I don't usually rant about anything, but there's something that's been bugging me a lot lately and it is that: a) Saffron Rouge has dropped off the map, and b) no one seems to be talking about it.
Seriously - I can't find any mention of the company from anyone that used to be so vocal about reviewing their Inner Circle subscription. Do people just move on and forget so easily? Or have people just not realized that the whole company is gone?
You can't access www.saffronrouge.com anymore - just try it (nothing comes up). Their Facebook and Twitter pages are non-existent and any other kind of social media outlet they used is down or hasn't been updated in who knows how long. The only sign of confusion seems to be from a few people on Trustpilot.
So my questions are these - What happened to Saffron Rouge? Are they officially out of business? When did this happen? Why did they not announce anything? How could they do this to their customers?
For anyone who is unfamiliar with Saffron Rouge, the company was founded in 2002 and it was the largest online retailer of natural and organic skin care products and cosmetics. Back in August of 2013 they launched a subscription program called Inner Circle, which I discovered in November of the same year. For a large part of its existence on the subscription box market Inner Circle was quite easily the leading sampling service. You could always find several full-sized products in your sample pouch and the value of each box was typically unlike what any other beauty subscription out there could offer. You don't have to look further than a few of the (older, especially) reviews to see how good this service really was:
Needless to say, I'm pretty disappointed in the company. For a retailer who had stellar customer service (seriously - they got back to me within 10-20 minutes every time I wrote to them) and who had a loyal customer base, they sure chose a crummy way to go out.
They had the decency to inform everybody that the Inner Circle subscription was finished back in July, so why did they not think it was proper to give everyone a heads up that they were going out of business? Maybe send an email saying "thank you for supporting us" instead of just letting customers figure out on their own that the company was no more? Imagine you and your significant other don't talk for a few days and all of a sudden you realize that without any kind of explanation they have ran away and don't want to be contacted. Would you feel sad? Betrayed? Confused? Frustrated? Angry? I'm willing to bet anything that you would be feeling all those things and more!
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Sigh...it always sucks when a beloved company has to close down - especially a Canadian one. Saffron Rouge had a solid and respected reputation. Maybe they didn't have enough faith that their customers would support them through tough times? Maybe the company was mismanaged somewhere along the line? Who knows. All that we can say for certain is that the way a company chooses to end business says as much about it as how it functioned when it was still running. I think it's pretty clear what this situation says about Saffron Rouge, and honestly, if they were to ever reappear I would have a difficult time trusting them again.
How do you guys feel about the whole Saffron Rouge situation?
Thank you for reading.
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