May 17, 2011

Nixxing Nyx - The Sale That Never Was...

NyxGate. Nyx Fail. NixedNyx.  NYX120Fail. NyxFailSale. NixNyx.


There's a whole mess of 'em out there. A lot of annoyed former customers of the popular cosmetics company, who are now pissed off and angry because of Nyx's failure to appease or fix the problem. Ok, there's many blog posts written now, lots of Tweets, many upset Facebookers. I'll tell you my ridiculous story of the time I spent trying to get in on this "deal". I'm not really complaining- my protest of this entire debacle comes in the form of me never again purchasing their cosmetics. Not even second hand.

Oh- but I did meet one girl online who says she was able to check out. I don't know her personally, but hey- if it's true and she was able to get in on the deal- great! Good for her! And I told her as much! Continuing on... This story is the majority of a comment I left on a blog yesterday. Because I'm exhausted, the rain is killing my back, and I just don't feel like typing all of it up again- I'm cutting, pasting, and taking some creative editing and wording into my story.

I knew I wasn't going to get to the site as soon as the sale started, so I figured what the heck. I'd wait for a while, and then try. That way- the mad mobbing of the site should die down and processing an order should be easier. How would you feel if I told you I was online at 9pm EST trying to get to the site. Constant refreshing. No pages.
Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
OOOHH an IMAGE.
Timed out.
Shit.Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Nada. Nil. Not a thing.
OOOHH wait! A page loaded! Able to navigate for less than a minute... But managed to add glitter liner to my cart. While that was processing, it timed out. No glitter liner in my cart after all. Refresh. Refresh.
Refresh.
Refresh.
Nothing.
Refresh.
Oooohh page is back, add glitter liner to cart. Success! It went through! Now to go back and get eyeliner... No page loads. Server too busy. Refresh.
Refresh.
Server times out.
Refresh.
Server isn't responding.
Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Score! Eyeliner page loads. Add 2 to cart. Processing, time out. (mad face)
No eyeliner in cart. Go back to eyeliner page. Wait 30 minutes, hitting refresh, finally loads. Try to add back to cart- finally it gets in to it. Alright now, jumbo pencils. Page not loading.
Server isn't responding.
Refresh x10.
No pages load.
Refresh x10.
Page half loads.
I could go on and on… And I did… From 9pm, to 5:30 am, I sat here at not one, but two of my computers and tried to get items into my cart.
A PC and a Mac.
Epic, huh?
I noticed a trend- the Mac had better luck refreshing and loading the pages. Better luck getting things added to my cart. I decided the Mac would win out, and went and camped out from about midnight to 5am sitting at the table. Yes, folks, if you remember correctly- I can't sit in regular chairs very long. So every 10 minutes, I'd have to come and sit in my recliner- put my feet up for 5 min, and try my best to unkink the knot forming in my back. It didn't help that it's been raining here every day.
I continued this behavior. Defended Nyx. Defended the fact the servers were probably overloaded. Hoped they would extend the sale, or put it off until they fixed the site.
5:30 am people.
I’m stupid. I sat here, thinking I could actually get in on this deal. I gave up at just before 5:30. The sun was coming up. I had $33 and change worth of products in my cart. Not much at all, and I was willing to spend it.
I slept until 10:30. Didn’t get onto the computer until noon, EST. Spent from then until just before 4pm EST trying to check out. Page kept stalling at checkout. My cart was fine, pages were still sporadically loading, and the mouse button has a dent in it from my finger hitting it around roughly a million times during those hours. Woah- checkout finally loaded everything, but the credit card entry area. Tried to re-load, crossed my fingers…
And proceeded to let loose a string of profanities that would send sailors running from a bar. I was ripshit. The page would not load. I could not get to the part where I enter my card info, gleefully hand over my money, and process my order.
I go out, get some hair dye at CVS… Come back and get back into the site because Mom closed out the window. Another string of profanities. My roughly $33 cart now housed a grand total of somewhere around $140 in product. Then this little gem below shows up on their site- click to see the big version.


