Hi Wink Fam! 你好
I will keep this short, but for those of you that have been avidly following, I wanted to give an update:
The first 3 weeks in China have been an absolute scramble. Not only have I been trying to work out the bottle issues, but I have a laundry list of other factories I want to visit and opportunities for Wink that I want to explore while in China, so I have been carefully planning my time. I have been focusing on the bottle issue first, and trying not to get distracted by all the shiny (potential) packaging for the gold peptide eye cream (although I did have some samples mailed to me, which I may or may not be currently using…)
My first week was mostly spent sleeping – because a 12 hour time difference is brutal. I was basically a pile-of-mush-poor-excuse-of-a-human-being.
My second week was spent looking for a place to live, instead of a hotel, for the duration of my stay here. That was also a crazy process, very little of which I understood, but.. ta da! I have a place to live now. I think.
The entire lease document is in Chinese characters…
During the second week I also reached out to our factory to schedule a visit and talk through the applicator issues. I brought a typed list of the issues and potential solutions, along with about 2 dozen units to China, to demonstrate first hand the issues we were having. I was promptly greeted with a completely different type of personality/response than I received during the 3 months of vetting and planning and negotiating and working together for this batch last year: “Sorry. If you do not like the quality, you should find other factory”.
Great.
But you know what? Actually, great. If we have issues with the packaging and they no longer want to work together, it’s good they let us know now.
So, I’m looking for another factory–a long term partner. So far, I haven’t found any leads online, so it’s time to pound the pavement. I’m okay with this. Luckily, there’s plenty of factories in and around Shenzhen and the Guangdong province. I can travel to Shanghai if necessary. I’ve just found first hand that–just like anywhere else in the world–the best relationships in China are created and maintained in person.
In the mean time, our no questions asked money back guarantee policy always stands, and of course, we are asking that if you love the product, but it doesn’t last 3 months, let us know and we will ship you a replacement free of charge.
No regrets. Thank you for your patience. Still chugging away – AND trying to successfully coordinate the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign from 7,500 miles away (which I have really, really high hopes for this year), because we have a GOAL, ladies and gentlemen!
Wanting to donate 1,000 of these bad boys. We can do it.
Until next time,
xoxo 和爱
Megan 美更
P.S. – Some of my more personal thoughts–which do not reflect the position or statements of the company–will soon be moving to my personal blog. I can link it for any interested.
