Free Box Offer from Time of the Month Subscription PMS.com

Not to bring a dead thread to life but I read the comments and can feel the pain of both sides. I too started a subscription business with my wife with feminine hygiene at its core. We listened to feed back as painful as it was and developed a box that we think most women love. Customer comments can be painful to a startup but those who succeed listen and improve.

We send a box with Tampons or pads (in their original boxes, loose items are not hygienic), a candy treat (chocolate in colder months hard candy and cookies in warmer months) jewelry ( cute rings, necklaces, earring, etc..) and full sized name brand makeup (brands we’ve sent, cargo, cover girl, Essie, revlon and more). We are still improving and learning. And we provide what we feel is a box worth $40-$60 for only $16.

Erin,

I was entering my credit card info to try your service out when I read your reply including these gems: “Yes there are certainly a few gals on here drinking some serious Haterade. Jeeeeez! … Oh well, guess there will always be Mean Girls no matter where you are. Holy high school. ….The shouty cranky comments with no suggestions on how to maybe improve PMS.com there is no point in responding to…Haters gonna hate!”

I’ve now decided I don’t want anything to do with your service. Your response was neither gracious nor professional. I’m all for showing your personality and actually being a real person behind a brand, but I’m also for being polite and accepting that some people just aren’t going to like what you’re doing. Responding with childish remarks is only putting even more potential customers off. I’m capable of reading people’s thoughts and then coming to my own decision – I’m not sure why you feel the need to ‘fire back’ at people who don’t like the service. You responded in a passive-aggressive way and even said “there is no point in responding”, yet put it out there publicly anyway. Blowing steam about ‘haters’ on a public forum is just impolite, regardless of who started it or what was said.

Two words: Bondi NY. Look them up. They were a subscription service that had a couple missteps and then basically crashed and burned when the owner started publicly responding to upset customers with unnecessary attitude. The subscription portion of their business no longer exists and they are a pariah on at least one very popular Makeup/Subscription Box forum. There’s a lesson to be learned there.

I find this subscription pretty disappointing. I like that they offer your first month free but there is a lot of room for improvement. I use a variety of tampon absorbencies and this only gives you regular. I don’t use feminine wipes at all and ibuprofen doesn’t do anything for me (only naproxen works for me). Like other people said I agree that I would only subscribe to a service like this if they offered a special bonus item (make up, skin care sample, chocolate, candy) with the box. The subscription isn’t really “special” if it’s just tampons, wipes, and ibuprofen. I subscribe to boxes mostly for a nice surprise every month and I don’t see that in this subscription unfortunately.

I would never order this and I won’t be signing up for the free box either. I have a feeling this company knows their longevity in this market will be short-lived but if you forget to cancel your subscription in time, they get to bill you $15 for 50 cents worth of product. Even if this happens to 500 people , this is still a nice little profit. Especially considering you know they don’t owe a web-designer any money… Be wary, ladies, this box is stinky! (Ooooo, I’m so racy too!)

Aren’t those Help me! tablets the ones you get from Walgreens? I wondered if pms.com is partnered with them? I can’t find any info on the site about it.
http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/help-i-have-an-aching-body-ibuprofen-tablets/ID=prod6073119-product

Some of the owner’s comments here I have found to be unprofessional and immature. I can’t envision other subscription box’s owners responding to criticism about their product in this way, calling potential customers haters and criticizing their feedback.

You are not just calling them haters but anyone that reads it and may not like one aspect of your product but was willing to give it a try, you may have alienated more of your customer base. You may not like what they had to say about your product but not everyone has to like it and last time I checked I was not taking a survey for you and your site. We are not here to give you constructive criticism, it’s great if someone does but there’s nothing wrong with someone simply stating the reasons they don’t like it. It’s not our job to tell you how to improve your product.

I have become interested in Time of the Month subscription boxes but this one is disappointing First of all, it doesn’t sound like you can choose what products you want. I don’t use tampons. Also, other time of the month boxes send more than just tampons, wipes and pain meds. A lot of boxes offer snacks, chocolate and even bath and body products. I just think there are better options out there than this one. Oh well, hopefully another place will be offering a free box in the near future.

