KIDBOX: Summer 'Bonus' Box review
Overall: 6 out of 20. Not the best box as I will get into. Kept a few items, the rest returned. Because of this I am going to drop the overall score of the regular KIDBOX subscription from 17/20 to 14/20.
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I've actually ordered quite a few boxes from kidbox since my last reviews (two baby boxes and a limited edition) but this is the first "Regular" box I've ordered since the New Year's box. Well, sort of regular. This was billed as a special "bonus" box that would have two extra products beyond the normal 6-7 invoice items. As I've talked about in past reviews, invoice items can sometimes be sets, so my boxes have actually ranged from 6-11 individual pieces while all being 6-7 invoice items.
My latest box was for my nephew. Unlike past boxes, I did not email a list of specific notes to help@kidbox.com but let my style quiz notes suffice. This probably came into play with the box being such a miss, but it can't be entirely to blame since half my notes were blatantly ignored.
The promotion: 5/20
But first things first, the promo! I was curious as to whether this would be a *real* two extra items or a marketing trick. The baseline value of a KIDBOX is always at least twice over the $98 whole box feel, but it can be more, so one always gets at least 50% off but can get more. My regular boxes have varied in value from $198 to $263, but the $98 fee to keep the box is always the same.
[Minus $25 off you can get off your first box if you go through a referral like this. It is risk free to try - if you hate the box you just mark you are returning it all, package it up with a free return label, and drop it off at UPS, so if you are curious you can use mine: http://refer.kidbox.com/k-Azg]
So getting the box, I consider a "real" promo to be one that includes at least two items, no matter how low in value, beyond the $196 value minimum and 6-7 minimum items.
Well, imagine my surprise when I get an invoice that lists not 8-9, but 10 items! And imagine my surprise when the total retail value of all those items is merely $205. So right off the bat, it was clear this wasn't meant to be a real promo in terms of value. It was just meant to make people think they were getting a better deal, whereas in reality they were just getting more lower value individual items.
But that wasn't the weirdest. My invoice decided to actually mark which items were the "bonus" items, and of course they labeled the highest priced items as the 'bonuses' rather than the low-cost accessories. So there was $50 in 'bonus' items, according to them.
But $204-$50 is $154. And $98 is not at least 50% off from $154, it's only about a third off. So the non-bonus items did not fit their usual pattern of half off or more.
I would have been better off getting the normal box.
The Styling: 5/20
Yikes. I just need to rant a bit. This box, for the most part, did not follow the style quiz. For one, during the style quiz you get about 20 outfits to look over and mark what you like. Boxes usually contain some pieces from these likes, even a couple outfits sometime, in addition to other selections they make. I was really excited because there were a lot of great outfits in the boy's picks this time, a good variety of styles and types. My nephew picked which ones he liked best from pictures I sent.
When the box came? Not a single piece from that Style Quiz. Not much comparable in look, either. I did, however, get a lot of pieces from the Kid Box "build your own box" section. [This is a relatively new thing. Instead of the sub, you can just 'build' a box for $98 by picking 5 outfits of your own choosing. There's a cheaper 3 outfit box, too. Sounds great - except the options are nowhere near as nice overall as the style quiz.] The 'build a box' boys stuff was mostly short and tee sets.
But the only reason to get a box 'styled' now is for the better selection from the style quiz and other inventory. It doesn't make sense to include several items from the [in my view inferior] build-a-box selections when I could have just picked them out myself.
Now, my style quiz notes were simple, mostly a list of things he liked, but I emphasized two points:
No sayings/phrases
Wanted some cool weather (layers or longer sleeves or pants, the style quiz showed several options) in the mix
3 of the items had sayings.
None of the items had pants or long sleeves. [Though one pair of shorts was thicker and fleece lined.] No layering items.
That all said, I did find a few pieces in the box to keep. Kidbox is a no-risk box, so in that regard it gets a 20/20! It's also very flexible if you only want to keep one or two items.
In the end, I kept the warm Brooklyn Cloth shorts, a slick PUMA gray shirt, and a great pair of Bling2Go green/blue goggles. It all made a great birthday gift (he really didn't need a whole box of clothes) and he loved how comfortable and cool the outfit was. The goggles were a huge hit. The Kidbox price for the items I kept totaled $34, about $10.50 off the retail price. The downside of not keeping everything in a box is that the discount is less, averaging somewhere between 20-30%, whereas the discount for keeping a whole box is generally 50% or more off.
