* The pop-up shop has just been announced to now be running through February!
Free treat every visitor gets just for giving their email address! Who doesn't love surprises?
My purchase! Click my YouTube video below the text to see what I got :)
Highs:
- They let me film to my heart's content. It felt a little awkward, but I really wanted to show my blog viewers and YouTube viewers the store and it felt exciting to go to a launch. Today wasn't technically the launch, but it was the 2nd day so it still felt exciting. There were people still staring at me however and I do kind of feel like the girls were looking at me a little also... but then again I guess it is weird to have someone walking around your store with a camera filming all your jewelry
- I really really wanted to make it there in time to be one of the first 50 visitors, because the first 50 visitors would receive a $25 gift card to spend in store, and I WAS!!!! So exciting!! The store opened at 11 AM and I got there round 12:30, maybe 12:15. I didn't think I made it, I felt so downtrodden, but then I went in and was approached by a girl who I thought was stopping me to ask me not to film. I explained why I was filming to her which seemed to take her by surprise, because in her hand was the $25 gift card the whole time and it turns out she just wanted to ask me if I'd like it! Woohoo!
- I bought a really beautiful bracelet. I'm kind of a nerd so yesterday night I went online to see the things that specifically caught my eye to take pictures of them on my phone to keep an eye out for in store, and I found the one I wanted the most! :) I also loved that I got to use my gift card to help pay for it. The bracelet was $32 so I ended up only having to pay $7 :) There was one other item I hoped would be in store, but it wasn't. I wasn't surprised though because it was sold out online so I knew it would be a slim chance but I was hopeful :(
Lows:
- I thought the register girls were nice, but the manager kind of rubbed me the wrong way. She wasn't rude or anything but she breezed over to me very straightforwardly after I asked one of the girls who worked there if she could speak a little on camera about the pop-up shop and Baublebar. The girl went to go get the manager, who I assumed would speak to the camera about it, but instead the manager said she couldn't speak on film today but that if I wanted some text pulled together or something like that she might be able to do it. She did ask if I was from a beauty blog which made me feel a little nervous because, let's be honest, this is my own little beauty venture and it really is a small blog. But I just told her it was my own blog which she seemed to find credible enough. But yeah either way she was very professional and straightforward and told me I could film the girls in action and film whatever I wanted in the store, which I appreciated, but I still don't quite know why she couldn't have spoken to the camera about the shop even for a little bit. I mean come on, it was free exposure! Blah.
- Another person who rubbed me the wrong way was this girl who I initially liked. She was out on the floor and helped me search for a necklace, the item I mentioned that I was interested in earlier. I asked her if they had it in stock and she said they should have, which I found to be one of those things where they might not know what they're talking about and are just assuming, because online only the silver was left in stock, and the store only seemed to have the silver on the floor. However since she said they should have, and did earlier I believed her. She however couldn't find it and walked over to a computer they had in the corner to search it up online, where she found (as I had already known) that it was sold out online and that they probably didn't have it in store. That was okay to me though because she still helped me look for it, which I thought was nice. However when I came back later in the day and approached her, saying "Hi! You helped me earlier in the day -smile-" she simply looked at me like she didn't recognize me at all and looked a little freaked out. I tried to jog her memory... to no avail. It was really awkward. She was kind of shaking her head like "Really...? Have we... met?" That kind of thing.
- I thought it was really cool that the store let you have a second treat in exchange for merely snapping a picture and posting it on a social media site with the hashtag "BBUnwrapped" and mentioning Baublebar in the caption/tweet/post. However, I couldn't use my camera to do it, since they wanted it instantaneously, and I also wasn't told I could do it at home and come in, show them the post and then pick up my free treat then. So I cam back later in the day with a friend who had a smartphone (as my parents think data plans are unnecessary and too expensive and so I still do not have a smartphone). It was then that I asked the girl who helped me how the process worked and she just seemed so different then earlier in the day, much unfriendlier and a little freaked out by me, kind of like I made her nervous just being there... I didn't mean to weird her out jeez I just wanted to say hi and tell her she helped me earlier :( I figured it was a nice introduction and it would show her I remembered her, but I guess she didn't remember me. Either way, I ended up getting my second treat after my friend instagrammed a pic of me but it was rather awkward. The girl from this morning who gave a girl a second treat didn't say to take a picture of anything specific, but later in the day I was told by this girl that it should be a picture of the treat I received earlier, so I had to pull it out of the pouch and everything. Either way it was worth it to get my hands on that mystery little second treat! The girl handed it to me and I got the hell out of there. When I got outside I opened it (on camera which you'll see in my video) and was so. disappointed. Inside was this pair of earrings, but it wasn't pretty at all and I really felt it was a clash with the store's elegance and sophistication and natural style. The treat I got in the morning was so much prettier, a classy necklace that I wasn't in love with, but liked and felt was a nice solid piece. This was just... bad. gaudy. tacky. I felt like they got it from a 25 cent vending machine :( I felt like I've probably gotten that pair of earrings before, in fact, from a 25 cent vending machine in my childhood. Anyway when I logged onto instagram to check out pictures other girls had instagrammed with the BBUnwrapped hashtag, I felt so let down. Some girls had received really cute things like gold stud earrings that looked adorable and expensive, and I felt I got something really tacky and on the total opposite end of what I could have gotten. :( And I made the trek back and everything just for that second treat. So that really disappointed me.
Moral of the story: I know my lows seem to outweigh my highs of the experience, but I really did think the store was absolutely beautiful, and if I had had more money to spend I would have had an absolute blast there. I wouldn't change a thing about the layout except moving the treat table to the front of the store instead of the back. Everything was decorated beautifully and was the height of decadence and sophistication without making me feel intimidated. It was really a lovely store, and I thought the promotions they did in terms of free treats and extra freebies for the first 50 people for Saturday and Sunday was absolutely fantastic. I give them a total thumbs up for that, and also think that them having people all hashtag one unified hashtag to social media was really smart in terms of driving traffic to their brand and to the pop up store, and that the treats were a great really generous way for them to achieve that goal.
So I hope you all enjoyed my words on this experience! Thanks for reading everyone. Please check out my video below, especially if you're interested in the trinket I bought! It's an absolute stunner. It's coming soon so hold tight if you don't see it in the post as of right now.
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