SCG
Fulfillment services now in Mississippi - there’s your problem!
I’ve been purchasing from the Kiehl’s online mail order services for more than a decade. Unfortunately, the quality of their service has decreased significantly over the last two years. My most recent order was a mixed experience. The good: my order arrived complete and the sale prices were good. The bad: whereas I use to routinely receive shipments a few days after placing my order, this time it took about two weeks. The tracking info was never input or updated (beyond a confusing tracking number with no shipping service identified) so I never knew when to expect the shipment. It just showed up at my door. The box was haphazardly packed with the items rolling around loose inside and the box looked like it was used as a booster seat for a chubby boy. Although the box was marked with instructions to open a specified side, the products were all upside down. Fortunately nothing leaked or was broken. I contacted customer service about a week after placing the order to confirm its status. Theyreplied promptly but offered little help. I was given a range of dates for processing and another range of dates for shipping that added up to a maximum of two weeks. I was told that the item was shipped via UPS, but it was actually UPS Mail Innovations, with USPS handling the final delivery. Either way, the provided tracking number never was updated as received, shipped, etc. Another recurring annoyance is that whenever they have a sale, many sale items are not in stock. The biggest part of the problem seems to be that their order fulfillment/shipping warehouse facilities have moved from the northeast to Mississippi. I consistently find that any shipment originating from south of the Mason Dixon line and east of Texas rarely gets scanned by UPS and USPS so tracking is nonexistent. When it is tracked, the journey seems to involve confusing handoffs back and forth through the most indirect route imaginable. I doubt I will ever use Kiehl’s mail order services again and I highly recommend picking up orders in store if that is convenient.


