customer story

Julie, a loyal Plum customer, purchased our beautiful retro style white dress for a wedding she attended in early August. The dress fit her to perfection, and her husband took a picture of a glowing Julie before the ceremony.

I spoke to Julie about what happened next, and it wasn't a happy story. Sitting at the reception, she was served a glass of red wine, full to the brim. She noted that having some water was in order, and with that, she grabbed the pitcher and caught the ledge on the wine glass. Down went the wine, covering Julie's white shift. She was beyond devastated.

Shortly after the big spill, Julie - who had developed a close relationship with our manager - emailed the before and after pictures to Sue, truly showing how upset she was. Sue remembered there was only one dress in Julie's size - at the Kelowna store. After talks with the owners of Plum, it was decided that we would have the dress couriered to White Rock and ultimately gift the dress to Julie. We lured her into the store on the premise that we had a super stain remover for her to try. When she arrived, Julie was given the dress.

[Julie (second from left) with Plum staff: Lydia-Rose, Alyssa & Meredith]

Julie was so thrilled with Plum's generosity, as the gift was so unexpected, and is planning to wear it in October, as her husband is taking her out for dinner on her birthday (she mentioned she would drink only white wine while wearing her new dress). Of course, nothing can take away from the memory of the spilled red wine, but Julie will be able to make new memories with her gorgeous little dress. We now know we have a forever Plum customer in Julie.

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Dear Plum,

My wife shops at your stores frequently, says its about the only place she can get the kind of jeans she likes; I say, fine, but when are you going to acknowledge the environment and do something about your bags? Each time she shops at Plum we gain another plasticky bag with heavy strings attached--what am I supposed to do with it? Why can't you get on the bandwagon like other progressive stores and have biodegradeable bags? Surely they can be just as strong and just as attention-getting as your lime green, blue string bags, which I still don't know what to do with because I can't even tell if they're plastic or paper--or what.

M.

Dear M,

Thanks for the input.  Actually you are correct, the "bandwagon" is the so-called bio-degradable bags but we have done some research and the so called bio-degradable isn't as good as the name suggests.   We have discovered that from 'marketing' perspective they are wonderful but from an environmental point of view the jury is still out.  The plastic in them remains and is washed into the water system because what holds the plastic molecules together decomposes but the plastic doesn't decompose.  

We are not experts and are trying to do our best but that didn't sound right to us.  So we chose to go with a bag that was actually reusable.  IE: better quality and easy to use for going shopping.  We felt customers like your wife might use them again!  We made our small bag usable as a lunch bag and we sell a really nice reusable bag for half of what they cost to produce.

We also explored the option of having paper.  Unfortunately, it meant cutting down a tree ... not so good.  Plus it also meant much larger packaging and therefore higher fuel costs for transport (not good for air quality).  So now we have a paper bag to replace the plastic lunch bag and it is made completely of recycled paper.  Customers seem to respond better to the paper bag.  We also recycle all our plastic that we receive when our products are delivered from overseas.  Local deliveries are done in our own truck which is an old 1980's beater but it is propane fueled ... we found it impossible to purchase a new truck because the new computerized engines we could not convert to propane.

It isn't easy as you can imagine, to be environmentally conscious ...but we are doing our best.  If your wife brings the bag back when she goes shopping we would gladly take it back and reuse it but what we would really love to see is if she reused it again ... that way we all win.

Thanks again for the input.

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