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An update to the previous polish post.
Oct. 14th, 2024 07:56 amAnyone want an update on how the HT launch went this weekend? Because damn, was it a clusterfuck to the degree that at some point today I fully plan on watching the whole livestream just to fact check some of this.
Okay, the basics: Holo Taco does at least three full on Limited Edition sets a year, though some years have had more. You've got the Holo Royalty releases in Spring, the brand's birthday in July, and Cristine's birthday release in October. A good chunk of their other collections do have a LE box but the polishes themselves are not LE. Last month they did an 8 piece collection that wasn't LE and didn't have a box. The summer LE release sold out in a surprising amount of time but wasn't an immediate sell out. HT used to have serious problems with selling out day 1 but in the past few years did seem to have found a balance. Last year's Royalty and Brand Birthday collection were both available for months after release and people liked those, so it wasn't a case of no one wanted them.
People's issues with the brand include the leaning on FOMO marketing (and this release absolutely leaned on that, we'll get there in a minute) and how similar the shades they release are to already existing shades in the brand's lineup. Honestly both are valid criticisms and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something or just being willfully blind. I say all this to let you know that while I love a lot of my HT polishes, I get why people do not and I do not think they're above criticism.
OH. And at the end of September/start of October, Holo Taco became available at Ulta. Not everything, but a decent selection. I mention this because they intentionally grew their audience before this release... but seemingly did not take that into consideration when forecasting their predictions for sales. :P I say seemingly because the fuck do I know?
ANYWAY. On Saturday Cass came over and hung out until a little before noon, so I missed the launch proper. I did wander over to the site and their YT stream and at the time things seemed to be going as expected. She kept repeating that they'd made a HUGE release batch but the promos for this all did say that the best sellers would be restocked. That was literally the marketing approach to this: a battle of the birthstones. Prior to release, I'm pretty sure everyone assumed that the worst sellers (based on past HT sales data) would be August's Peridot and November's Topaz. I was on for the first hour or so's sales data and sure enough those two were in the bottom three, followed by the fucking Ruby shade. (Side note: the fuck is wrong with people? Ruby there is PERFECTION AND is called Ruby, Madly, Deeply, which means I was obligated to buy it because SAVAGE fucking GARDEN!)
Top sellers were December's Tanzanite, June's Alexandrite, and May's Emerald. Sorry for capitalizing the gems but it's easier than typing the names each time. This is where things start to go sideways.
See, there was a bundle for all 12 polishes that basically got you a free polish and a half if you went ahead and got all 12, plus free shipping. There also seemed to be an ungodly high cap for these things, at 25 per polish. There's no reason for it to be so high, even with the international group buys. No one needs 25 of one polish, k? Upon release, we learned the formulas for the polishes, obviously, and December's includes blue reflective glitter which is apparently difficult to source in the quantities she'd need to bring it back, and no one at HT saw it being the best selling polish, let alone the second to sell out. During the livestream, June sells out. December follows suit. Cue the panic, right on time.
I know that when I checked at dinner time (around 6:30pm), the only polishes still available were Jan, Feb, March, October, and Nov. Overnight everything but October sold out. October is still available, btw.
People have not been happy. Multiple times they were reassured that there was a HUGE stock so you'd have time to think it over and that was apparently just not true.
Btw, this is on the polish descriptions:
Best selling Birthstone shades/customers faves will be restocked, remainder will be retired
By the time I went to bed, having ordered my collection because I just FELT it was gonna go sideways if I decided to sleep on it, she had shifted to saying that the window for getting the bundle was narrowing, but in that obvious "time has passed, people are buying" way. Not like "oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit, y'all are nuts!" way.
One of the things that I like about HT is that they do talk about the BTS reasoning for things, like admitting they shortpacked certain colors (Nov, Aug) because of sales history while also beefing up the stock on what they assumed would be better sellers (Feb, Oct), but did so in a way that, and I'm cackling on the inside at this, would hopefully make it so they all sold out at approximately the same time.
Mission accomplished?
The thing that blows me away is how unprepared the brand was for this given how they marketed it and how they mentioned that to people of a ~cErTaIn aGe~ birthstone stuff was really, really, REALLY popular. Factor that in with getting at least some new fans from the Ulta expansion, people who only buy the LE stuff, resellers who must've had a field day with the absurdly high caps and getting a fucking discount on the bundle to boot, and the fact that these are all pretty polishes...
