Hey guys! I hope y'all had a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I have been preoccupied with holiday-inspired makeup tutorials in the past couple of weeks which you can read here but as we near the end of 2013, here's my Year In Review on being a Sephora VIB, Very Important Beauty Insider.
During my mid-year review, I concluded that I wouldn't purposely shop at Sephora to become a VIB because my overall experience with the program was just average. There were some notable moments when they had 15% or 20% off events or that time when I received a full-sized gift for being a VIB but there were a handful of weak moments that I will take some time to go over below.
Since my mid-year review, Sephora has revamped their rewards program and added a new tier reward status, VIB Rouge. To reach VIB Rouge status, you must spend $1000 at Sephora online or in-store within a calender year. VIB status remains the same where you need to spend $350 to qualify.
Here are Sephora's latest VIB perks as seen on their website.
VIB Has All Beauty Insider Benefits:
Birthday Gift - You can visit in-store to get a cute deluxe-sample pack around your birthday. This year, I got the Sugar Lip Treatment duo pack and I enjoyed that gift a lot.
Free Beauty Classes - I have never seen these beauty classes being offered in their promotional emails this year. If they are advertised in emails, I must have missed it, but I know for sure they are far and few inbetween in my city.
Product Rewards - Every dollar spent at Sephora equals to 1 point and you can redeem deluxe-sample sized products for points. There are 100 point, 250 point (new since VIB Rouge launched) and 500 point perks available at all times for redemption. Perks change every few weeks and it's not uncommon for popular perks to run out of supplies quickly.
Seasonal Promotions - This includes every promo run this year that BI's are qualified for including double/triple point promos and the spring time 15% off purchase promotion.
VIB and VIB Rouge-specific Benefits:
First Dibs On New Products - Promotional emails are sent to notify VIBs/VIB Rouge of new products coming to Sephora. These are awesome if you've been waiting for the launch of a product but I don't recall anything fancy about these launches. By fancy I mean, get a free gift if you pre-order that week or receive double points when you purchase on the day it arrives in-store, etc.
Seasonal VIB-Only Gifts - I received one full sized gift this year when I was in-store to buy something. There was no notice via email so I got it partially by luck. The other notable gift VIBs/VIB Rouge got was a $20 coupon in December for when you make a purchase of $50 or more.
Advance Access to Sales - Cannot think of a time where there was an advanced sale. It might have been the recent 20% purchase that went out to VIBs/VIB Rouge first but I can't confirm. If you are a BI and got the 20% promo late November, please drop a note below!
Private VIB-Only Shopping Nights - None that I know of in this city.
Some Detailed Likes and Dislikes
I can't say quite say the same about that full-sized product gift or $20 coupon. They are nice but I would have never gotten the gift or been able to use my coupon if I didn't buy something else. I would much prefer to get something with no strings attached. Something along the lines of - hey we appreciate that you keep coming back to our store, here's a free gift or hey, here's $10 coupon to spend however you like in-store!
- But these are minor in comparison to a more personal experience I had fall of this year. During a promotional event (available to anyone visiting the website) where you play a game to randomly generate a promo code to which afterwards can applied to an online purchase. The codes range from free deluxe samples to free shipping or 10% off purchase. At the time, I was planning to place an order online and my order total was just over $75 (qualifying for Canadian free shipping) and I had a 10% off purchase promo code. If I had used the 10% promo code, it would've brought my total before taxes down to $67.5, $7.5 short of $75 which disqualified me of free shipping. That left me with a few choices, either pay for shipping (around $8), skip the 10% discount and get my free shipping or add an item for $7.5 or more to my basket to qualify for free shippping again plus get the 10% off.
I called VIB Concerige to verify that it wasn't a system error which by the way, the concerige have reasonable wait times and the staff are generally helpful and courteous. I was however disappointed to find that the system was intentionally programmed so that your order had to be $75 or more after promo codes and before tax to qualify for that free shipping.
When I made my call, I had spent $650 to date at Sephora and there was no offer from concerige to make an exception of any kind. For the record, I didn't make a fuss or ask for anything. I just wanted to see how you're treated when you run into a situation and this confirmed for me that it simply does not matter what status you are or how much you spend at Sephora, company policies and the dollar comes first, if you expect to be pleasantly surprised out-of-the blue or when you need it without asking or maybe even demanding (?) for it, you will be disappointed.
At the time of writing, I am $180 away from VIB Rouge and cannot find any reasons to try and reach the next level. I could easily stock up $180 worth of Origins but I am not motivated.
- Sephora's store concept is pretty fabulous - you can try on pretty much whatever you like at the store without being pressured to buy and they even have stations with cotton pads, Q-tips and makeup remover to help with product testing. Their flexible return policy on these very personal items are really helpful to any shopper, free gift wrapping is also available online or in-store, and their rewards program is steps ahead of any other rewards program by a cosmetics retailer. This is all made possible with a greater markup on their products. I am OK with this. I get it. If you want more frills and services, you have to pay more for it but you don't need to be a VIB/VIB Rouge to have access to these benefits. You don't need to spend the qualifying $350 or $1000 a year to enjoy the above. They advertise added benefits for being a member but the free membership-level - Beauty Insider (BI) offers basics are just as useful and there are no qualifying purchase amounts.
Again, as I've concluded previously, unless you're all about trading in points for deluxe sample-sized products or you have limited options where you live, I just don't see enough pay off for continued customer loyalty at the VIB and VIB Rouge levels. More power to you if you've had many wonderful experiences as a VIB and I do wish I could say the same! Until I see some really worthy benefits for being a top member, I'll be looking at other rewards programs as alternatives. Shoppers Drug Mart has a straight points to cash reward system where you could find yourself redeeming over $100 worth of goods if you're a loyal shopper.
If you're on your way to be a VIB or VIB Rouge, feel free to share your experiences with us. There are a lot of people curious about these programs.
In the meantime, more makeup tutorials and reviews to follow so check back!
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