An International Retailer Struggles to Satisfy a Customer in the United States

Background

The following testimonial is from a customer who made a purchase from British retailer JoJo Maman Bébé, which specializes in maternity clothing, baby wear, and nursery products. JoJo was founded in 1993. Then in 2017, the retailer launched a new U.S. company and began rolling out additional stores in the UK and Ireland. In 2018 it opened a few stores on the East Coast—in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (Farrell, 2017; Hall 2018).

Emily: A Customer Testimonial

"In October of 2017, I received a catalog for a company called 'JoJo Maman Bébé,' a British clothing company for mothers and babies. We had a four-month old baby and therefore, had started to receive lots of infant and baby catalogs. JoJo really caught my eye—because it was located in England. I had purchased clothes for myself multiple times at a similar British company, Boden, because their clothing is of high quality and has fun patterns and colors. Glancing at the catalog for JoJo, it seemed very similar to Boden.

Now that we had a new baby, I was hoping to buy some special outfits for the upcoming holidays. So, I decided to purchase a few outfits, winter hat, and quilted sack for transporting the baby in his car seat. It is always hard to know with babies what size will fit them—and so moms end up guessing—and are often wrong. So, I ordered the same outfit in two sizes, thinking I would return what didn’t fit. The clothes weren’t cheap—each outfit ran about $40, which is a lot for an infant, but I hoped the quality would be similar to what I experienced with Boden.

My first issue with the purchase was the shipping—each item shipped separately, and all told, it took about 3 weeks for me to receive 4 separate packages. THREE WEEKS—are you kidding me? I get my Amazon Prime in 2 days.

As it turned out, the items were adorable—and very high quality. But the sizing was totally off—one size was too small, another much too large. I needed to return two of the four items but the website had no return instructions—just "call us for returns."

I tried calling, but the recorded message said that their headquarters were located in England, and customer service reps could assist between 3am-5pm EST M-F. Time change issue completely overlapped with my workday schedule (as a physician at Yale Medical Center in Connecticut). As you can imagine, I don't have much free time. When I was eventually able to sneak away from work to call customer service, I was told they would send me a return label to adhere to the package. Then, I must mail back the package for a refund.

One month later, I still hadn’t received a refund. I called again (which again, took a significant effort since their customer service office operated on UK time). I was told it was in process, and they should be able to refund me in the next few days. A week later, the refund processed.

All in all—I will never shop at this retailer again. Their clothing is adorable but not worth the hassle. They have significant issues with distribution and all of their major customer touchpoints. It took far too long to receive the products in the first place and they were sent in four different boxes at four different times. The lack of information on their website on "how" to return items was not acceptable. Their refund repayment process was far too long. Meanwhile, JoJo had already charged by credit card and had my money. Even though they were selling to the US market, it seems that everything was conducted through their headquarters in England. Maybe now that they have stores open in the USA it will be different. But, I am not hopeful. I am choosing to go back to their UK competitor, Boden—who now carries an infant and children’s clothing line—and has none of these problem. Boden seems to have figured out how to expand internationally and successfully market to us in the USA.