easier. You had a difficult time feel your frustration. How about paying twice and waiting a week plus for the refund how annoying this can be especially if the person was rude. Customer service is the key to everything these days ..But it work who does not want to feel special thanks for sharing.
Online shopping is supposed to be easier, but unfortunately it was not in this instance. Customer service is obviously not a priority for this business. If it were, they would do everything they could to keep the sale, and me as a long time customer happy!
Oh my gosh that makes me so mad!! I remember when Justice bought out Limited Too when I was younger and ever since they got bought out my mom has had the worst experiences with them and she won’t shop there anymore! Thankfully my little sisters aren’t too picky but I can’t believe how rude and unprofessional they were to you.
I still can’t believe it either. I really feel like they had so many chances to rectify the problem and they failed miserably every single time. You are lucky that your little sisters are not picky, that is the best way to be.
That’s terrible! I *might* understand if something was misadvertised, but if that’s the case, own up to it! Don’t ignore it! Ugh.
Right? Everyone makes mistakes and we are all human and an error is certainly bound to happen occasionally. But wasting half my day on a company that still has not fixed a sale that they advertised sucks! Thanks for chiming in.
I don’t have any daughters, so I don’t shop at Justice, but that sounds ridiculous. Terrible customer service. I wouldn’t shop there again.
Dressing boys is sooooo much easier than girls. My boys never care what they wear but girls really do. They are also influenced by what their friends are wearing.
I am so relieved this year. I will be making almost all of the gifts I give since I was laid off from my job. I have been watching the black friday prices and frankly, I have gotten better deals other times of the year.
Wow, you can make all your own gifts? That is amazing. I wish I was that talented!
I would lose my mind! I have had experiences like that where they basically give you an “oh well we can’t help you” kind of attitude. It is extremely frustrating! I totally agree that Amazon is amazing. Anytime I’ve had an issue they resolve it with one phone call, and never have an attitude.
Exactly!! It is almost as if some companies do not care if they have any customers. Ridiculous!
NO problems for me. It’s awful to hear when people have them though.
Right? It should not be so hard for a big brand to make sure their sale is working correctly on the biggest sale of the year.
What an experience! I’m sorry you had to experience such poor customer service. I thought they would be more alert and responsive since it’s such a big sale, but no. I wish they improve on their service and advertising as well.
Thanks for the kind words. I agree with you completely.
I hate when I have trouble with discounts when shopping online. I usually don’t bother with it at that point. Not worth the hassle to me.
I agree with you completely. For me I would just forget about it, but when my daughter has chosen things she wants, I usually persevere a little longer!
I agree with you. If a coupon code does not work I usually just close the window and forget about that sale.
I’ve yet to have a situation like this. I always use Amazon or Zulilly when I shop. I love their customer servive. I’m sorry your friend had a horrible time. I think that would put a sour taste in my mouth as well.
This is a perfect example why I try to buy everything I can from Amazon. Amazon has always had the best customer service reps whenever I have called.
I agree with you… So many mislead advertisements. It happened to me last week, couldn’t get any extra discount even though they advertise 50% off everything.
It’s so frustrating when things like this happens. I seldom shop online and so far, I never had an awful experience.
I actually shop online almost everyday and this was a uniquely frustrating experience that does not happen to me very often!
It was the second year we celebrated black Friday in South Africa and I really enjoyed it. Got some good deals and Thank God the queue wasn’t hectic but I’m sure it is way worse by you.
I haven’t tried to shop online, because it looks really frustrating and I don’t wanna have an experience. I’m going to be crazy.
Shopping online is amazing, until it goes wrong. I love saving time, gas, energy and money by shopping online.
You gotta read the fine print. I always read the fine print when they say something “off everything” because there are always exclusions.
This is the ridiculous part, the item we were trying to buy was not in the fine print! Still frustrating two days later.
I have to admit that I avoid the whole Black Friday thing altogether. Nothing I need is that urgent. Great post.
Yes, I’ve had a horrible shopping/customer service too. Mine was with T-Mobile last year and I not only let them know what I think about it, but I blogged about it too. I took my business elsewhere (Verizon) and have been happy with my service AND the amount of my bill ever since. Improvement will only happen when enough people “vote” with their dollars for companies with good prices, good terms and good customer service.
So true!!! Companies need to take us customers seriously! Without customers there is no business. I am so glad your Verizon switch worked out for you!
I heard there were issues with several different stores on Black Friday. Target was one of them too. It’s a shame.
These online stores know that Black Friday will be one of their biggest shopping days of the year. They need to be better prepared or be willing to lose customers!
Unfortunately, I basically ignore blaring promises of deals too-good-to-be-true. I’ve come to the conclusion that stores create these scenarios intentionally. It’s been 8 years since I’ve bothered with Black Friday nonsense.
I think you are right. Most of the time the hype is not worth the aggravation. But when it is your child’s favorite store, and they are offering 50% off almost everything, you might want to put in the extra effort!
What a terrible experience! Thanks for linking up with #justanotherlinky xx
Yes, it was terrible! Unfortunately I was not the only one who had a disappointing experience at Shop Justice.