It's not like they were basing their sales on how Reddit and FB were reacting (poorly. The number of "you can dupe this easily!" posts before the polish formulas were unvieled was insane) so it's a bit odd. They did release a statement that basically said they didn't expect so many people to just go ahead and buy the bundle versus buying just their favorite shades. This is also where they admitted to making the most of Feb and October, with October specifically getting more because they figured people would want the new Frosted Metal* and to maybe pickup their own birthstone and Cristine's as well, plus pinks generally do well for polish companies. Not sure that's true for HT though because their pinks are...weird, but anyway.
Ma'am, you spent the last what, week/week and a half hyping this as a battle so people would be ready to buy, buy, buy and then were all surprised when that's what they did?
I really do think the bundle pricing had a lot to do with the sales on it, as people figured like I did "wtf, I like them all, might as well." Without that, they might've sold more like they originally planned. Then again, I could be wrong. Thing is, HT fans have serious FOMO and when the last LE collection sells out sooner than anyone anticipated, it makes total sense that people would pounce on the newest LE to avoid getting caught unaware again, y'know? Pretty sure that happened last year with the Safiya collab (that sold out in under an hour, one of the items going in like under 15 minutes) and then the seasonal Halloween crackle topper and GITD polishes both sold out pretty damn fast because people didn't trust them to last. So they didn't. Seriously, panic buying isn't a new thing, guys.
The only reason I'm not pissed as shit is because I listened to my shoulder devil who said fuck it, you already planned to do this, so you might as well.
Because here's the thing: when I looked at the listings/swatches for each polish, I wasn't sold on a good chunk of them.
( Thoughts on the polishes themselves. )
Overall, I think the collection was/is very pretty and I get why it's so popular. It suckered me in and I clearly have/had some issues with some of the formulas, but even the shades I'm not in love with, I get why someone else would be or why it was done that way. I mean, I still think Topaz Tears would be 100% prettier as a glitter though.
But the brand forgot to cancel/didn't see the point in cancelling their promo emails, like the battle of the polishes email sent yesterday when the only polish left was Birthday Brat. This isn't the first time they've done this and their fans still don't like it. I love that people are only bringing up the Julien collab, but I know it happened for the thermals and the Safiya collab (that one I don't think they got as much flak for because they did restock and it was a surprise sell out to them, but shouldn't have been given Safiya's fanbase but whatever), and I'm pretty sure the seasonal stuff last year, too. Basically someone at the brand ain't thinking shit through.
Oh, and by the time most of the PR/swatcher videos went up, at least two of the polishes had sold out, if not more. There was ONE I know made it up before that happened, but it's not a swatcher I watch (nothing personal) so I didn't watch that one.
On the plus side, any asshole who now tries to say HT doesn't push FOMO marketing "anymore" can get easily smacked down with just the words "Birthstone Collection." I might add bitch at the end for fun. This on the back of the thermal collection? Yeah. No, get fucked, stans. Seriously lost track of the number of people trying to defend this release's marketing prior to the absolute implosion but I lowkey wanna go back and see if any of them either deleted or ate their words because daaaaaaaaaaaaamn. We fucking told you so.
eta: I'd originally planned to watch the stream and then edit in things where they belong but I talk too much and my god, this stream was/is damn near 5 hours and I have a sinus headache that is stubbornly sticking around. BOO.
Anyway, the stream starts at 11am, the lauch happens at 11:30am, probably actually a minute or two earlier because Shopify almost always starts early. An hour and a half in there's word that there will be a sellout likely on stream but the polish isn't named to avoid making it sell out sooner.
2 and a half hours in, the first polish sells out and she does warn people then that a) there's no guarantee that they'll be able to source the components to restock June or any of the more difficult polishes (December for sure), and b) mentions that the other two top sellers (December, May) aren't too far behind in the sellout predictions. At 3 hours and 49 minutes (god bless these editors), December goes buhbye.
The big issues here are that at no point before the launch did they make it crystal clear that there would likely be supply issues that would prevent certain shades from coming back, even if they were the best sellers and the company's cap per bottle was way too high for a LE launch. I get not wanting to say hey, *specific shades* are not likely to come back because we can't get more of the components because that would've caused them to sell out even faster, but being more upfront and issuing the warning she did at the hour and a half mark about certain, not named, shades being harder to bring back during the marketing phase? Would've solved a LOT of anger issues. It's one thing to be told "hey, buy your favorites and we'll bring them back!" and one thing to be told after you do so that hey, you bought/liked the ones we can't bring back, so sad/too bad.
