Online Cosmetics Companies – Spend Money on Web Servers!

It really is the most important and first lesson of e-commerce.

If you’re selling a product online and you have loyal customers who want to support you, you need to give them the best website experience possible. This simply means, a website that works.

Cosmetics companies who have a HUGE online presence simply don’t seem to get it. If you’re launching a product and have been marketing it for months and there’s hype around it’s release – spend some of the money the customers are spending on your product to make their experience seamless.

NOTHING is more excruciatingly painful for a customer, who may live in other countries in the world – having to get up at a time that might be in the middle of the night, or take time off work if they’re a diehard fan – just to get your product – and then find they can’t get it or have to wait around to do so.

There have been many of these website “FAILS” over recent months – but today’s is @hudabeauty – http://www.shophudabeauty.com.

For ages now they’ve been promoting their first palette – which to be fair, is extremely expensive at US$65 – more expensive than well-established brands and with a lot less features, such as a simple mirror or a brush. People have already been outraged by the price – and now it’s come to launch time and it’s now 50 minutes after the launch time – and the website is still not working.

Then out comes a post on instagram – “Website will be up in 15 minutes” – this was 20 minutes after the scheduled launch time.

Next lesson in website maintenance – simple, simple website maintenance. Don’t post times which are unrealistic – or if there is a doubt that they’ll be true, always err on the side of caution.

Now, all those annoyed people who got up at 4am in the US are now even more annoyed because the website still isn’t working when it was promised to be working.

If I was a @hudabeauty customer, it’d almost be enough for me to want to disregard purchasing the product. Especially at such a high price.

The motto is simple – spend money on website development, especially when your launch is on the internet and not in a physical store.

In the past, it has happened with Beautylish, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Pat Macgrath Labs and so many others. Take the time to get someone who knows what they are doing and implement changes so that people have an enjoyable shopping experience. Happy customers are return customers.

UPDATE – It’s now almost 3 hours after the launch time and there has been nothing official on other social media networks apart from snapchat saying anything. The website is still down – not one person has purchased.

On Snapchat, @hudabeauty have said that the launch will now take place tomorrow. That’s NOT GOOD ENOUGH. They should be disgusted with their business practices.