Speaker 1: Hello, let's talk about Pepper Mayo. This is a bonus episode,
Speaker 1: a big business just in case you don't know. Every
Speaker 1: week I come out with a main episode and then
Speaker 1: I also come out with a little bonus episode because
Speaker 1: I just want to give you the most.
Speaker 2: And today we're spilling the tea. We're not really spilling the.
Speaker 1: Tea, but I want to take a little look into
Speaker 1: what's happened with pepper Mayo recently. For those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know, pepper Mayo is an Australian clothing brand.
Speaker 2: They've been around for quite a while.
Speaker 1: Let me actually google when did pepper Mayo start. Let's see,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's see it started in twoenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, they've been going, I'm really bad at mass,
Speaker 2: but is that thirteen years?
Speaker 1: I'm You know what people always say to me when
Speaker 1: I like post something online or like an achievement that
Speaker 1: I've done, People always comment like, what can't you do, Britt?
Speaker 2: And I always write back, I can't count properly, like
Speaker 2: I need to use my fingers and go ten thirteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: fifteen sixteen with my fingers, Like that's one thing that
Speaker 2: I actually can't do.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: But anyway. Pepper Mayo Australian clothing brand.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever bought anything there from there
Speaker 1: in my whole life.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's really my style.
Speaker 1: I think it's more like festively kind of fun clothes
Speaker 1: and I'm a plain old Jane. But they've recently been
Speaker 1: under fire on social media and I've seen a little
Speaker 1: bit bit of it popping up on my TikTok. I've
Speaker 1: seen people making negative videos. Oh what a disaster from
Speaker 1: a brand's perspective. And I had someone send me a
Speaker 1: DM on my Big Business Podcast Instagram accounts, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the person that's sent through this question.
Speaker 2: And by the way, in case you didn't know, send.
Speaker 1: Me a DM on there, and I'll absolutely see it
Speaker 1: because it's only a little baby account. Xander's in the
Speaker 1: dms too, like we're all monitoring the DM. So if
Speaker 1: you ever have a question for me, if there's something
Speaker 1: you want me to talk about, if there's something you
Speaker 1: want me to do a whole episode about, send send
Speaker 1: us a DM on there because we read them more. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this message said I need a Big Business EP on
Speaker 1: the whole Pepper Mayo situation. Poor customer service, the ghosting,
Speaker 1: people just never receiving orders.
Speaker 2: TikTok is popping off with it now. I've seen a
Speaker 2: few of.
Speaker 1: These tiktoks myself, and I just think, oh god, what
Speaker 1: an internal disaster. I can't imagine how stressful it must
Speaker 1: be to have, like I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: have made videos about them, but just what a stressful
Speaker 1: situation to have all of your customers going on social
Speaker 1: media saying I haven't received my order, they're not writing
Speaker 1: back to me, and people like share the emails back
Speaker 1: and forth like they've got receipts, and I just think,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, if this happened to me, I would
Speaker 1: just want to, Like, obviously I wouldn't, but you just
Speaker 1: want to like dig a little hole and jump in it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But obviously, when you're a business,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna do that. But personally, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I just want to crawl into a hole. But let's
Speaker 1: just read out, just so we're all on the same page.
Speaker 1: An Aussie fashion brand has gone global for its trendy
Speaker 1: outfits for women, but customers are turning on it in
Speaker 1: droves as a common complaint emergers, a global Australian clothing
Speaker 1: brand has been slammed slammed as disgruntled customers accuse it
Speaker 1: of failing to deliver their orders. Pepper Mayer is also
Speaker 1: facing accusations it has deliberately deleted comments by customers sharing
Speaker 1: their complaints on the brand social media pages. Its Instagram
Speaker 1: account contains several comments from customers who are experiencing problems
Speaker 1: with communicating with the brand's support team.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: One frustrated customer commented, can someone please respond regarding shipping
Speaker 1: emails have not been responded to. Another customer said I've
Speaker 1: sent multiple emails trying to get in contact.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Another one wrote, wait, I didn't realize so many other
Speaker 1: people were also waiting forever for their package?
Speaker 2: How long is it taking? Should I just dispute?
Speaker 1: So Essentially, what I think has happened here is it's
Speaker 1: kind of been like a snowball effect on social media.
Speaker 1: Someone must have started this by posting a video or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then it's just created this massive snowball effect of
Speaker 1: so many customers coming out of the woodworks.
Speaker 2: Going, oh my god, I'm dealing with this too, What
Speaker 2: a bloody nightmare.
Speaker 1: So the owners have come out and I think it's yeah.
