I’ve been a loyal Pandora customer (and gift-recipient) ever since the brand hit Philippine shores. So when I received the email invite for the so-called Members-only Private Sale on Dec 29th, I was ecstatic. Pandora has never had a sale – not once. I made a point to enter the 5-hour one-day only sale in my calendar and booked my husband’s time to drive me to the nearest branch at the Trinoma.
This was their email:
We are excited to announce a Private PANDORA Sale happening December 29th, 11AM to 4PM across all PANDORA branches. This sale is exclusive to all our valued members and grants you early access to various collections at reduced price points of up to 30% to 50% discount.
Since I saw this two-tone ring at a Dubai store, I had been searching for it in all our local stores and couldn’t find it in my size (5.5). I was hoping that I’d catch one this time and at 50% off.
We went at around noon thinking that there wouldn’t be any queue, but I was wrong. I didn’t realize there were so many members and the queue outside the store was already two rows long. I was giddy.
There were 4 salespeople assisting the customers and so they only let 4 in at a time. I thought that was understandable. I had never queued for a sale in my life but I expected the long wait.
IT WAS A VERY LONG WAIT. I went in the queue at 12noon and finally got in at past 4pm. Early in the afternoon, I had asked the nice lady guard to ask the manager (whom I couldn’t approach as she was also busily attending to customers) to limit the time for each customer so that we all get a chance to browse and buy. She did ask and was shot down. The manager wanted each customer to spend as much time as they wanted inside. Some took hours.
Deep breath. Okay, maybe the sale is that good. I won’t complain. Besides, I made friends in those 4 hours and they were all Pandora addicts. The lady next to me was a resident doctor of UDMC and had come straight from a 24-hour shift so who was I to complain?
When it was our turn to enter, they showed us just two cases of old charms, most of which were animal charms that no one really buys. I was dismayed. Where were the “various collections”? None of the rings were on sale. You had to spend Php 30k to get a Php 3k discount. It was so disappointing. Private Sale for members only. And then we found out that there was going to be a public sale for the same discounted price the very next day. So people can also be treated to the same ugly charms at 50% off. They had also announced the Private Sale on their Facebook page days before.
We then realized that the people at the store did not bother to check if the people coming in were members, even if their email invite specifically asked to show proof of membership.
I couldn’t leave with nothing after that more-than-4-hours ordeal so I bought a bracelet with blue motif charms at the regular price. What a sucker.
