New York

Loyalty is what any brand wants from its customers. Sure, brands appreciate the fun in the retail equivalent of a one-night stand, but they’re always hoping it’ll lead to a committed relationship. Why? Simply put, it costs them less to keep you than to acquire a new customer. In fact, brands have become so afraid of getting ghosted that over half of retailers have introduced loyalty programs in some form, and another 24 percent plan to do so in the near future.

If you pick up any trade magazine you will certainly come across at least one article with tips for retailers on how to turn customers into “loyalists.” And that number of article is woefully disproportionate to the number of articles out there to help you, consumers, in selectively “settling down” with a brand. Luckily, you’re reading one of the latter at this very moment.

Here are three simple rules for you to follow for a healthy relationship with retailers. (Do I hear wedding bells?)

1. Don’t enter into a complicated relationship.

There are many red flags you should be able to spot early on; a difficult signup process, an incomprehensible point system, and a really bad user interface are a few of the many ways a loyalty program can frustrate us. I’ve seen them all. Based on my experience, the savings are not worth your time if you have to overcome these obstacles. When it comes to retail, these are rewards you shouldn’t have to work for—you’re doing the brand a favor because as wonderful as they may be, you’ll always be out of their league. That being said, all relationships—even healthy ones—require making sacrifices. Entering my phone number every time I buy something at Petco is a sacrifice worth the few hundred dollars I save per year there.

2. First love, then commitment.

I am part of the loyalty program or membership of the following brands only: Sephora, Petco, Amazon Prime, Visa, British Airways, and Restoration Hardware. My experiences with all these brands share one common trait: I was already a customer before I became a “rewarded loyalist.” I had spent a lot of money (too much?) at Restoration Hardware before they introduced the program, which offers me discounted prices on everything online and in store for an affordable annual fee. It made sense to pay the membership fee because I knew I would continue to buy from them to easily coordinate with the furniture I already had.

3. If you are in for the money, make sure it’s worth it.

Sephora, the beauty retail mecca has been recently at the center of a controversy around their reward point system that has caused them to lose some customers. I am one of them. The joy of picking up rewards after completing a transaction at the Sephora counter was part of the appeal of being there. Since I was always less interested in adding another free mini mascara to my already crowded beauty drawer, I was inclined to save up my points for a long time until I had enough for a significant gift. With the newly introduced policy that restricts the time one can save the points to less than 18 months, saving up those points is no longer an option for me. I’d venture to say there’s a good chance I’ll be venturing to other spots to get my beauty fixes. Sure, it’s not an entirely rational decision, but shopping rarely is.

Whether you’re saving up points or not, there are still a plethora of ways to save money. In fact, saving money is what sample sales do best. And keeping watch over the best of them is what we do best at TSC.

Here are the scheduled sample sales for some of our favorite brands this week. Loyalty program or not, we’re already pretty sure we’re in love…

The Rug Company Sample Sale
Eileen Fisher Spring Sample Sale
J. Mendel Private Sample Sale
L.K. Bennett Spring 2018 Sample Sale
Sachin & Babi Sample Sale
Theory Women’s Sample Sale

We hope you and these sample sales are very happy together!

Fashion in its purest form? Love it. Assembling an outfit is an art form. It’s my creative expression of choice. But the industry that surrounds fashion—that packages it, labels it, sells it—is a sick one. Even more so than other creative mediums, the fashion industry is particularly poisoned with intrinsic hypocrisy.

Shocked I’m not here to give you shopping advice today? Hey, sometime I surprise myself. I’m feeling particularly fiery today, so I want to step up on my soap (shoe?) box and state that retail is honest but the fashion industry is not.

The fashion industry doesn’t care about models or influencers or even consumers. Its political views are not spontaneous dialogues but rather carefully curated campaigns that match the societal trends of the moment and are carefully choreographed to lead to money in their coffers.

There are some recent events that led me to this observation… and to binge-watching two seasons of The Good Place. By the way, I really hope with this article I am moving the needle towards guaranteeing me a spot in The Good Place.