Speaker 1: I think yeah, it's the two owners. They've come out
Speaker 1: and they've made a statement. Clearly something is going on
Speaker 1: in the back end of Pepper Mayo, whether it's like
Speaker 1: a logistics problem, a software problem, like that's what it
Speaker 1: sounds like if customers, like just from my experience, if
Speaker 1: customers are not receiving their orders, there's something happening happening Logistically,
Speaker 1: I can't speak to customers not being responded to. My
Speaker 1: only thought could be perhaps they're getting so many emails
Speaker 1: that the team are just struggling to get back to
Speaker 1: every single one of them in a timely manner. But like,
Speaker 1: as for us as a fashion brand, we reply to
Speaker 1: all of our emails every single day, all day long.
Speaker 1: So my guess there is they're probably getting slammed with
Speaker 1: so many that their team can't keep up. They could
Speaker 1: also be having some staff issue tied in with this,
Speaker 1: like maybe that are they're understaffed or their staff are quitting,
Speaker 1: like who knows, I can't say, but their apology and
Speaker 1: statement says this, Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize for
Speaker 1: the recent delays experienced by our amazing customers. In receiving
Speaker 1: their orders and for our lack of transparency during this time.
Speaker 2: The statement said, we know we let.
Speaker 1: You down, and for that we are truly sorry. It
Speaker 1: also says here that this statement comes just days after
Speaker 1: the founders hosted a BP trip to Gojeller for.
Speaker 2: A group of social media influences. What a disaster. Oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 1: I feel bad because I'm not trying to like shame
Speaker 1: them or whatever, but just speaking from my experience, if
Speaker 1: if we were in turmoil with our customers and people
Speaker 1: went receiving their orders and emails we're being responded to,
Speaker 1: it is so tone deaf to then take your influences.
Speaker 2: On a fucking Coachella trip.
Speaker 1: I can't but again, like, yeah, I see it from
Speaker 1: their point too. The trip was probably booked a year
Speaker 1: in advance, so of course they got to do it,
Speaker 1: and they got to keep the market and going, Oh goodness,
Speaker 1: what a disaster. You'd think that they would address something, yes,
Speaker 1: like if you've got the trip planned. Like, again, I'm
Speaker 1: only speaking from me, but if I had all this
Speaker 1: shit going on in the back end, and I had
Speaker 1: the Coachella trip planned and everything's already paid for and
Speaker 1: locked in, like understandably they're gonna go, But as the founder,
Speaker 1: I would have jumped on our social media and said, look,
Speaker 1: I want to make this video before it blows up,
Speaker 1: and here's what's happening. XYZ is happening and we're working
Speaker 1: on it. Like give your statement and then say and
Speaker 1: by the way, sorry, but we're taking influences on a
Speaker 1: trip and you're all gonna be really pissed off at that.
Speaker 1: But I'd just be fucking honest instead of just like
Speaker 1: ignoring and then doing the trip. The statement then says,
Speaker 1: we understand that seeing our recent Coachella event may have been.
Speaker 2: Upsetting during this period.
Speaker 1: Please know these campaigns were planned months in advance, so
Speaker 1: there you go. And like anyone with a brain between
Speaker 1: their two ears will know that when a brand is
Speaker 1: doing a Coachella trip, that shit is planned six plus
Speaker 1: months in advance. They haven't gone and just booked this
Speaker 1: trip in spite of the customers that have the concerns,
Speaker 1: but it still comes across as extremely tone deaf and
Speaker 1: not caring towards their community. The founders assured customers that
Speaker 1: their team had cleared approximately eighty five percent of their
Speaker 1: order backlog and planned to be fully caught up by
Speaker 1: the end of the weekend like when this happened. They
Speaker 1: went on to explain that their decision to move their operations,
Speaker 1: which are based in the United States.
Speaker 2: I thought they were an Australian brand. Who knows, maybe
Speaker 2: they're set up over there.
Speaker 1: It caused the backlog and offered free express shipping to
Speaker 1: customers for a month as a small way of making
Speaker 1: it right.
Speaker 2: Oh spicy.
Speaker 1: You know, logistics is really difficult and stuff can happen,
Speaker 1: like you can be one decision away from like fucking
Speaker 1: up your logistics. And again I don't work at Pepper mao.
Speaker 1: I don't know them, but maybe they have, you know,
Speaker 1: moved warehouses or whatever, and it's just caused this backlog.