I didn't get pictures of everything, but will try to remember to update this with some pictures!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've actually ordered quite a few boxes from kidbox since my last reviews (two baby boxes and a limited edition) but this is the first "Regular" box I've ordered since the New Year's box. Well, sort of regular. This was billed as a special "bonus" box that would have two extra products beyond the normal 6-7 invoice items. As I've talked about in past reviews, invoice items can sometimes be sets, so my boxes have actually ranged from 6-11 individual pieces while all being 6-7 invoice items.
My latest box was for my nephew. Unlike past boxes, I did not email a list of specific notes to help@kidbox.com but let my style quiz notes suffice. This probably came into play with the box being such a miss, but it can't be entirely to blame since half my notes were blatantly ignored.
The promotion: 5/20
But first things first, the promo! I was curious as to whether this would be a *real* two extra items or a marketing trick. The baseline value of a KIDBOX is always at least twice over the $98 whole box feel, but it can be more, so one always gets at least 50% off but can get more. My regular boxes have varied in value from $198 to $263, but the $98 fee to keep the box is always the same.
[Minus $25 off you can get off your first box if you go through a referral like this. It is risk free to try - if you hate the box you just mark you are returning it all, package it up with a free return label, and drop it off at UPS, so if you are curious you can use mine: http://refer.kidbox.com/k-Azg]
So getting the box, I consider a "real" promo to be one that includes at least two items, no matter how low in value, beyond the $196 value minimum and 6-7 minimum items.
Well, imagine my surprise when I get an invoice that lists not 8-9, but 10 items! And imagine my surprise when the total retail value of all those items is merely $205. So right off the bat, it was clear this wasn't meant to be a real promo in terms of value. It was just meant to make people think they were getting a better deal, whereas in reality they were just getting more lower value individual items.
But that wasn't the weirdest. My invoice decided to actually mark which items were the "bonus" items, and of course they labeled the highest priced items as the 'bonuses' rather than the low-cost accessories. So there was $50 in 'bonus' items, according to them.
But $204-$50 is $154. And $98 is not at least 50% off from $154, it's only about a third off. So the non-bonus items did not fit their usual pattern of half off or more.
I would have been better off getting the normal box.
The Styling: 5/20
Yikes. I just need to rant a bit. This box, for the most part, did not follow the style quiz. For one, during the style quiz you get about 20 outfits to look over and mark what you like. Boxes usually contain some pieces from these likes, even a couple outfits sometime, in addition to other selections they make. I was really excited because there were a lot of great outfits in the boy's picks this time, a good variety of styles and types. My nephew picked which ones he liked best from pictures I sent.
When the box came? Not a single piece from that Style Quiz. Not much comparable in look, either. I did, however, get a lot of pieces from the Kid Box "build your own box" section. [This is a relatively new thing. Instead of the sub, you can just 'build' a box for $98 by picking 5 outfits of your own choosing. There's a cheaper 3 outfit box, too. Sounds great - except the options are nowhere near as nice overall as the style quiz.] The 'build a box' boys stuff was mostly short and tee sets.
But the only reason to get a box 'styled' now is for the better selection from the style quiz and other inventory. It doesn't make sense to include several items from the [in my view inferior] build-a-box selections when I could have just picked them out myself.
Now, my style quiz notes were simple, mostly a list of things he liked, but I emphasized two points:
No sayings/phrases
Wanted some cool weather (layers or longer sleeves or pants, the style quiz showed several options) in the mix
3 of the items had sayings.
None of the items had pants or long sleeves. [Though one pair of shorts was thicker and fleece lined.] No layering items.
That all said, I did find a few pieces in the box to keep. Kidbox is a no-risk box, so in that regard it gets a 20/20! It's also very flexible if you only want to keep one or two items.
In the end, I kept the warm Brooklyn Cloth shorts, a slick PUMA gray shirt, and a great pair of Bling2Go green/blue goggles. It all made a great birthday gift (he really didn't need a whole box of clothes) and he loved how comfortable and cool the outfit was. The goggles were a huge hit. The Kidbox price for the items I kept totaled $34, about $10.50 off the retail price. The downside of not keeping everything in a box is that the discount is less, averaging somewhere between 20-30%, whereas the discount for keeping a whole box is generally 50% or more off.
I didn't get pictures of everything, but will try to remember to update this with some pictures!
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