Transgender models are the talk of the industry, with some publishers going as far as to say: “The Future of Fashion is Transgender Models.” I am grateful and thrilled for these courageous men and women who fought hard to be where they are. I can’t imagine how much harder life must be for them. On the other hand the fashion industry bigwigs seem so abruptly “woke” that it makes one wonder how selfless their motivation actually is.  An industry insider admitted after all “And not to be cynical, being inclusive and being diverse is actually in fashion right now… ” Mm-hm. That’s what I was afraid of.

Terry Richardson is finally cast off by Condé Nast. Now, everybody in fashion knew that “Uncle Terry” was a pervert, the same way everybody in Hollywood knew that Harvey Weinstein was one. Not only have there been countless allegations about Terry but the man himself is pretty open about who he is. Just open his book, Terryworld, and feast your eyes upon full-frontal nudity and (both simulated and actual) sexual acts.  The timing of the Condé Nast awaken moment makes me doubtful again of the real motivation behind the industry move. They’ve always known the truth, so why do something about it now? Because it is trendy to do something about it now.

Computer-generated fashion influencers… exist. The latest darling of the fashion industry, Miquela Sousa, or @lilmiquela on Instagram, does what any influencer does: shares her outfit-of-the-day, goes to events with friends, touts her political opinions, and counts her followers—pretty successfully, I might add. She’s amassed over 545,000 followers in a short period of time. Miquela is a 19 year old model and musician, probably well off since her outfits are of the Chanel, Proenza Schouler caliber. And while those labels are real, she herself… is not, at least according to the Business of Fashion.  Does it matter? It does to me. Wasn’t it bad enough labels were bribing influencers to wear their frocks and take pictures so we all feel we have to have what the cool kids have? Now they create imaginary cool kids that we have to copy too. They’re not just too cool for school… they’re now too cool for this plane of existence. Um, not cool if you ask me.

What is cool?  Well sample sales are good, honest opportunities to bring some guilt-free joy into your life. Here are some you don’t want to miss this week:

HEIKE JARICK Sample Sale
Rituals Sample Sale
SGN Showroom Sample Sale – Know THIS before you go

Long live fashion. But the industry? Meh…

Happy shopping.

XOXO

I like these first days of the year and the crisp, fresh feeling of new beginnings that comes along with them. While some of you were overdosing on Christmas carols and cookies, I couldn’t wait for January 1st to write in my journal: “new year, new me.”

One of my new year resolutions in 2018 is to REALLY organize my closet. It was last year’s resolution too, and while my closet has seen worse days in terms of organization, it’s still far from doing what it’s supposed to be doing for me. It seems like I’ve been searching in vain forever for way to catalog my clothes. Did you know there are apps to help you organize your closet? I have tried them all. And I’ve failed each time. I typically find their methods to be labor intensive and the technology to be clumsy, so they inevitably ended up in my apps cemetery and I end up wearing the same two or three outfits over and over again.

When a new platform named Finery was launched, promising to organize styles and manage my existing wardrobe, I jumped at the opportunity to try it out. The difference between Finery and its many competitors is that it harvests data that already exists—a.k.a. my previous online purchases and organizes them into a visual catalog of items that can be used to create Polyvore-type looks. Purchases made in certain stores can be added after the fact with the easy click of a button.

Full disclosure: nobody’s paying me to give you the skinny on this app. So, here are my concerns with what seems to be an otherwise awesome way of fulfilling my new year’s resolution and sending me straight towards garment Nirvana.

1. If you are a secret agent—or simply unnecessarily obsessed with email privacy—you might not like giving Finery full access to your email account. After all, this is the very crux of their operation; they have to go through your emails to find purchase receipts to locate the items that are potentially now in your closet.
2. If you like second hand merchandise, or flash sites, you might not be able to find your purchases. As a bargain connoisseur and NYC sample sale whisperer, I do make a point of practicing what I preach and shop almost exclusively at NYC sample sales, Gilt, RueLala, and Yoox. I was rather disappointed to find none of my RueLaLa or Gilt purchases on Finery, which means I had to resort to inputting them manually… just like my other [now deceased] apps.