Um, you think this is an appropriate apology?! A great deal? Your thank you to US was supposed to be an Anniversary Sale- meaning most products were a dollar and twenty cents. $1.20. Now, because you failed to take the site down and reschedule the sale, 50% off and free shipping is going to make us happy?! That's an apology for the site not being fixed, and hardly anything working?! Out of thousands of fans who were going to purchase an insane amount of products from you at this "Thank You Sale", we find out not only is the sale not extended in lieu of all these problems. But the 50%/Free Shipping is essentially a big "F**K YOU" to us customers. It's almost as if you expected problems throughout the giant sale, and your apology for it is B***S**T at best.Nyx, do you think I’ll be back for ANY of your products?!
That’s a guaranteed NO.
I won’t so much as buy a second hand product from you at this point. I’m disgusted, let down, and feeling just completely slimed.

And I’m gonna hop onto my IT Geek Horse here and say this:
This was not a convenient “crash” because of the amount of traffic which was on the site which overloaded the servers blah blah blah. The traffic volume right now? It’s probably much the same as it was last night. It continues, yet somehow currently runs without any problems for those who really want the measly 50% off. IF they’ve even received the code- which I believe in comments was promised sometime around the sale end (12pm PST, 3pm EST). As of today, Tuesday May 17th, after 9pm EST I still don't have a "discount code". Neither do any of my friends who have emailed, as you requested.

Nyx- you should have shut the site down after a few hours of THOUSANDS of complaints and rescheduled a “Rain Date Sale”. I guarantee there would be a LOT less enraged rabid former-fans of your product.
This was poor planning.
This was poor execution.
This was lame excuses.
This was horrendous customer service.
This was absolute chaos.
Me?
I’ll be happily resuming my limited spending with Indie Business. At least I not only make great friends that way, but I have personalized touches added to my order. I know what's in all my products. And I love their prices!

Do tell... What's been your experience with Nyx?
Do you know anyone who was able to successfully check out?
Do you plan on purchasing makeup from this company in the future?

Still not convinced? Check out other experiences from around the blogosphere:
Manda asks "Why you no honor sale?". Simple enough.
Wandering Thoughts of a Scientific Housewife has a great article... Especially the part about Nyx being famous for doing their $1 sale... Which hasn't crashed the site on this level...
Liz from Beauty Black Book also has a great read as to why this is about being heard.
Grey  and Phyrra had to deal with some seriously rude people.
Candace asks if they really pulled a big mistake?
FierceNerditude says she's done... Completely.


x0x0x0 ~*Snarky P

15 comments:

  1. I was another one of the thousands who waited countless hours to purchase some stuff. All of which I was very excited about. But sadly, no Nyx for me. I can't say I will never shop there again, I haven't decided that part yet. I will say though that what I do own of Nyx came from Ebay LOL! But I do believe this was an affront to customer service everywhere and the people who pay their paychecks. I have been thoroughly disgusted with the way this was handled and no, I haven't received my coupon code yet either...

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  2. Still no code for me. I can't say I'm surprised.

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  3. I don't personally know Baroque in Babylon, but she managed to check out. Of the hundreds of people I've heard from, she was the only one.

    I'm really sorry to hear about all the trouble you went through for the sale. I find that Nyx message infuriating, as it isn't an apology at all, but a weird, annoying, ill-timed thank you. =\

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  4. My experience went a little like this. I heard about the sale on Saturday night due to targeted facebook advertising. I read some reviews on some products I was interested in. I put together a tentative wish list (not on their site, but on my compy). Then, around 2:30 EST, I waited for the sale to begin.
    And waited.
    And waited.
    While this was happening, they were stringing us along with status updates like "Not too much longer" and "Be patient!"
    So I was patient, and waited some more.
    Around 8 o clock my time, they finally opened up the site and it was a crazy thing. I couldn't get anything to load. For the first few hours of the sale, I didn't even see the main site. (Now, it should be said that I was also doing my schoolwork at the time, so I wasn't trying as often as some people probably were.)

    To make a long story short, I stuck with the sale through the night, checking on it every ten minutes or so, except for the six hours I slept. I'm glad I didn't give up sleep for it! I tried at 3 AM PST, because I figured the servers would have cleared by then. Unfortunately, they had not.