Speaker 1: And if you're getting a heap of orders, it can
Speaker 1: throw the whole thing off. And I can speak to
Speaker 1: this from our experience as well. At Fate, we take
Speaker 1: a lot of pride in being able to get our
Speaker 1: orders out really quickly, and our customers that shop with
Speaker 1: us frequently, they know how fast the shipping is. Especially
Speaker 1: in our Fate Society Facebook group. Our customers will place
Speaker 1: an order, you know, at night time, and then they'll
Speaker 1: get their shipping notification let's say the next morning, and
Speaker 1: they'll always post in our Fate Society group being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Chris Jenner works hard, but the Fate
Speaker 1: Warehouse team works harder. And our customers always praise us
Speaker 1: for how quickly we get our orders out. But then
Speaker 1: let's say, for example, we do a sale, then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we can't get every one's order out
Speaker 1: the next morning because we have thousands and thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of orders to get through, and I notice it
Speaker 1: within our community group. Let's say if we do a sale.
Speaker 1: When we do a sale, it can take like up
Speaker 1: to two weeks to get everyone's orders out from that
Speaker 1: one sale because the volume of it is just on
Speaker 1: another level. And then we've had people posting in our
Speaker 1: community group to be like, where's my order? Like usually
Speaker 1: it comes out so so quickly, but I ordered a
Speaker 1: week ago and it's still not shipped. And it's just
Speaker 1: because when you've got that many orders, it slows down
Speaker 1: the whole.
Speaker 2: The whole process.
Speaker 1: But when doing anything like this like moving warehouses, changing softwares,
Speaker 1: doing a sale, it's up to us as brands to
Speaker 1: clearly communicate to our community, hey, we're doing a sale
Speaker 1: or hey, we're moving warehouse, whatever it is, it's so
Speaker 1: important that you communicate that to your customers to say, look,
Speaker 1: I know we usually get the orders out really quickly,
Speaker 1: but because we're doing a sale, you can expect it
Speaker 1: to take anywhere from X to X for us to
Speaker 1: get our orders out. I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: massive doozy on Pepper Mayo's behalf, and I'm sure this
Speaker 1: will be a massive learning curve for the founders of
Speaker 1: Pepper Mayo. When you're doing something that's going to be
Speaker 1: changing the logistics of your company, like they've moved warehouse
Speaker 1: or shipping providers or whatever, it's just so important to
Speaker 1: be transparent with your community. And I know the times
Speaker 1: that we've moved warehouses, it's fucked, Like moving warehouses is fucked,
Speaker 1: but we've always expressed that to our community and they
Speaker 1: know that we're moving, you know. And then it's important
Speaker 1: to make sure our customer service team is across everything
Speaker 1: that we're doing so that they're also giving that correct
Speaker 1: messaging to the people that are emailing. But yeah, well
Speaker 1: I do not envy Pepper Mayo, and I mean no
Speaker 1: shade to them by doing this episode. But it's just
Speaker 1: been a hot topic on social media in the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and they've been absolutely under fire. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to remember no business is perfect, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure their intentions are good. I think the Coachella
Speaker 1: trip being lined up with this disaster happening for them
Speaker 1: definitely made everything a lot worse. But we all make
Speaker 1: mistakes in our business journey and we can only learn
Speaker 1: from them and move forward, and it's all about just
Speaker 1: being transparent and keeping your community in the loop. They
Speaker 1: will absolutely appreciate it, but yeah, I do not envy
Speaker 1: the Pepper Mao team at all, and also sending my
Speaker 1: love to their customer service team because unfortunately, when something
Speaker 1: like this happens, they're the ones that cop it, because
Speaker 1: they're the ones that are getting the emails off everyone
Speaker 1: who's rightfully so upset that they haven't received their orders
Speaker 1: or responses. But it's the team mem that are the
Speaker 1: ones getting slammed. I can only imagine in the inbox
Speaker 1: when the customer service team would have had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this disaster unfolding. They're quite literally just shown
Speaker 1: up and doing their jobs and something's obviously gone really
Speaker 1: wrong in the back end, and they're the ones that
Speaker 1: are going to be copying it and the social media
Speaker 1: team on the comments.
Speaker 2: Oh to be a fly on the wall.
Speaker 1: In some other workplaces. Good times, good times for her Mayo.
Speaker 1: But from one business to another, I hope that they
Speaker 1: have by this time, you know, rectified it, smoothed it
Speaker 1: all out. It would have been so stressful, like, yes,
Speaker 1: they've made a mistake and it was maybe their own fault,
Speaker 1: but regardless, it would have been extremely stressful. I know
Speaker 1: for a fact, I'd be fucking stressed if we couldn't
Speaker 1: get through all of our orders and the emails were
Speaker 1: pouring in in the thousands, you'd just be like, holy shit.
Speaker 1: But for their sake and their team's sake, I hope
Speaker 1: they were able to get through it, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: they would have learned a million lessons to kind of
Speaker 1: hopefully never have happened again, and touch Wooden, something like
Speaker 1: this never happens to me.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's all for today's bonus episode, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you next week for My Maine