June 20,
2001
Lots of Questions & Why No Swap Board?
Question
Dear Karen,
I am recently new to the Internet and I have been
visiting a lot of hair sites lately. I first heard about you in
101 Hairstyles and then I saw you in Harris Publications on Bridal
Hair.
I keep coming back to HairBoutique.com because in
my opinion it is the best and I have heard that you are one of the
oldest hair sites still active on the Net. Maybe you could tell me a
little bit about how long you have been around.
I noticed, in my opinion, that many of the current
hair sites seem to copy a lot of what HairBoutique.com does on the
site. Which I know must be a compliment to you but I also
wonder why you don't do certain things that the other sites do. Did
you stop doing them because they started or what is the deal on
that?
I hope I won't offend you or HairBoutique.com by
asking why you don't sell the major hair care lines like ARTec, Aveda
or Paul Mitchell on your site. Also, why do you sell only
certain lines of products. I went to your awesome store and you
sell tons of very kewl stuff. I just can't seem to figure out
why you sell what you sell. Is it because you have a preference
to those products?
Finally, I noticed some of the sites have swap
messageboards where you can swap products with other people. Do
you plan to add one of these soon? I am fascinated by the
concept.
Keep up the work on your fabulous site. I
read an article about you in a recent version of Working Woman
Magazine where it said you have two companies besides
HairBoutique.com. Can you tell me about those sites as
well. I would like to visit since I really love hair and
beauty sites like HairBoutique.com. I can't imagine how you can work
on three companies at the same time.
A Noisy But Appreciative Visitor
Sandi In Pittsburgh
Answer
Dear
Sandi,
Thank you for your email. I have to say that
it made my day and tickled my funnybone.:-) Actually many
people ask me the same questions you asked over and over. I
try to answer them privately but will try and answer your questions
publicly for anyone else who might be interested. Since you have
asked several questions, I am going to break them down into separate
answers.
Thanks for writing.
Best wishes,
Karen
Answer - How Long On Net -
History Of Site
After The Long Hair Site, Victor's Men's Long Hair
Site and a few others, Jeff and I were some of the first sites on
the Net dealing with hair care. HairBoutique.com started life
in a previous format on the Net as The Long Hair Video site that was
developed starting in the Summer of 1996, launched in March 1997 and
closed in late 1997. This original site was completely
reformatted and redesigned from the ground up as HairBoutique.com.
The HairBoutique.com site was launched in March of
1998 with a newly developed business plan and focus. Although
Jeff Hines, my co-founder and business partner and I both have waist
length or longer hair, we appreciate that people have hair of all
types, lengths and challenges. When we launched
HairBoutique.com we decided to address all hair issues as our
format.
I do agree that imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery. Many hundreds of hair sites have followed us onto the Net
over the past 5 years. And yes, many have obviously copied a
lot of our features and format. Some have even
"borrowed" our strictly copyrighted photos from our
galleries. Ironically one site that has historically
copied many of our features shortly after we introduce them attacked
us publicly on their messageboard. The result was a steady
immigration of visitors from their site to our site.
Answer - Why HairBoutique.com
Doesn't Sell Salon Lines (ARTec, Aveda, Paul Mitchell, etc.,) In The
Marketplace
Out of respect to hairstylists, salons and the
major hair care manufacturers like ARTec, Paul Mitchell, Aveda and
Matrix, we have always abstained from selling those lines on
HairBoutique.com. Even though we have been approached many times
over the past four years by a variety of sources (legal and
otherwise) that would have allowed us to sell the lines, we have
always declined the opportunity. Why? There are many
complex reasons why but the easy answer is because the salons,
stylists and hair care manufacturers have requested that we don't
sell salon lines at HairBoutique.com without their express
permission.
I am proud to say that we have honored this
request and have never sold a single product at HairBoutique.com
without the express written permission of the manufacturer. We
currently have some products in our Marketplace that it took us
years to get permission to sell. However, we decided if we
couldn't sell the products without the express blessing of the
manufacturers we wouldn't.
I personally have tremendous admiration for the
work of the late Paul Mitchell and I have a lot of respect for the
work of ARTec genius Leland Hirsch. I personally use various
items from both of those product lines on a regular basis along with
many of the products we currently sell in our Marketplace.
Answer - How We Determine What
We Sell At HairBoutique.com
Which brings me to the method to our madness of
what we sell in our online store. Not only do we only sell
items that manufacturers give us permission to sell, we personally
test every single item that we sell long before we decide we want to
sell it.
The HairBoutique.com ranks have swelled to include
more than Jeff and I as testers but we have several consumers that
will test everything we are considering adding to the store. I
personally don't ever want to sell a product that would harm a
consumer. While we recognize that we can't please all of the
people all of the time, we do try and represent the consumer as we
test new items under consideration. We look at pricing, value
and performance when we try different products.
I personally took the H37 vitamins for over 1 year
before deciding to sell them at HairBoutique.com. I also have
personally used all of the Edwin Paul products and still use the
Luxury Shampoo and Deep Conditioner on a weekly basis. Jeff
Hines also uses the Classic Shampoo and Deep Conditioner on a daily
basis.
I personally inspect and buy every item of hair
jewelry, LongLocks hair sticks and the Conair products that we offer
for sale.
Not only do we want to be sure we are offering a
high quality product for a good price, we want to be able to help
our visitors with questions about products. How can you do
that if you don't get to know it yourself? Which is our
philosophy about what we sell in the store.
HairBoutique.com writer Jane Bullock will be happy
to tell you that she has lathered, rinsed and gelled with a large
number of our different products. She is currently testing new
products which I personally tested before selecting them for our
store to give me a second opinion.
Answer - Why HairBoutique.com
Doesn't Have Or Endorse A Product Swap Board
In the very early days of HairBoutique.com I
investigated the possibility of having a Products Swap Board.
After much research and several talks with the HairBoutique.com
attorney I decided that it was a risk that I did not want to pass on
to our visitors and consumers.
Historically contamination can be an issue.
Many states now have laws against companies accepting returns of
beauty products. Why? Contamination issues. Once a
seal is broken there is no way to guarantee that products have not
had damaging chemicals or other foreign products added.
If we offered a Swap Board on HairBoutique.com,
even if we did not offer the products for swap, we would ultimately
be legally responsible if someone was harmed in any way. As
result we have always been against Swap Boards or Meets for hair
care or related products. I personally advise our visitors
against participating as a safety measure.
Answer - HairBoutique.com
& T&S Software
You are correct. I do run two companies,
HairBoutique.com and T&S
Software. I do not have three companies although who
knows, anything is possible.
T&S Software is not in the beauty
industry. It is actually a much larger company (25 employees)
than HairBoutique.com and it is an award winning leader in the
telephony arena. T&S excels with products in both the
intelligent voice and IP arenas.
Thank you for your kind words about
HairBoutique.com. They are always very much appreciated.
Best wishes,
Karen
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