Anybody had any kind of experience with this company/product? In fairness I should say that I am currently waiting for a response from them re some feedback I left a few days ago. I phoned again this morning and was told my email had been sent to the owner. I requested a return call by end of business today. Nothing so far. I intend to let you all know the outcome and my experience either way. This is the link to the product in question…
https://www.dynamasys.com/yourbaglady.com/pizza_bags/index.php
I just got them less than 2 months ago. Honestly I’d rather have my money back. Not sure if its just me and I’m not pushing them too hard but I’ve given away maybe 3 - 4. And they’re front and center for customers to see. I’m actually afraid they hold in the steam all too well.
The response…
I am going to post all my corespondance with mybaglady so you may decide for yourselves if this is a company you should deal with…
Hi, just wanted to give you some feedback…
We have been away on vacation for the last number of weeks so that is the reason for the delay.
Thankfully we told the staff to wait until our return before introducing the “bags”.
Firstly, upon inspection we were surprised to find that the bags did not have any form of mylar like
lining or dead air space? I know it does not say anything about that on the web page, however, it does claim “insulated”. It also says "160 deg ".
So, I decide to be the guinea pig. We cook a medium sized, medium topping load pizza. Put it in the box and straight into the bag, seal it with the adhesive strip and drive home. Car is warmed up with heater set at 70deg.
Remember, this came right from the oven to the bag. I timed it from that point. We waited until
13 minutes had passed thinking this would be an avg length of time before a customer actually opened the bag.
First sign of a problem was the top of the box was wet. Not damp, wet. My fingers actually tore the bottom of the box pulling it out it was that wet. I was faced with a wet soggy mess. To make matters worse the pizza was most assuredly not 160 deg. Luke warm at best.
As to the “re-usable” adhesive strip… after two or three opening/closings it has lost 85% of it’s adhesiveness.
In short I now have 400 bags that do NOT function remotely close to as advertised. I would dearly love to GIVE them to my competition but due to my name being on them can not.
Please contact me ASAP at 250-893-8853 to discuss a solution.
Followed up with…
Hi, I sent you an email on Sunday. It is now Tuesday. I called your 1-800 number this morning and was told you had received my message. I asked for a return call today. I have heard nothing.
I posted a very ambiguous question on PMQ.com this evening. Check the link below. Please note the responses. I am available on my cell 250-893-8853 from 8:00am PST tomorrow. I would really appreciate a call to discuss this.
Clive Brown
"
And now for the best part… The response
Dear Mr. Brown:
Please excuse the delay in getting back to you. As the marketing manager for Your Bag Lady, I needed to digest your email letter and respond to you in a manner that addresses what I consider the facts of the situation.
You document in detail a subjective test of one of our insulated bags out of the 400 bags that we shipped you, foil stamped with your name and phone number on it. I am answering you also by email so that we both have a written understanding of each others point of view. By the way, I see where you have posted a criticism of our company before receivng our answer.
The facts are: an independent testing laboratory with heat sensing istrumets attested to the fact that a 16" or 18" pizza put into the insulated ag and sealed, it remained hot at 160 degrees after 1/2 hour. The pizza was not crisp ut that is not an attribute that we advertisied. People would much prefer a hot pizza over a cold crisp pizza.
I believe that you had an initial expectation, not expressed in your letter, that you would be able to sell all or most of the bags. Over 10 days elapsed between your receipt of the bags by FedEx and your email letter to us, to have not offered these bags to your customers for sale and found out unfortunately, that because of the economic climate, they are not selling. Hence your interdiction that you took a few weeks vacation before you tested out our bags, and we question why you would ‘be a guneau pig’ in the first place.
Our advertising offers the option to sell them also use them in promotions. Almost all of our customers are now using the bags in promotions to get more take-out customers and increase unit sales. That is, they give the bags away free after a certain number of purchases.
I suggest that you do the same and allow your customers to do the judging rather than prejudge the quality of our bags and the material that you think should be used to create an insulated barrier. My guess is that you have less expertise and experience in moisture barrier protective materials than the professionsals in our manufacturing and testing plants.
Unfortunately your expectation of sales did not live up to the reality of the situation.
