I’m not the type of person that is up to date with all of the trends but I am way behind the curve on this one. CROCS! Yes, the ugly shoes that everyone was wearing starting about 10 years ago. This trend (and many others) just flew by me. Until now.
A few weeks ago I read that Crocs was going under. Many once popular businesses are now facing hard times and Crocs is apparently one of them. As a matter of fact I was recently receiving a “3 hour tour” from one of my local wholesalers who manufactures a Crocs-style line of shoes and I remember saying to my sales representative “These aren’t going anywhere. They’re still really popular with the kids who add the Jibbitz-like decorations to them.” The sales lady agreed and said “That’s what our buyer thought too so they’re still in our current sales line.” Maybe we were both wrong. Or maybe not.
When I posted the Crocs going-out-of-business story on my Facebook page a few of my friends couldn’t believe that I’d never tried them and recommended them highly. I’ve always had hard-to-please feet compounded by a dozen years of dance lessons, jobs that required walking on concrete floors, and too many years of Payless Shoes, so the idea of comfortable shoes that came highly recommended sounded like something worth investigating. When I received an email from Crocs.com inviting me to take a look at their Buy One Pair Get One Free (BOGO) promotion it was pretty much a done deal. When I saw there was Free Shipping too I couldn’t place my order fast enough. $34.98 for two pairs of Crocs delivered to my door. Where’re you going to beat that price?
A week later I was wearing two of the most comfortable pairs of shoes that I have ever owned. Where was I when these were popular?? Probably caring too much about the way they looked. They really aren’t attractive one bit, but I can happily report that I have arrived at a stage in my life where I could give a fig about looks and apparently don’t care that they’ve fallen out of fashion either. My feet are lovin’ every second of these.
So I went back for more. My husband has bad ankles made worse by some years in the military and from, again, cheaply-made shoes. (Why do we do this ourselves to save money?) I wanted him to try the Crocs out and see what I was raving about so I ordered some more. He has some big dogs (Size 13) so it was hard to find a pair from the Buy One, Get One selections but I found a black pair in a similar style as my favorite pair. Gee, I just couldn’t find another pair in his size from the BOGO list so what was I forced to do? Buy another pair for myself, of course! Mary Janes, coming my way! $24.98 this time for two pairs with free shipping! It doesn’t get any better than this, or does it?
A week later, no Crocs. Not a long time has passed but I thought that I should check the order online. The order still showed as “Being Processed” and I noticed that the Size 13′s were “Out of Stock.” Ruh-roh. I thought that the order didn’t go through because they were out. I know that my Credit Card was charged because I used my PayPal account. Ruh-roh again because now I would have to call up and get some details. Was it going to be the headache call or the “Oh. OK. Never mind.” call because everything was in the works. My mind told me (the negative SOB that it is sometimes) that the company was going out of business so guess what, BIG headache, fight for a refund, blah, blah. I’ve been there before. Wrong again! The great deal just got better. The customer service person told me that the Mary Janes had been shipped a few days ago and that the Size 13′s were indeed out of stock. When I asked her about the charge for the BOGO I expected her to tell me that the charge still stands and that (best case scenario) I still could order the free pair. Nope. They had already REVERSED the charge AND sent me the free pair! Really? I didn’t quite know what to say and to be honest, I didn’t quite believe it. Sure enough, after I got off the phone I checked my PayPal account and saw the reversal of the entire amount on the date that the Crocs rep said. Should I even doubt at this point that my FREE shoes are coming? Surprisingly, I don’t.
WOW! As a business owner, I am completely blown away that a struggling and possibly soon to be defunct business just sent me a Free pair of shoes because of a mistake that they made. Have I done the same thing in my own business. Yes. But a lot of my experiences with “the big guys” has jaded me to what they are willing to do for their customers. A quick trip to the Crocs website shows that they just launched a new Fall product line and are not quite as bad off as previously written. I can see why.
How does your business honor your mistakes? How do you expect other businesses to handle errors? I’d love to hear your answers. In the meantime I’m going back to www.crocs.com to get my husband a pair now that I have three!
UPDATE - I got the free pair today. Just in time for tonight’s auction where I’ll be standing for about 2 hours and probably lugging some boxes. These are the Mary Janes and they’re way cuter - I guess that’s still kind of important to me 
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