Meghan Markle has outsourced flogging her jam, edible flowers and crepe mix to a web firm accused by its customers of being a ‘horrible’ company selling items ‘they don’t have in stock or don’t exist at all’.
The Duchess of Sussex’s As Ever range went on sale in the US yesterday and she was celebrating when they sold out within half an hour of going live.
An almighty row has broken out after fans rushed to buy products but found they were immediately sold out or unavailable.
Meghan and her team have outsourced the sales of her $28 (£21.60) honey, $14 (£10.80) ‘fruit spread’ and $15 (£11.60) flower sprinkles to Snow Commerce.
In the small print on Meghan’s As Ever website, it says the Cincinnati-based online sales business is ‘solely responsible for all aspects of your purchase’.
But MailOnline can today reveal that Snow Commerce has suffered a slew of poor reviews in recent years – and has the lowest possible rating with arguably America’s most influential consumer rights organisation.
One unhappy customer has warned: ‘Do not buy anything from any company that uses this joke of a company’. Another critic said: ‘They are ridiculously bad, they’re allegedly selling items that they don’t have in stock or don’t exist at all’.
It came after well-placed sources insisted that Meghan’s claims her products sold out in 30 minutes was part of a ‘common marketing ploy’ to ‘fake demand’ and also hoover up the data from people visiting the website.
‘Showing that there is a sell out is very common for new brands to fake demand. There is no warehouse full of jams’, one industry insider told MailOnline today, adding of all those who have signed up to be notified when its products are back on sale: ‘Meghan has all their data now’.
Meghan Markle has claimed that all her products sold out in 30 minutes. One expert claimed today: ‘It’s obviously a marketing ploy’
The small print on the As Ever website reveals that all sales are through controversial business Snow Commerce
Snow Commerce has a one-star rating on America’s Better Business Bureau (BBB), a highly influential consumer rights organisation in the US
Snow Commerce has gained a foothold in the entertainment industry. It was recently sold to Latvian company Printful.
As well as Meghan’s new lifestyle venture, it has also managed web-sales for Warner Brothers, HBO, Discovery and NBCUniversal.
But it has a one-star rating on America’s Better Business Bureau (BBB) – a non-profit organisation set up in 1912 to build a ‘culture of honesty and fairness in business transactions’ in the US.
One unhappy customer said last month that they found that nobody at Snow Commerce cares ‘at all how it makes you feel when you spend $150, your item never gets shipped and nobody tells you why. Never has a business treated me like that’.
Another told the BBB: ‘Stay away from this company at all costs!.
A third critic said: ‘Horrible business, items shown on website do not represent what will be received’.
Facebook reviews from customers are not much better.
Many of the positive reviews appear to be from people with connections to the company, including one from its founder Rick Simpson.
One of the most recent critics said of using Snow Commerce: ‘As all other reviews say – paid my money, been waiting months and months, can barely get a real response. So awful’.
Another wrote: ‘A truly awful company with atrocious customer service. They do not return customer service calls at all. It takes them days to return simple customer service requests. The refuse to give refunds for items purchased when not received. Do not give this company one red cent, they are unprofessional’.
A third one-star review said: ‘I have sent numerous emails and have had ZERO communications returned. Do not buy anything from any company that uses this joke of a company’.
There has been raised eyebrows in the PR industry about how quickly Meghan’s products sold out.
‘It’s obviously a marketing ploy that people do all the time’, one well-placed source told MailOnline today.
‘Showing that there is a sell out is very common for new brands to fake demand. It also creates demand and limits any risk as well.
‘It’s basically a way of creating things made to order. They will have set a number in the back end let’s say 1000 units of each product and once they sell out they then know to create 1000 units. It’s saves on waste and allows them to understand the demand. Businesses don’t create limitless stock anymore. There is no warehouse full of jams’.
The source added that it is also a chance for Meghan’s team to ‘scrape’ more personal details from potential customers who registered an interest in buying her jam or edible petals by encouraging them to register an interest and hand over their email address to be informed when products are back in stock.
Meghan Markle’s As Ever range is already sold out, including her limited edition Wildflower Honey which retails at approximately £21
The Duchess’s flower sprinkles, which have sold out, cost £11.59 – and are also featured on Meghan’s cookie mix
Meghan is also selling peppermint tea, ready made crepe mix and shortbread cookie mix with flower sprinkles
The tills were certainly ringing for the Duchess of Sussex yesterday when she launched her As Ever Lifestyle range – selling out her eye-wateringly expensive honey and jams in a matter of minutes.
Meghan released her line of long-awaited items, first teased a year ago under a different name, as she continues to rebrand herself as a ‘domestic goddess’.
But she was immediately accused of using a ‘common marketing ploy’ to help her range appear popular by stocking small amounts of her range for the launch sale.
It included a wildflower honey with honeycomb priced at a staggering $28 (£21.60) and some flower sprinkles at $15 (£11.60), while a jar of raspberry jam set punters back $14 (£10.80).