Or, alternatively, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it re: wanting a near uniform sellout.
Okay, the basics: Holo Taco does at least three full on Limited Edition sets a year, though some years have had more. You've got the Holo Royalty releases in Spring, the brand's birthday in July, and Cristine's birthday release in October. A good chunk of their other collections do have a LE box but the polishes themselves are not LE. Last month they did an 8 piece collection that wasn't LE and didn't have a box. The summer LE release sold out in a surprising amount of time but wasn't an immediate sell out. HT used to have serious problems with selling out day 1 but in the past few years did seem to have found a balance. Last year's Royalty and Brand Birthday collection were both available for months after release and people liked those, so it wasn't a case of no one wanted them.
People's issues with the brand include the leaning on FOMO marketing (and this release absolutely leaned on that, we'll get there in a minute) and how similar the shades they release are to already existing shades in the brand's lineup. Honestly both are valid criticisms and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something or just being willfully blind. I say all this to let you know that while I love a lot of my HT polishes, I get why people do not and I do not think they're above criticism.
OH. And at the end of September/start of October, Holo Taco became available at Ulta. Not everything, but a decent selection. I mention this because they intentionally grew their audience before this release... but seemingly did not take that into consideration when forecasting their predictions for sales. :P I say seemingly because the fuck do I know?
ANYWAY. On Saturday Cass came over and hung out until a little before noon, so I missed the launch proper. I did wander over to the site and their YT stream and at the time things seemed to be going as expected. She kept repeating that they'd made a HUGE release batch but the promos for this all did say that the best sellers would be restocked. That was literally the marketing approach to this: a battle of the birthstones. Prior to release, I'm pretty sure everyone assumed that the worst sellers (based on past HT sales data) would be August's Peridot and November's Topaz. I was on for the first hour or so's sales data and sure enough those two were in the bottom three, followed by the fucking Ruby shade. (Side note: the fuck is wrong with people? Ruby there is PERFECTION AND is called Ruby, Madly, Deeply, which means I was obligated to buy it because SAVAGE fucking GARDEN!)
Top sellers were December's Tanzanite, June's Alexandrite, and May's Emerald. Sorry for capitalizing the gems but it's easier than typing the names each time. This is where things start to go sideways.
See, there was a bundle for all 12 polishes that basically got you a free polish and a half if you went ahead and got all 12, plus free shipping. There also seemed to be an ungodly high cap for these things, at 25 per polish. There's no reason for it to be so high, even with the international group buys. No one needs 25 of one polish, k? Upon release, we learned the formulas for the polishes, obviously, and December's includes blue reflective glitter which is apparently difficult to source in the quantities she'd need to bring it back, and no one at HT saw it being the best selling polish, let alone the second to sell out. During the livestream, June sells out. December follows suit. Cue the panic, right on time.
I know that when I checked at dinner time (around 6:30pm), the only polishes still available were Jan, Feb, March, October, and Nov. Overnight everything but October sold out. October is still available, btw.
People have not been happy. Multiple times they were reassured that there was a HUGE stock so you'd have time to think it over and that was apparently just not true.
Btw, this is on the polish descriptions:
Best selling Birthstone shades/customers faves will be restocked, remainder will be retired
By the time I went to bed, having ordered my collection because I just FELT it was gonna go sideways if I decided to sleep on it, she had shifted to saying that the window for getting the bundle was narrowing, but in that obvious "time has passed, people are buying" way. Not like "oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit, y'all are nuts!" way.
One of the things that I like about HT is that they do talk about the BTS reasoning for things, like admitting they shortpacked certain colors (Nov, Aug) because of sales history while also beefing up the stock on what they assumed would be better sellers (Feb, Oct), but did so in a way that, and I'm cackling on the inside at this, would hopefully make it so they all sold out at approximately the same time.
Mission accomplished?
The thing that blows me away is how unprepared the brand was for this given how they marketed it and how they mentioned that to people of a ~cErTaIn aGe~ birthstone stuff was really, really, REALLY popular. Factor that in with getting at least some new fans from the Ulta expansion, people who only buy the LE stuff, resellers who must've had a field day with the absurdly high caps and getting a fucking discount on the bundle to boot, and the fact that these are all pretty polishes...
