Roka lucky dip.

[NoOneKnowsWhoYouAre]

Anyone else playing this year; rokalondon.com/pages/lucky-dip

I'm thinking of going for a midi! Looking for a free shipping cod ethough

It's such an error, and it's so easy to see how it's happened. I imagine they're rushing through orders and having to manually produce invoices without taking the time to check details.

In my field, a data breach would be catastrophic.

No response yet. I emailed them within around 20 minutes of receiving their email. Two hours later, I haven't had a response.

It's all a bit of a mess really, sadly. The products seem well made, and the overkill response of sending lots of free bags, makes it feel like they want to put things right... But the whole thing has been error after effort sadly. I hope they manage to get it sorted. They need some immediate safeguards in place for checking the invoices and evaluating how big of a breach has occurred.

Fingers crossed they managed to get it sorted.

I emailed about my less than the stated value bag. I would have been fine with a free return and replacement bag in the £59.99+ range but yes they're sending me another bag and I can keep the Bantry.

I'm going to sell it cheaply on Vinted and buy another lucky dip, at least that way Roka get some of the money back.

I have a fantasy of collecting up all the MN 'free' bags and getting some sort of publicity for Roka by donating them to a good cause. But that is an anxiety inducing amount of work so I'll just flog it and buy another.

Great idea - might do the same and get a mini and midi.

I’m a bit peeved, tbh. I got a 30% off voucher, which I used to dip again, but wouldn’t have bothered if they had sent me a medium or large. I haven’t had the second dip, so hopefully it will be a good one, but it’s not ideal that they’ve offered more to some customers than others. Fingers crossed the second dip is a good one…

Why don't you email them? I'm sure they would send you one out. I think the bags aren't too expensive for them and this is more a way to grow their customer base and have more people carrying their bags than anything, their top priority is happy customers

@Rhinostone if you were happy with the 30% discount voucher, don't let this thread make you think you lost out. You have discounted bags on the way and they will be lovely. I am still waiting for my Boxing Day order and Roka are not responding to my emails. I posted on FB on 27th and 28th Dec that their allocation of bags was undervaluing the maxi and midi dips - I do worry that they blame me! They are a small company. In 2023 their profit was circa £800,000. In 2024, with higher costs, their profit is likely to be far lower. Imagine how much this many free bags will eat into that profit? Quite a large proportion of their profit will be taken up by this error. It will probably cost them thousands of pounds - possibly enough to pay at least one annual salary - so it could affect someone's job. Don't worry about losing out. Someone at Roka has had a bad day in the office and will be grateful to those who accept the discount vouchers. Feel good about doing the right thing 😍

I placed an order well after the error was fixed (early Jan) and Roka are still sending me a free bag!

So don’t blame yourself!

@PeppyGreenFinch why are they sending you a free bag then? this has gone mad

I just said I would prefer a medium 🙈

I think there have been two different strands to the initial complaints.

One is that people were receiving under value bags, but the other complaint I've seen is that some think the term 'Maxi' insinuates a larger bag.

When ROKA responded to my email, the focused heavily on the second but rather than the value changes. Whereas, I would have been happy with a small bag, if it met the value parameters.

@MamaTrois i haven't seen that second complaint anywhere else. I have just seen the complaint about value ranges.

Out of interest has anyone received a midi dip worth more than £44.95? Looking at posts online I can't see which midi products are up to £59.95 in value. Still waiting for mine so I am intrigued. Roka confirmed that Moorgates and small bantry bags are not included in midi so I don't know which other products fall into this dip price range.

I wonder if this will be the last time they do the lucky dip. If they do it next year they will need to get their website copy approved by a lawyer and be crystal clear to manage people’s expectations..

If they insist on using "size" again they need to charge enough for a midi that they can put the smallest backpacks in there. Or they'd be better off calling them mini, shoulder/crossbody, backpack or something.

I was going to take the plunge this morning but now showing out of stock..will they get more before the end of January?

By the way, it always says awaiting stock, this is not the same as sold out. If you want to buy you still can x

I've taken the plunge and ordered a maximum (with a teacher discount of 5.99 so covered postage). Fingers crossed for a backpack or a travel bag!

Yeah. I think they just need to list possible bag options in each dip if they do it again.

And maybe have a £39.99 option for medium/large bags.

