Why customers choose to insta-boycott Fashion Nova
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Marketing, Spam, Fashion Nova, Sales, Advertising

What made Fashion Nova my target?

I’ve changed my phone number a few times over the years. I usually luck out and get a few wrong numbers before all the calls or text messages are for me. But Fashion Nova single-handedly has become the annoying visitor who won’t stop dropping by — for six straight months. However, the company does come in handy for one thing: Fashion Nova teaches marketing and sales teams how to not promote their products. Here’s how they’ve done it.

Don’t have an unsubscribe/opt-out feature on marketing text messages

If you receive promotional text messages from a company that you neither signed up for nor want to continue receiving, you should have the option of typing “no,” “opt-out,” “remove” or some other wording to immediately be removed. Notice that these Fashion Nova messages have none of the above. Although Fashion Nova’s Terms and Conditions do state to type “STOP” to 36682 or 31963, this company does not follow its own Terms and Conditions.

Ignore the Federal Trade Commission’s registration list

If you are like me and consistently register your phone number on the Federal Trade Commission’s DoNotCall.gov, you are not supposed to receive telemarketing calls. While that has been very successful for more than a decade, Fashion Nova is the only company I’ve encountered that completely ignores the registry. This is even after unwanted texts were filed with the FTC.

Lie to the Better Business Bureau about your sales promotion delivery techniques

After the FTC didn’t work, I hoped to get the attention of Fashion Nova’s headquarters by reporting them to the Better Business Bureau. In a handful of reports over the years, this has been significantly useful in moderating business debates.

Although Fashion Nova’s headquarters in Vernon, California, received my request to be removed — and I provided screenshots of daily text messages I receive from the company with promotions I did not ask for — I was informed twice that my phone number was removed. And then after the complaint was closed, I received text messages as recently as Sept. 22. This was several weeks after I received confirmation that my phone number was removed.

Make sure your online sales team does not know how to remove unwanted marketing text messages

While Fashion Nova will happily collect your email address and send survey emails about their service, the online sales team is untrained in removing phone numbers. As with entirely too many customer service email teams, the auto-reply had nothing to do with my original email. It took several back-and-forth responses before someone finally answered the question I asked about being removed.

Fashion Nova teaches marketing and sales teams how to not promote their products.

Use social media images that seem to be in conflict with your product

Victoria’s Secret has become pretty well-known for those angel wings. So a model wearing lingerie with wings to endorse another product is highly problematic, specifically when social media users know the competitor’s brand well.

Sex sells, and their models are doing it well. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to start using sexy images that are more likely to make users want to buy another brand. Then, upon clicking on the image near the social media post, that actual outfit doesn’t show up at all on page one.

Believe getting celebrity endorsements are the only thing you need to stay afloat

Adrienne Bailon (talk show host of “The Real”), rapper Cardi B., Kyla Pratt (Disney child star and adult actress), Amber Rose (former model and music video star), and a few Kardashians/Jenners have modeled the products. While this seems like it’d be a hit, it just brings more attention to your products from a larger audience. And if your customer service, advertising, and sales practices aren’t at the same level as the stars wearing your products, it makes your company that much more well-known — for all the wrong reasons.