Other goods in the Duchess’s lifestyle range included shortbread and crepe mixes – both being sold for $14 – and various herbal tea mixes for $12 (£9.30) each.
Elsewhere, the Duchess is also selling everything but the kitchen sink from her Shopmy online account, where customers can get their hands on affiliated products seen on her Instagram feed, including copper pots and pans for the princely sum of almost $900 (£690).
When her As Ever range went on sale in the US yesterday, they sold out within half an hour of going live.
A well-placed source told The Telegraph the items had been made available in small quantities and quickly marked as sold out to generate interest, described as ‘a common marketing ploy’.
In a post on social media, Meghan wrote: ‘We’re live! Come shop the As Ever collection I’ve poured so much love into. So excited to share this with you’, before adding ‘limited quantities for each seasonal drop’.
Launching the range, Meghan told her followers in a newsletter that it’s a ‘love language’ rather than a brand.
In a gushing message to her followers, she wrote: ‘If you’ve been receiving these newsletters, you’ve been reading my musings about this brand and why it means so much to me – why it’s person, why it brings me joy, and how I hope that it becomes both personal and joyful for you too.
‘You’re now familiar with the line-up of products, and as of today you can order them for yourself to experience at home. I can’t wait to hear what you think!
‘Welcome to As Ever… this is just the beginning!’
The Duchess, 43, said she ‘often relies on chicken nuggets, veggie burgers and Tater Tots’ to feed Prince Archie , five, and Princess Lilibet, three. She is pictured in With Love, Meghan
Meghan Markle has given her Instagram followers a glimpse into her Montecito mansion in a new video where she makes banana pudding at home with her mother Doria
Meghan shared footage of her ‘fruit spread’ being made. A Netflix source claims that staff were asked to sign NDAs to ensure the location of the factory remains secret
The business venture comes just weeks after Meghan unveiled her new TV show, With Love, Meghan.
Netflix, the maker of her series, is her business partner and will begin selling her lifestyle range inside two of America’s mega-malls later this year.
However, behind the scenes, sources have suggested the launch of Meghan’s company has been anything but smooth sailing – with Netflix staff claiming they were already ‘over it’.
Speaking to the Mail, an insider claimed the Montecito start-up has proved to be a ‘logistical nightmare’ after the 11th hour name change from American Riviera Orchard.
People working on the retail project are said to be tired of the ‘drama’ surrounding the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, who has now been engulfed by scandal surrounding his Sentebale charity.
They have even been asked to sign NDAs to keep secret where the products, including her ‘fruit spread’, are being made, the source said.
‘There is so much drama surrounding them once again that internally the team are over it before it’s even launched’, the source claimed. ‘It’s been a logistical nightmare and the buying team are having an issue as they can’t work out what the demand will be, if any’.
The source said that away from the social media buzz, there are still fears internally about whether Meghan’s new brand will fly.
Team Sussex is believed to have lined up famous faces and influencers to help boost sales on Wednesday. ‘People will be posting their jars of jam – they’ve seeded it to lots of influencers to get it out there and to plaster social media with ‘good vibes’ on launch’, they said.
Speaking to The New York Times ahead of the launch of her As Ever collection, Meghan insisted her freezer was ‘stuffed with’ convenience foods.
The Duchess had unveiled her lifestyle brand as American Riviera Orchard last year, sending out 50 jars of jam to her friends as a soft launch.
The ‘American Riviera’ is a nickname for Santa Barbara, where Meghan lives with husband Prince Harry and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
But Meghan was forced to do an embarrassing U-turn after US officials told her geographical locations could not be patented and she therefore could not trademark the brand – prompting the switch to ‘As Ever’.
Meghan confirmed the change of name in a video posted to her Instagram on February 18, shared with her 2.2million followers on the social media platform.
However, this too proved to be a shambles after it was revealed the name was already being used by a long-established independent clothing brand in New York.
And in another blow, the Duchess found herself embroiled in a plagiarism row over the logo for As Ever with a small town in Majorca.
The mayor of Porreres, a town on the Spanish island, accused Meghan’s company of copying their historic coat of arms in its logo, which features a palm tree and two birds.
The Duchess yesterday sought to defend the controversy surrounding the As Ever lifestyle firm amid the launch of its products.
In an interview with Inc., Meghan compared the name change fiasco to that of Bumble, the social media dating app, which changed its name from “Merci” early on.
Meghan, who is pals with the dating app’s tech guru founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, claimed that even though she was ‘close friends’ with her, she had ‘no idea’ about Bumble’s original name.
‘These things that can feel very big as an entrepreneur when you’re building your own thing are completely normal,’ she added.
When Meghan unveiled her brand’s new name in February, Mark Kolski, founder of the New York City-based clothing brand As Ever, wrote on his brand’s website: ‘We are aware. We are not affiliated.’
Today, the duchess insisted she was cheering on the other As Ever brand and hoped that as more people used the phrase, the family-owned clothing brand would get a boost too. ‘There’s room for everybody,’ she says.
The Duchess of Sussex and Netflix were asked for comment.