One good way for new companies to spread awareness of their products is to offer referral credits to customers: get a friend to sign up or buy, and you get money to spend with the company. But period underwear company THINX may be rethinking (rethinxing?) its referral program, as some people are now claiming it’s taking back thousands of dollars in credits it doled out to customers and bloggers.
For those not in the know, THINX makes underwear that the company says can replace the need for panty liners and can be used in conjunction with other feminine hygiene products like pads and tampons, depending on each individual’s needs.
Consumerist reader Kimberly pointed us to a post on Put A Cup In It, a site that advocates the use of menstrual cups and other alternatives to pads and tampons, laying out claims made by various bloggers and customers who purchased the panties and shared their referral codes.
To get people to share its brand, THINX offered a refer-a-friend program: share a unique code with your pals, they get $10 off their first order, and you get $10 by way of a code that could be used like a gift card.
“When they make a purchase you’ll also get a $10 THINX gift card as a reward! Pretty straightforward. Go on, now. Get that guap. You deserve it.” read the email, via Put A Cup In It.
That’s a pretty good deal, when you take into account the $24-$38 price tag for each pair of underwear — stacking up those codes could mean never having to pay for underwear ever again. Bloggers bought the panties themselves and reviewed them, in turn, sharing their referrals, including a co-founder of Put A Cup In It.
“I had been asked about THINX several times by readers so when their PR person asked for a call to discuss a review and giveaway I figured ‘why not.’ I spent 30 minutes chatting and the PR person was quick to offer free THINX for me to review, and she wanted a video review,” says Kim Rosas of Dirty Diaper Laundry. “When I mentioned I had fees for a giveaway she didn’t seem as pleased, but asked me to send that information. I didn’t hear from her again for 6 whole months, by which time I’d already purchased a pair, published a review, and earned hundreds of $10 gift codes.”
As those kinds of posts circulated in the blogging world, Rosas says she wrote to the company to find a way to keep things from spiraling out of control: she realized if she used all the gift card codes she’d amassed, and if others did the same, the company would be out of thousands of dollars in product.
She approached THINX with an idea for a more traditional affiliate program where referrals would earn bloggers 5-10% of purchases. She says that in response, THINX said it was discontinuing the current program and would be in touch if other opportunities came up.
A few weeks later, THINX’s referral program changed, Put A Cup In It says: after April 28, referring friends and readers to THINX earned a $10 coupon code — but only toward a single purchase. Codes aren’t considered gift cards and cannot be combined or accrued in a user’s account. Under this system, each time you want to use that $10 off, you’d only get that discount on one purchase, meaning you’d pay the difference in price up front, instead of being able to apply a bunch of gift codes and pay nothing.
Rosas says she sent about $100 in THINX codes from her bank of codes she’d earned to her hairdresser, who tried to use them without success. When she clicked on the codes in her email collection, each one showed up as disabled. Other friends reported back to her with similar stories.
“I was humiliated and felt robbed by the company I’d been shouting from the rooftops for months,” she says, after having around $2,000 in gift cards deactivated.
One customer claims she posted a question about the referral program on the THINX Facebook page, only to have it deleted.
“Seriously? You deleted my post from yesterday asking a question about this and never answered,” she wrote, posting a link to Put A Cup In It’s story. “Is this true? Are you deleting our referral codes? It appears you did it to some bloggers. Don’t delete this. Put your big girl Thinx on and address this. ”
Currently, the “get $10” link on the THINX website promotes a “Give $10, Get $10” model. Customers used to the previous referral system might not realize the change, as there’s nothing to indicate that the $10 is only for a single purchase.
While it makes sense for a company to change a program that could be causing them to bleed money, pun unintended, it’s also a good idea to alert your customers to that change, communicate what will happen to the referral dollars they’ve already collected.
We reached out to THINX for a comment on their referral program and any changes to it, and will update this post when we hear back.
Why We No Longer Support THINX [Put A Cup In It]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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