    When I woke up in the morning, I checked the page and it was the same, and that's pretty much when I gave up. In addition, there were reports of people finding the wrong order in their cart. There were also rumors that people were seeing other people's credit card information, but I don't know if that was true.

    The 50% off code, while a real present at any other time, was a huge middle finger to everyone who waited for the sale. In any traditional brick and mortar store, the people who got to the store first get the sales. In this f-ed up mess, it was mainly who had the persistence to keep pressing the F5 button. And even most of the persistent ones didn't get through.

    As I've said before, the way this whole brouhaha was handled saddens me. They could have shut the sale down and tried it another day. They could have done the right thing and extended the sale so we could buy later. They could have given us a better coupon code.

    So many "could haves" and what did we get? A coupon code that was insufficient and customer service who was out of touch at best and outright condescending at worse.

    I e-mailed for my code, but will not be using it. I just want to see if they actually make good, or maybe change their minds and issue a coupon that actually matters.

    Sorry for the super-long comment! I got started and couldn't stop!
    -Amanda

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  5. I had been lemming a few things from Nyx, but after hearing everyone's stories of the epic fail - I'll pass.Plenty of other places to shop.

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  6. I never even got the site to load for me!!! Not once.

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  7. I called and never recieved a call back... totally peeved

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  8. Nyx really should of known this all was going to happen.

    Their first mistake imo was making it only a 12 hour sale. With that short amount of time and huge discounted products they HAD to of known this would happen. And even if the server crash was a huge shocker they should of shut it down, fixed it and then extended the sale.

    I agree with Amanda 100% there should of been a que/wait time. This was completely random and you had no idea when your chance to check out would be.

    Their apology/50% off crap I have to say is a real FU to their customers.

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  9. I had pretty much the same experience but i gave up around 10pm because i had abandon all hope. This was overly ridiculous. And i'm right there with you.

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  10. @Melisa: I'm curious to see if we even get one :/ Based upon their current antics, I doubt it.

    @Manda: Mmmhhmmm... Right there with ya >.<

    @Vijiis: Amazing!! Congrats to her, while jealous in a good way! Out of how many *thousands* of fans... Hundreds check out. FAIL!

    @Amanda M: No worries! I know I'm not the only one! And you can write as much as you want :) I agree with the huge middle finger comment too- how true!! Trust me... I could let loose with a LOT of profanities right now.... But I want to keep it kiddie safe here LOL

    @Zillah1199: Absolutely! Plenty of other places to get products from!!!

    @Persephone: UGH. I'm so sorry :(

    @Gunmetal27: Seriously?!?! JERKS!

    @Rebecca: You nailed it!! From what I've read, they've held dollar sales on their site before without any incident. It's strange this one crashed it.

    @Kattatonic Fierceology: I think their ship has sailed... Or at least lost a lot of their fan base.

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  11. My experience was pretty much the same as yours, Amanda (minus the excruciating back pain but adding in breaks for training Sunday afternoon and work on Monday). I had not been a devotee of Nyx but was eager to try after reading so many raves about the quality of their products...after this, not a chance. The CS (and I use the term loosely) was complete junk.

    Like Zillah said, plenty of other good fish in the sea to bother swallowing something rotten.

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  12. Hey, totally off topic, but I tagged you http://melissasrandommusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-abcs.html

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  13. ooo girl! I was so annoyed at them! Also the fact that they refuse to honor the $1.20 and then try to give us the 50% discount as a form of compensation.
    I will not be shopping with them for a while!! Just thinking about the whole mess makes me angry >.<

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  14. This whole thing is so freaking lame. I am glad I didn't participate in the sale, but I certainly feel sorry for everyone who wasted their time. What a bullsh*t apology from NYX..."Thank you for taking part in our sale!" Um, from the sounds of it, pretty much NO ONE was even able to take part!

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  15. I'll still purchase because I would have *never* known if not for the internet. I buy my Nyx from an Ulta store. I've never gone to their site and only buy online from indie companies so... my line isn't bad customer service (and I agree, it was bad!!) my line is product testing on small cute animals (or any animal) or using pigments knowingly that can cause horrible skin reactions. I feel for you though: I can't imagine how frustrating it was. :(

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