How Can Something So Simple Be This Complicated?
Terre Rouge
Small, specialized websites can be fun. They often offer good, unique products at decent prices. I was searching around for a new lip balm (because the 17,488 ones I have just aren't enough) and I stumbled upon Terre Rouge Online Store.
Talk about small. This website sells four — count em — four products!
A Bit About the Site
This is taken from the website. It is part of the "About Us" page which explains the site's objectives: Owned and operated by herbalist Kim KelleyWagner, Terre Rouge, Ltd. supplies natural personal care products to the discriminating consumer, spa and natural products industry. All of my products are created in small batches by hand to ensure quality, purity and freshness. They are made with the highest quality all natural ingredients, using pure essential oils, vegetable oils and extracts, fresh fruits, pure beeswax and honey, and earth minerals and pigments. No harmful chemicals or ingredients are used in their creation, only ingredients found in nature make up my products.
What the Site Sells
This really corny looking website sells all natural stick lip balm in three scents, Happy Cowpoke lip balm in a tin in cocoa-orange-mint flavor, Milk and Honey Bath Salt, and a healing skin balm called Coo Coo Cream. That's it. Nothing else. How this site stays in business is well beyond me. I should note (as the description above pointed out) everything I listed is all-natural with no chemicals added.
Variety
Say what? Variety? Just the four items above and not another thing.
Navigation and My (Incomplete) Experience
The website is set up to look like something out of the 50's with old-fashioned people smiling and holding one the four products. You can't get lost. There are the four categories across the top and a click takes you to a little photo, a description of what the product is for, the ingredients lists, and the price.
It doesn't get any simpler than that. Until you attempt to buy something.
Once you make the ever so difficult choice about what to buy, you add it to the cart. I decided to try the stick lip balm in vanilla almond and the pot lip balm in that strange cocoa-orange-mint variety (which is the only flavor/scent they sell). When I clicked to buy the products, they went into my cart where I could opt to change the quantities and update my total.
Once finished with my shopping, I was taken immediately to paypal. I had no choice but to use my papal account to buy these items. I was not given a total for shipping or tax. I didn't like that.
Once I got to the paypal page, I saw the shipping charge was $3.00 for an $8.00 order. I checked with just the stick lip balm in my cart and the shipping charge was $3.00 for a $3.50 order so that must be the base with it escalating as you add heavier or more items (I wouldn't know, there is nowhere to find out that information). I like all natural things and I am curious about the lip balms but I think the shipping charge is a bit high considering we're talking about two minuscule items that could be sent in a tiny envelope but that's the net for ya. I have no idea when the items will arrive as I just made the order but I will update when they do get here. If they do get here...
Another annoying this is that, for only offering four products, it seemed as if two of them were not in stock. When I clicked on the Coo Coo Cream and Bath Salts, I was not taken to my cart but directly to the paypal page to sign in. There was nothing in my cart except the lip balms. I tell, ya, for being a super simplistic website, I was baffled.
Shipping and Returns
This site likes to play "mystery shipping costs" and doesn't tell you what the shipping charges are until you are about to check out. They do not tell you in advance anywhere that they only accept paypal either. It's like shopping in the dark.
There is no return policy on the site. I have no clue if you can return items. I am assuming you can't. Hey, I understand that small business people can't involve themselves with complicated websites but some disclosure is a must. I own and run a website about 25 times bigger than this one by myself and have no problems. It looks to me like the owner isn't all that interested in selling on the web.
Contact Info
Terre Rouge, Ltd.
144 Jefferson Hwy.
Louisa, Virginia 23093
info@terrerouge.com
No phone number of any kind is posted.
Conclusion
I know it was probably silly of me to continue with an order when the site is buggy and so unprofessional. But curiosity got to me. I want to try the all-natural lip balms and I want to see how my transaction goes from here. Generally I get an email verifying my order immediately after a purchase but I didn't with this site. Lord knows if I will ever see my two products.
I am posting this now but will return and update with how long shipping took and if I needed to contact customer service.
I am a fool. Don't you be. This site should have shipping costs posted and a return policy clearly stated. They also should tell prospective shoppers that paypal is their only method of payment as many shoppers do not like to use paypal and wouldn't waste their time on the site knowing this.
One good thing, though, is a portion of the profits made from some products are donated to animal sanctuaries and no animal testing is ever done nor are any products used that have been tested on animals. There are also no animal derived ingredients (except "happy bees" who supply beeswax) used in the products sold. I love animals and I think that may have been the only reason I continued with the order.
I can't recommend this site. Even though I went ahead with my order, it's way too unstable for me to recommend that you take a chance there. Should my order come complete and quickly (or even if I get a verification email), I will update the rating. Still, even if the products arrive just fine, I strongly believe more information needs to be on this site to inform shoppers about the policies — shipping, return, and payment — none of which are posted.
You can find good, natural products on many websites and order with more confidence.
I am giving this a 2 star rating. I will update to a 3 star one if the items arrive in a timely fashion and if everything goes smoothly but know ahead of time the things I warned you about if you choose to shop on this site.
Update October 21: I received the lip balms on October 20, 11 days after placing the order. They came in a plain brown envelope. There was a hand written note apologizing for the delay and giving me a free gift of one extra tube of lip balm, which is a nice touch. The lip balm is nice. It has no flavor and not much scent but seems to be quite moisturizing. Both the tin and the sticks are very emollient to the point of greasy but do soothe my dry lips. Very reminiscent of Badger Lip balms.
I have upgraded from 2 stars to 3 because I did get my products, albeit 11 days after ordering. I was given an extra tube for the wait which was thoughtful. The balm itself is average. I was hoping for flavor or at least a nice scent and I got no flavor at all (just the oily residue) and very little scent. The balm may bit a bit too greasy to actually stay on my lips very long but I have no true complaints about how it moisturizes my lips. I have had much better and some that were far worse.
Recommended:
No