Even for a free box, I’m afraid to give my CC number. It’s not imitation; it’s pure forgery. It even has the random little quotes and stuff. Ugh. Weird. Too much like POPSugar that it makes me uncomfortable. I’m a web designer and I don’t appreciate when people rip off my designs. The site has 0% creativity, and with the ripped off design, it has no credibility.

Interesting idea, but for now it doesn’t meet my needs. I don’t like only getting tampons, I only need about 6 Advils total for cramps each time (plus I’m not seeing what the active ingredient is for the pills), and I’m one of those unlucky women whose cycle is shorter than average so the time I would need supplies would change from month to month.

Plus I go to Target every week so I can pick stuff up locally without needing to wait for it to come in the mail. (Some of my subscription boxes have been held up for a week or more going through FedEx SmartPost, or DHL like Ipsy does, especially in bad weather. Don’t want to chance going without something that’s absolutely necessary to have because the mail was late.)

If they was to send out pads, chocolate, and maybe an extra item I would give this a try.

I’m signing up to try it for my blog since it is a free thing, but I’m pretty sure I could get all this stuff at Rite Aid for less than $10.

I am looking for a great time-of-the-month subscription for my daughter so am excited about trying this one out. And, I love the red packaging.

There is a reason women’s health products aren’t marketed in red. Look at all the boxes on the feminine health aisle. Nothing red. It’s not a good association with your period.

There is another service like this one that has been out for a while. http://leparcel.com/ I like them because they send you chocolate as well but it’s not enough chocolate for me! 🙂 Still the idea is great though. With Le Parcel, you decide what you want to receive in your monthly box, which IS better than ordering a monthly subscription from Amazon because you save on not having to buy a box of tampons, liners, etc. They send it all to you for $15/mo

Thanks for the review Liz! I started PMS.com on a shoestring budget so I couldn’t afford to hire a fancy designer…PopSugar’s site was beautiful so we absolutely borrowed a similar look and feel for ours- you guys are totally right! Hopefully in this case imitation is the highest form of flattery 🙂 Popsugar ROCKS!

As for FB likes, we have been paying to get our posts in front of women who might want to connect with their fellow crampy and crazy, we haven’t been “buying” likes as Brandy suggests.

As for Jess and Brandy thinking we are “weird” 🙂 I am totally cool with that, and thank them for the compliment. I would rather be weird than boring or generic like the big corporate brands. My goal is to open up an authentic dialogue around women’s menstrual health (talking about PMS and periods shouldn’t be weird or gross-it’s natural 🙂 and hopefully make women’s lives a little easier in the process. We also donate 10% of all our net profits to a different dynamic women’s organization every month, which I don’t believe the other time-of-the-month subscriptions do…I could be wrong there though.

We have asked all of our customers what they would like us to do to become a better offering, and everyone has been echoing Erin that they would like to see custom options and also liners and pads- so we are working on that to make sure the PMS.com box is as perfect and fabulous as each of our amazing subscribers.

Thank you all for the valuable feedback. Thanks again Liz for reviewing us, and I hope you all have a kick ass Sunday!! xoxo – Erin ([email protected])

I saw this earlier today, and I agree it’s a total ripoff of the PSMH site. They also have nearly 16,000 facebook likes. It’s one of those things that makes me scratch my head and wonder if they’re so great, why do they need to buy likes and not bother with their own website development. The whole thing is on the weird side to me, not cute/funny/hip.

I’m sticking with Bonjour Jolie. Even though they’ve sent me horrific ribbon and rhinestone bobby pins twice (in a row), I still appreciate the care package feel each month. It actually makes my period seem ok. And that’s saying a lot for someone who has been getting periods now for 30+ years.

Now, if someone would just come up with a time of the month box that included wine…

That’s pretty pricey for only 15 tampons. And there’s no pad or liner option. I think other time of the month subs do it better for the same price and include extras like pampering bath and food products. Plus they include more total products (20-25, mixture of pads and tampons). Granted this includes what I’m guessing are diaper wipes and acetaminophen but for my $15 I’d go with a service that lets me customize. My daughter still loves her Bonjour Jolie, even though I dropped it after a delivery nightmare.