Boden.... a warning!!

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Am new to mumsnet but thought i would add my bit on here after having just hosted a boden party, thought others might be interested in my experience..... This is what happened: The clothes arrived via courier, no rep from boden, (infact very little contact from them at all, only via email)i put all the clothes out, opened my house up to yes, many complete strangers, arranged the clothes, made tea and coffee / cakes and biscuits then offered wine etc in the evening. I worked incredibly hard to sell bodens clothes for them, for actuially very little commission. (5% for existing customers!) Plus no inventory was sent with the clothes - they had come straight from another party and it seemed that many pairs of trousers (which lets face it are the things you really want to try on!) were missing. The offers on the day were actually no better than those already on the website and the host doesn't get any additional discount or credit, nothing like that. I was totally shattered by the end of the day and really felt a bit put out for all the hard work I had put in. They maintain that these parties can bring in about £4000 of sales (nice for them!), well maybe, not here though and I was flat out all day. I feel it was a cheap way for them to make even more money. If anyone is considering hosting one of these parties I would just warn you.....BEWARE!!!!!! I would NEVER do it again, and despite being a loyal Boden customer in protest I have returned all the clothes I bought and will be avoiding them from now on!

Ouch! Thats why I never host these types of things, too much like hard work.

Have you returned the clothes you bought at the party or all the clothes you have from there?

oh lord i thought you were going to say they stich drawing pins into the seams of kids funky cords

Did you not get a big fat discount then?
Sounds a nightmare.
How much did you make ?

I have a date booked for next month! is it really that bad. I would really like to know if it is financially worth my while as I like you will be opening my house from 9am til 9pm. Have just printed invites - oh what shall I do.....

If there was no inventory how the hell did they know what was going on?

Look I don't want to put you off if you have a party booked, you may have a very different experience to me. I will not get the commission for about 6 weeks, so far it stands at about £130. I am not being greedy as I am giving all my commission to charity, it was meant to be a fundraising event, and I could have made more (and have done so in the past) by holding a coffee morning and cake sale! But I was very disappointed with the seeming complacent attitude of Boden who insist that you do not 'compromise their brand' yet do virtually nothing to assist you! People even thought that I worked for Boden! I ordered some things for myself but really could not even bring myself to try them on, sending them all back. Don't buy that much for myself as the prints are just too well bodeny, prefer the kids clothes. I am just warning you though Kate, make sure you get some friends to come and help you!! And I agree, no inventory, what do they expect??!!

Goodness - you did 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.? I went to a Boden party recently, started 10 o'clock and we were all away by lunchtime! No wonder you were scunnered.

Everyone was thinner than me ...

It seems such a shame. A lovely idea, but a bit disappointing for you after all your loyal hard work. I think too late for me to cancel as email/text invites gone out. Finger's crossed!!

The idea of strangers in your house though? What if you your possessions were stolen? I assume you had to let people out of your sight to try on clothes? Sounds like a crazy idea unless Boden are prepared to pay the host a fair whack in return for the risks involved. Lets hope they don't try and bill you for the missing (presumed stolen?) trousers!

I did, I Must admit move certain things of value (not that I Have that much worth nicking!) but also thought that the kind of people who would come would not be the sort who would rob you blind!! The people that came did seem to have a good time anyway. I also made it quite clear that the trousers were never there just incase I was blamed!

Actually coming back to this, I have been invited to a couple of parties locally but they have been in a hall (one of which was a private girls school) not in anyone's home. I just wonder if the host persons hired the halls to save having them at home.

As someone who actually works for Boden and has held 3 extremely successful parties, I thought I would share my thoughts and tips on how to get the best of your party:

I?m not going to defend Boden just because I work here but because I genuinely believe all this. AND because I work for Boden, I would be honest and say if something was not working.

1. I agree, the commission on existing customers is not mind-blowing, but this is why you need to encourage everyone to bring a friend. When I respond to customer enquiries, I always remind them that if they bring along a friend who is not a customer and who ends up buying, they?ll receive a £25 voucher and that YOU, as a host, end up with 25% commission on the sale.

1. Hosts can choose the times that you allow people into your home - I find that 9am to 6pm is more than enough. I host parties at the weekend and no one tends to come after 5 pm. You can also break it up and allow yourself a rest. So again, when responding to customers, ask them to provide you with a rough time as to when they are thinking of arriving so you can plan accordingly.

1. The offers on the day are a big incentive for customers. However, they?re only valid on the day of your party so you should really encourage them to buy right there and then so as not to miss out on the great savings. Happily, this also benefits you with increased commission.

1. Put signs all around your house such as 'dressing room this way' and ?toilet in here? and give customers pen and paper so they can write down style codes and details as they?re shopping. This way everything pretty much runs itself and you, as a host, don't have to run around so much.

I hope my tips will help everyone about to host a party and, for those who have not had much luck with them in the past, will encourage them to try again. I love hosting Boden parties and they?re definitely well worth my time. My most successful party has made me well into 4 figures in commission and over the 3 parties I?ve held so far, I?ve been able to buy new furniture for my bedroom, pay for a personal trainer and my next one will go towards my wedding dress!