Ugh… Why is the world bent on making it so hard for me to organize my closet?! Despite these issues, I will give Finery a chance. I will also likely write a follow-up article to let you know how it went. I think resolutions are important, and while some of them (okay, most of them… okay, most of mine) fail, they provide what this article calls a “salient reference point” for setting a goal.

Take some time to reflect where you are in life, and identify the key obstacles holding you back from where you want to be. Be clear, set achievable goals and deadlines, and do your best reach them. Don’t punish yourself if you fail—even the incremental changes and smallest victories are worth celebrating. While the freezing temperatures and post-holiday-empty-wallet malaise might prevent you from going sample sale shopping this week, do come back.

We promise you a year of fabulous deals that might surprisingly assist you in sticking to your new year resolutions. That promise is our resolution.

Cheers to 2018!

Journalism is a segregated landscape these days… particularly when the content is political. Full disclosure: this post is not political. But. The journalism in the realm of consumerism is equally segregated. What to believe?!

I have noticed a tendency (in both myself and others) to flock towards publications already aligned with my own beliefs. Midge Decter captured this phenomenon perfectly when she said,

“There comes a time to join the side you’re on.”

After all, it’s easier to immediately write off something that makes us ask ourselves tough questions. Taking things personally is a sure-fire recipe for a closed mind. It’s easier to buy into a philosophy that doesn’t challenge us at all. This not-so-cool tendency actually has an official name: confirmation bias. It is the  predisposition to search for things that confirm our preexisting beliefs.

I started ruminating on this topic after reading two articles about—you guessed it—shopping. The first is one of a string of similar articles in New York Magazine, entitled “43 Things on Sale You’ll Actually Want to Buy.” I am a bargain connoisseur, so no doubt my heart skipped a beat when reading those words. I read the article, but stopped before I clicked. I didn’t act on my preloaded, devotional belief in bargain hunting. Instead, I let my prefrontal cortex kick into action. It felt good. I reminded myself that New York Magazine most likely has an affiliated program and that the article was likely written with one motive in mind: to lure me to click and buy. Sure enough, I clicked just to confirm my theory and I was promptly redirected via an affiliated link to Moda Operandi.  

With some hesitation and doubt, I moved on to read The New York Times article on how not to shop for a whole year.  As predicted, the article encourages us to take a break from consumerism. It goes on to recommend that we commit to the no shopping experiment as a New Year’s resolution. I have to admit the article had some interesting points. Still, I could very well start a debate in response on the large-scale effect this experiment could have, and what that might do to the economy and our beloved fashion and retail industries.

Instead, I’ll make another point. Every publication is still in the business of selling. They don’t know you, and they don’t know what’s good for you. You do. And if you don’t know quite yet, then you find out by reading both sides of the story and fishing out your truth from probably somewhere in the middle. Unless you have a shopping addiction that’s harmful to yourself or your family, you don’t need to stop shopping cold-turkey. Why so extreme?! You also don’t need to buy all 43 items listed on sale for the sake of bargain hunting.

All you need to do is shop responsibly.
What better way to do that than at a NYC sample sale?

It’s the last week before Christmas—A.K.A. Unofficial Procrastinators’ Shopping Week. Are you one such procrastinator?

If you left your shopping to the last minute and missed the online shopping cut off, here are some options to responsibly spend your money while still keeping the holiday spirit alive.

You can buy women’s apparel at up to 60% off at the Eileen Fisher Sample Sale and feel good about it as 100% off the sales will be donated this year to Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute.

You can buy the perfect gift—fragrances or candles—at up to 80% off retail prices at the TOCCA Sample Sale.

You can find Santa-worthy presents for kids at the Desigual Sample Sale.

For more options, check out the complete list of NYC Sample Sales.

And hey… I think it was Descartes who wisely said, “I think, therefore I shop.”

Make up your own mind when it comes to consumerism. Happy shopping!