The Code You Couldn't Use Yourself

Back in March we ran something instead of a sale, and we said at the time that we would report back once the numbers had settled and the money had actually moved. That took longer than it should have. Here it is.

The idea was simple enough that it nearly didn't survive its own planning meeting. Every order placed over International Women's Day weekend arrived with two things in the box. The bottle, and a code the buyer could not use herself. One code, one use, and no way to spend it on her own order. Give it to whoever you want.

That was the whole campaign. No hashtag, no pink banner, no countdown timer. A discount you could only spend on somebody else.

What happened

We opened it on the Friday and closed it on the Monday night, and it turned into the busiest weekend we have had.

• 63% of the orders came from people who had never bought from us before.
• 38% of the pass-on codes were redeemed by someone other than the woman who earned them.
• One in seven of those redemptions came from a different country than the original buyer.

That last one is what we keep going back to. We had assumed the whole thing would move between flatmates and sisters, across a kitchen or a group chat. A good share of it moved between time zones instead.

What people wrote in the box

When you claimed your code there was an optional field: who are you giving it to? We expected it to sit empty. Most people filled it in.

"My mum. She has never once bought anything for herself and I have stopped trying to argue with her about it."

"My little sister. She starts university in September and she is quietly terrified, so I am sending her small nice things until then."

"The woman who runs the salon under my flat. She kept it open through everything and nobody ever sends her anything."

"Honestly? Me, in three months, when I have run out. Is that allowed."

It was not allowed. We let it through anyway.

What we got wrong

The codes ran for 14 days and that was too short. The other 62% expired unused, and from the emails afterwards, most of those were not women who had decided against it. They were women who had someone in mind, meant to send it that evening, and lost it somewhere in the week. That is a lot of intended gifts to lose to an expiry date we picked out of the air.

Next time the code lasts as long as the bottle does.

Why we would do it again

A discount aimed at you is a transaction. A discount you can only hand to somebody else turns out to be a different object entirely. People treated it like a small piece of currency they had been handed specifically to be generous with, and then went and found somebody to be generous at.

That is the only sense in which we think selling something can bring anyone together, and it is a narrow one. Not the banner and not the caption. Just a bottle that lets you set your own dose, and one small thing in the box that is no use to you at all unless you give it away.

See you in March.