I've seen this thread on other forums and it's always awkward ('what does handmade mean? is SLS okay? if it has benzoin in it, is it a skin sensitizer? are they lying about their soap claims? do they mislabel?') but ultimately, it usually starts with someone that has felt disappointed or outright lied to. I agree. It sucks to feel take advantage of and lose your trust in a company. So when I think of Lush, I try and find the proverbial silver lining - the things I can learn from a successful business. Lately, the bigger picture that I like to focus on with Lush is their marketing in general.
They are genius at it. Look at how much product they sell, how passionate their supporters are and how they've managed to grow quickly. As a small business, there is much to learn from them from a marketing techniques.
I know that for me, whenever I go into their stores, my take aways for our retail Otion store are:
1. Clear signage matters. Lush has clear signs and pricing on everything. So, if there's no one to help a customer, the signs do the talking.
2. Mounds and mounds of products. Except for right after Christmas (when all stores look picked over), all the Lush stores I've been into have mountains of handmade products out. While I'm not personally a fan of leaving melt and pour soap out for weeks and weeks without wrapping, I do appreciate that a full shelf makes for a more appealing display and am always inspired to fully stock shelves after visiting a Lush store.
3. Friendly catalogs. Lush's descriptions are very appealing in their catalogs. Yes, they cross the line with cosmetic/drug claims so that's something none of us will want to emulate, but their descriptions of products are cheeky, funny and informative. They keep the reader reading a sales piece. There aren't many places that can do that.
Back to the original sentiment that started this thread about feeling ripped-off because of implied marketing claims, my take away for my small businesses is that we always want to be accountable in our words. It's important to be consistent, under promise and over deliver, and not make statements (implied or said) that customers may feel cheated or lied to about.
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