Hey all, Happy Friday!
I had an awesome meal at my parents on Thanksgiving and one with Jake’s parents on Sunday. I love turkey though, so I never get sick of it. My pie experiment….didn’t turn out so well. The filling was delicious, as was the crust, but….they didn’t go together very well. I think next time I’ll try it with a graham cracker crust instead!
What follows is an opinion piece. That means this post is based off of MY OPINION, and MINE ALONE. It’s taken all week for me to get my head around this.
Full disclosure. When I sat down to write my blog post for the week, I totally intended on different subject matter. In fact I mostly had the article complete. After sleeping on my original article I decided, as important as the information seemed at the time, that the slope I was headed toward was indeed a slippery one. And I realized that that didn’t make me feel good. So I rewrote it. Slept on it. And decided I needed to try again.
The indie community is very individual and personal and, when it comes to our favorite brands, it is often difficult to maintain an objective demeanor. This is especially true when the ownership or direction of a brand changes. There are brand owners who ultimately decide to remain true to their new companies formulas, pricing, mission statement, and customer base. There are others who decide not to.
Regardless of what an owner chooses to do or not do, it is our responsibility as consumers to respect the ownership of the indie businesses we love. The owners are people too, and fallible, and make missteps. Whether said misstep is heinous enough to warrant being blacklisted is up to you.
Often, indie brand owners take feedback well and endeavor to make changes if they feel it will improve their brand and product. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes, past transgressions are brought to light, other times they remain hidden. Sometimes someone is able to completely change their ways, and sometimes not. It’s a question of if they take feedback in stride, or continue to ignore their customers.
From a business standpoint, we don’t know what happens behind the scenes, especially if a shop changes hands. We don’t know what kind of agreements are reached between previous and current ownership, interactions with other indie brands, royalties, IP issues, NDA’s, or anything else. It’s likely we never will. The best we, the consumer, can hope for, is for the new ownership to try and remain true to the mission and quality of our beloved indie brands.
That being said, you cannot suddenly reopen a popular shop that has been closed for months, on Black Friday weekend, with no communication, no sales, double the prices of the items, and expect zero backlash.
Every time a scandal rocks the indie or mainstream beauty world, we are given the opportunity to speak with our hard-earned dollars. As another indie brand owner said, ‘The average indie product customer is the average person. Not the super-rich, just the mindful consumer who wants neat products at reasonable prices.’ From J* to Wal-Mart, we as consumers have the ability to make our voices heard by not spending money with people whos’ values and ideals we don’t align with, and by making that fact clear.
But please, respect your fellow indie fans and the indie shop owners they support. This business is business, and most creators don’t make a living wage. They find themselves juggling multiple projects, other jobs, family, and social lives, while creating products you love. Even if you don’t agree, even if you’re pissed, garner them a little respect. It’s easy to get caught up in the firestorm of rage.
I hope you all have a great weekend! I’ll see you all next week. 😀
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