The decision to cancel my Boxycharm after six full years of being a subscriber was not something I ever wanted to do. I’ve loved Boxycharm from the very beginning and have always given endless praise to their company. The boxes helped create so much content for my blog and have been my main source for new makeup products. But over the past year, I haven’t been satisfied with their services and it’s only gotten worse.
The problems started when they began expanding their business and released other options such as BoxyLuxe, the Premium box, PopUps, and Add-Ons. It’s great that they were looking to provide more to their customers, but it’s very clear that they weren’t completely ready to do so.
As soon as all of those other options came into the equation, they raised their price for the Base box, their customer service got significantly worse, orders started getting shipped later and later. They continued to let auto payments go through at the beginning of the month, yet didn’t take any responsibility for being 20+ days late shipping orders out.
When I logged in to cancel my account, I first tried redeeming the many charms I had accumulated over the six years. Charms can be used to purchase products in the Charm Room, most of which are leftover products from previous boxes. It’s not very exciting, the prices aren’t discounted at all, and the charm value doesn’t cover taxes or shipping.
I didn’t end up using my charms because the options were so limited and boring. The Charm Room rarely had any products available and was hardly ever open for charm redemption because they often blocked it off to shift the focus towards PopUps and Add-Ons instead.
One of my favorite things about Boxycharm from the beginning was how good of a deal it always was. Even though they unexpectedly raised the price of the Base box last Winter from $20 to $25, the value of the products in each box was always over $100. It’s a great way to discover new brands and although I loved testing all the products, I started realizing most of them were just going to waste because I rarely found any new favorites.
The boxes used to be much more diverse, which is something I definitely miss. I wish they wouldn’t have stopped including things like nail polish, beauty tools, and haircare products. The current boxes include too much skincare and liquid lipsticks.
The notecards that they include in each box are every helpful in describing the purpose of each product, but over the past six months it became common for the box to come without one. Sometimes they’d send a virtual card via email, though most of the time I was left doing my own research to learn about the products.
The more popular BoxyLuxe and Boxy Premium became, I started noticing a decline in the quality of products included in the Base box. It’s almost as if those customers didn’t matter because they weren’t paying as much. They started to include what felt like leftover products. I even got a few that seemed old and expired, like the Kat Von D brow pencil from this year’s March box. Through the process of cancelling my subscription, I was asked multiple times through pop-ups on their website if I was sure. There were many warnings that should I ever want to join again, I could not reinstate my account and would instead be put on a waitlist. I know Boxycharm had a waitlist for a while, but since cancelling I’ve received many emails with offers and discounts to become a subscriber again.
The decline of Boxycharm’s service is not uncommon among companies that grow and expand so rapidly in a short amount of time. Money and numbers become very intriguing and that’s usually when business values tend to get lost. It’s very unfortunate and sad to see. I tried to hang on as long as I could, hoping they’d figure it out. But instead, they’ve only gotten worse and have become a company I can no longer support.
I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them for me in the comments. I’d also love to hear all your recommendations for other beauty subscription services!
XO ♥ Christina ♥