It's not like they were basing their sales on how Reddit and FB were reacting (poorly. The number of "you can dupe this easily!" posts before the polish formulas were unvieled was insane) so it's a bit odd. They did release a statement that basically said they didn't expect so many people to just go ahead and buy the bundle versus buying just their favorite shades. This is also where they admitted to making the most of Feb and October, with October specifically getting more because they figured people would want the new Frosted Metal* and to maybe pickup their own birthstone and Cristine's as well, plus pinks generally do well for polish companies. Not sure that's true for HT though because their pinks are...weird, but anyway.
Ma'am, you spent the last what, week/week and a half hyping this as a battle so people would be ready to buy, buy, buy and then were all surprised when that's what they did?
I really do think the bundle pricing had a lot to do with the sales on it, as people figured like I did "wtf, I like them all, might as well." Without that, they might've sold more like they originally planned. Then again, I could be wrong. Thing is, HT fans have serious FOMO and when the last LE collection sells out sooner than anyone anticipated, it makes total sense that people would pounce on the newest LE to avoid getting caught unaware again, y'know? Pretty sure that happened last year with the Safiya collab (that sold out in under an hour, one of the items going in like under 15 minutes) and then the seasonal Halloween crackle topper and GITD polishes both sold out pretty damn fast because people didn't trust them to last. So they didn't. Seriously, panic buying isn't a new thing, guys.
The only reason I'm not pissed as shit is because I listened to my shoulder devil who said fuck it, you already planned to do this, so you might as well.
Because here's the thing: when I looked at the listings/swatches for each polish, I wasn't sold on a good chunk of them.
( Thoughts on the polishes themselves. )
Overall, I think the collection was/is very pretty and I get why it's so popular. It suckered me in and I clearly have/had some issues with some of the formulas, but even the shades I'm not in love with, I get why someone else would be or why it was done that way. I mean, I still think Topaz Tears would be 100% prettier as a glitter though.
But the brand forgot to cancel/didn't see the point in cancelling their promo emails, like the battle of the polishes email sent yesterday when the only polish left was Birthday Brat. This isn't the first time they've done this and their fans still don't like it. I love that people are only bringing up the Julien collab, but I know it happened for the thermals and the Safiya collab (that one I don't think they got as much flak for because they did restock and it was a surprise sell out to them, but shouldn't have been given Safiya's fanbase but whatever), and I'm pretty sure the seasonal stuff last year, too. Basically someone at the brand ain't thinking shit through.
Oh, and by the time most of the PR/swatcher videos went up, at least two of the polishes had sold out, if not more. There was ONE I know made it up before that happened, but it's not a swatcher I watch (nothing personal) so I didn't watch that one.
On the plus side, any asshole who now tries to say HT doesn't push FOMO marketing "anymore" can get easily smacked down with just the words "Birthstone Collection." I might add bitch at the end for fun. This on the back of the thermal collection? Yeah. No, get fucked, stans. Seriously lost track of the number of people trying to defend this release's marketing prior to the absolute implosion but I lowkey wanna go back and see if any of them either deleted or ate their words because daaaaaaaaaaaaamn. We fucking told you so.
eta: I'd originally planned to watch the stream and then edit in things where they belong but I talk too much and my god, this stream was/is damn near 5 hours and I have a sinus headache that is stubbornly sticking around. BOO.
Anyway, the stream starts at 11am, the lauch happens at 11:30am, probably actually a minute or two earlier because Shopify almost always starts early. An hour and a half in there's word that there will be a sellout likely on stream but the polish isn't named to avoid making it sell out sooner.
2 and a half hours in, the first polish sells out and she does warn people then that a) there's no guarantee that they'll be able to source the components to restock June or any of the more difficult polishes (December for sure), and b) mentions that the other two top sellers (December, May) aren't too far behind in the sellout predictions. At 3 hours and 49 minutes (god bless these editors), December goes buhbye.
The big issues here are that at no point before the launch did they make it crystal clear that there would likely be supply issues that would prevent certain shades from coming back, even if they were the best sellers and the company's cap per bottle was way too high for a LE launch. I get not wanting to say hey, *specific shades* are not likely to come back because we can't get more of the components because that would've caused them to sell out even faster, but being more upfront and issuing the warning she did at the hour and a half mark about certain, not named, shades being harder to bring back during the marketing phase? Would've solved a LOT of anger issues. It's one thing to be told "hey, buy your favorites and we'll bring them back!" and one thing to be told after you do so that hey, you bought/liked the ones we can't bring back, so sad/too bad.
Or, alternatively, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it re: wanting a near uniform sellout.