That's more expensive than the black Friday sale though. Why would you take a risk on a lucky dip on a med or large bag of any colour or style I.e trafalgar, when you could buy what you want. The point of the lucky dip is that it's a lucky dip, sometimes you get lucky and get a bigger backpack, sometimes a smaller. That is the terms and conditions of it. For me I wouldn't lucky dip at £40 a pop, that's too much when you could get anything. £30 is about right and not a budget buster if you get something not quite to your liking, especially if you can get a refund too, you couldnt last year. I wouldn't buy if a standard sale either, as I like the fun of the dip and trying things I wouldn't normally. If that's not to your liking you simply shouldn't do a lucky dip, and wait for a sale

Update - I received a call from Roka this morning. Lovely lady. They are despatching my order today and have answered all of my questions. They acknowledged there have been issues and were excellent at dealing with them.

To put this into context - the first 500 bags were allocated to the wrong dips, so were sent out to the wrong customers. Most of these customers complained and are almost all dealt with now. It wasn't all orders on 26th and 27th December up to the change in wording. Many orders were despatched correctly. Because of the confusion over wording, they then changed the wording and subsequent orders shouldn't have been replaced.

Many customers have accepted a discount voucher or return & replacement. Not all customers were offered free bags and this sounds like a confused member of staff but they are working through the emails consistently now.
They are a small company so the cost of sending out free bags will have hit them hard. They are also a small team with only 3 of them working in the customer team. They have done remarkably well to handle this many customer complaints during a holiday week.

They do still have stock left for the dips so customers can still order more.
They also confirmed that they will continue doing LD in future years.... which means I can't justify going again this year despite my urge to buy more after such a warm, reassuring phone call!

I am very glad to read your update, and hopefully you will finally have yours in a few days.

As an outsider who is just watching the thread this year, it seems that many people have jumped on the bandwagon and are expecting a free additional bag even though they ordered after the date the error was picked up. This concerns me a whole lot, as this is a small business who could be financially harmed quite seriously by this. They could very easily have offered a free return and new lucky dip be sent out instead.

I don't understand what you mean by the first 500 went out incorrectly though. Did some people get maxi instead of midi etc? From how you explained it, it is making me think they changed the pricing to fix this error, ie the small Bantry was meant to be in the midi dip all along?

@isthismylifenow Hi thank you and no sorry that's my wording. The bags under £59.95 were sent out to maxi customers in error. They included new sample bags and items not on their website (colours, patterns etc). The midi orders weren't affected. The error also included some smaller bantry backpacks but not everyone received small bantry (despite the plethora of small bantry backpacks now in circulation!)
It was a distribution centre error. They were happy with their original wording although due to the distribution error, it then made the wording even more confusing so they amended it.
It is reassuring to hear that it was only 500 bags affected and even more reassuring to hear that not everyone has been sent free bags. That would lose them over £30k in lost revenue and that's a full time salary / job for someone.
They are truly lovely people and I wouldn't wish that on them. We all have a bad day at the office sometimes!

They are a lovely team aren't they! 🥰

I'm a bit confused by the response. I ordered Boxing Day late morning and received a small Bantry so I guess I was one of the 500 that wasn't supposed to get one?

Was the small Bantry supposed to be in the midi dip initially then? But because of this mix up they changed the wording and values and continued to send them as maxi dips.

I haven't contacted them. I just sold it on Vinted to recoup most of the money.

@OvaHere Hi no the small bantry was not supposed to be in the midi. That was my original question to them on Boxing Day morning before I placed my order because I ordered two midis in the hope of getting a Moorgate or small Bantry (both £54.95 and therefore in the midi price range). The midi dip actually wasn't affected. Moorgates were not included in the dips at all apart from a couple of new samples £59.95 allocated to Maxi. Products in the midi dip were: Willesden (some of them cost £39.95+), Paddington, Kennington... maybe other products.
Small bantry wasn't supposed to be allocated to midi at all and wasn't allocated to maxi unless it was one of the more expensive ones (some are £59.95) or one of the new sample ones in that £59.95 price range that were not on the website yet.
So in theory it all should have worked, even with the wording as it was.
The error was a product allocation error in the distribution centre.

I’ll be one of the 500 as well but I’m keeping mine and feel pretty chuffed to get a bag I’d have bought for £25 less than full price.

i bought mine on Boxing Day after getting a poorly judged Xmas present from DH and decided to treat myself to a surprise. It felt good getting a delivery when I had no clue what was inside 😆