Yes, I did pretty much all of those things that you suggested. I would argue though that the savings on the day were no better than those already online (except free p&P) and there was still a valid better offer running that had been in a national newspaper the previous week. Many people did take the codes away with them to put their orders on at home (I was told they were still valid for a couple of weeks). Despite heavily promoting and advertising in my area and at 5 local primary schools, on the day only 2 new customers came, despite the attraction of the £25 credit. Maybe these parties work better in densely populated areas, I live in a small Oxfordshire village, though am surrounded by lots of affluent Boden types.

Sorry, but I feel very disillusioned with Boden and could not even bring myself to try on any of the clothes i had ordered, they all went straight back. I have been a loyal customer for, I reckon, as long as Boden has been going, but I feel that might be coming to an end...

Sounds awful.

I find the whole idea bizarre. Why would I want to invite a load of strangers into my house? And why would they want to come, when they can order straight from the internet?

there was a boden party in the village hall around here - from 9/9, didnt go as i have gone 'off' boden lately.

I am a Phoenix Trader and I funraise heavily for lots of different charities, more than happy to send you a brochure and if you wanted to host a coffee and cards morning I donate 30% of total profits to your chosen charity.

Would that make you feel any better OP?

"this is why you need to encourage everyone to bring a friend. When I respond to customer enquiries, I always remind them that if they bring along a friend who is not a customer and who ends up buying, they?ll receive a £25 voucher"

Ugh. I hate the idea of "friends" feeling any pressure to buy things at an event like this. I'm not surprised people feel reticent about inviting friends who aren't Boden customers along.

Oh dear. sounds as if you did an awful lot for not very much. Agree with vesela on the pressure bit. Plus, if you are a Boden customer then most of your friends are likely to be (and the ones who aren't probably won't buy that much). The last time I was invited to go along to one of these I had recently made a 'preview' offer at 20% off and thought that I had almost certainly ordered everything I really wanted, and might just buy something because of the peer pressure, so I declined. Maybe that's another problem - the best offers - preview then initial season - have already been taken up by the time the stuff goes round the parties.

And what does 'not a boden customer' mean? I presume that means somebody who has never ever bought one single item from them.. and if you ever have, they have your details on computer..

I am surprised that they don't give the host a decent discount. I know somebody who works for Oasis and gets 25% off.

I should add that for me, even as an existing customer, I enjoyed the opportunity to see the clothes and shoes "in the flesh" - fabric feel, quality and finish are really important to me so I found that useful. I bought 2 outfits for the DCs that didn't grab me from the catalogue, but they were so soft in RL I loved them.

I didn't feel under any pressure to buy - I went there rather thinking it was unlikely.

Presumably the way to do this is to invite along your cousin Jake the Goth (who has never bought anything his entire life that isn't (a) faded black and (b) from Oxfam, and then for everyone at the party to place their orders via him. The aim for Boden is clearly to get a new name and future cashflow (they hope) on their books and also possibly to sell stuff to existing customers that they didn't buy in their initial season order but might 'in the flesh', as cruella says. But none of this amounts to that much incentive for the host.

I went to one and then held my own - I must say, my experience was very different from yours. Had a good time, made over £600 for meself, and found the Bodenies very helpful. You moan about the 5% for existing customers, but they make it quite clear that are after new customers and give 25% for those ones. That's where I cleaned up - maybe you just needed to advertise a bit more? Don't know why you would expect someone from Boden to turn up - these things must be all over the country. The only big fault with their system is that you are completely relying on the person before you packing things up nicely and not lose stuff. A few labels were missing and some stuff was in the wrong bags, but I had an inventory and plenty of the other stuff, no so big deal. Don't want to defend Johnnie too much as he can be annoying, but it just sounds like maybe you had a bad one, or missed the point, but I'm doing another and looking forward to it.

I hosted a party a couple of weeks ago and had a fantastic time, and met loads of lovely people - it was honestly brilliant!

Some of the stuff was missing also which was v annoying. But I loved having a houseful of clothes, shoes and bags for a whole weekend I even tried on and bought some things I would never have bought if I had just looked at a catalogue.

It is definitely the new customers that boost the commission - also managed to persuade quite a few people there to try the JohnnieB teen range which was classed as a 'new category'.

I'm still waiting for my cheque but think I've made about £500. I kept my parties to 3 two hour slots over the weekend so that we could still do some normal family stuff. I could have made more if I'd opened house all weekend but not fair on the children!

They do make it perfectly clear that there is a wait for your cheque to come through - just like in any business - also the commission rates are clear - so not sure why the moaning? If you don't like it don't do it?

As for inviting strangers into your home - I just made sure anything I wouldn't want to go walkies was upstairs out of the way.

A question to multiple party hosts - it is fair to say that the bulk of my new customers were within my own social network. These people are obviously going to be existing customers if I do another party. What do you do to try and get more new customers in 2nd and subsequent parties? Thinking of doing another one in the autumn.

I think it's really really tacky that Boden are doing these parties like tupperware, avon etc.

Obviously Boden want more and more customers from a business point of view but I much preferred Boden when every Tom, Dick and Harry wasn't wearing it.

Think it's gone off the boil anyway though, it is sooo mumsy and frumpy now. Joules is co much nicer!

Sounds a right load of flippin' hassle, the cynic in me can see right through the Boden employees/press office endorsements too.

I used to love Joules and hated Boden but this summer's Joules collection leaves me cold. Would like to think that my party was slightly classier than Tupperware

mangoandlime I work for the NHS not for Boden It was hassle, my husband had to actually look after the kids for the weekend but that money represents a month's take home pay for maybe a day's work - so go figure