I believe that you created a self-serving experiment to prove that our bags will not do the job intended, and you ask us to take your word as to the outcome of the experiment on one bag. If you expect us to pick up the bags and issue you a credit on them, this will not happen. You have the choice to change your reality by by using the bags, and as I said, allow your customers to get the benefit of them by keeping their pizzas hot, their car seat clean, ad be able to have your name and phone number in front of them when they need to order your great pizzas.
We have sold close to 20,000 of our bags to independent and franchised za chains and have not received one single complain on any of the issues you addressed. If there is the possibility that one bag in 400 is defective, we would be happy to refund you $1.95.
I offer you the opportunity to rethink your strategy so that there is a win-win situation here and that you will reorder the bags when you need to.
Very truly yours,
Zal Puchkoff
Marketing Manager
Your Bag Lady
And finally my response…
Firstly I did not post any criticism of your product or company. If you were to actually read my post on PMQ.com you would note I merely stated that I was awaiting a response to some feedback I had sent you. I made mention of the delayed response and asked if anybody else had had any experience with your company. I made ZERO mention of whether that feedback was positive or negative.
This was responded to by another customer of yours from Illinois, that I had had zero contact with prior to that posting. Funny thing is he volunteered the same problem without any “coaching”. You should be aware that he has now removed them from display after selling two in three weeks and having the same issues as myself.
Secondly, I find the tone of your letter speaks volumes re your companies outlook towards customer satisfaction. To suggest that any customer wants a soggy pizza does not even deserve a response.
Thirdly, re your incorrect assumption that I intended to sell the bags… I had in fact intended to give them out as part of my ongoing promotion to increase the pick-up side of my business.
Why would you assume that I wanted all my money back? Did I even suggest that? Did I anywhere suggest you “pick the bags up”? Maybe, just maybe, I was looking to have an open discussion with yourself re my problem and hopefully come to a mutual agreement we could both live with. That being the case, my next posting to pizza forums would have had a very different tone than what I am now intending to post. (Copies of all our correspondence)
The balance of your letter about “changing my reality”, insinuating I tried to sell the bags,failed and made up a story about being out of the country is so outlandish that I can not even comment.
So be it. You have made your position very clear.
I shall now go out of my way to spread my letter of complaint and your reply. I sincerely hope this is the outcome you were looking for and you are in no way feeling just a little? recalcitrant re your reply/letter of rebuke to myself?
One last thing, you may wish to explore the wonder of spell-check before sending out any further business correspondence. It tends to improve a customers impression of the author/company.
Clive Brown.
I hope that this posting has the effect that mybaglady was looking for?
Re: The response…
I attest to everything boatnut is saying…
And I’m not going to be so nice. THESE BAGS BLOW!!!
I suggest you open a brand new pizza place, spend 100’s of thousands of dollars on build up only to find out that you have barely any money left for marketing, then make the mistake and waste your money on these bags, and then tell me that you’re satisfied with these bags. My guess is that you have LESS expertise and experience in having a carryout pizzeria than the owners of their pizzerias. When you did you stupid little testing in your “PLANTS”, that was a controlled environment WITH ZERO AFFECTS OF THE WEATHER. I don’t know where you’re from but when the weather is COLD outside, these bags bring nothing home but soaking wet, limp boxes that contain super soggy pizzas. WHAT THE POINT OF HAVING NICE EXPENSIVE BRICK OVEN IF CUSTOMERS ARE GOING TO BRING HOME A SOGGY PIZZA? OR… WHAT THE THE POINT OF SPENDING 1,000’S OF DOLLARS ON NICE CUSTOM DESIGNED PIZZA BOXES IF THE BOX IS GONNA BE MUSHY WET? Theres this thing in the restaurant business, ITS CALLED “PRESENTATION”. Apparently you know NOTHING of it.
Re: Further response…
Response from mybaglady…
“After reading your letter, I guess I jumped on you. I apologize. Too many customers bought the bags with the expectation of selling htem and when they find that the economy does not support buying the bags by customers, they complain and then wish to return the bags. We’re sensitive to that.”
I typed too fast and that’s why there were many typos.
If you do give out the bags and you find that any customers complain about any of the problems you raise, we’ll refund double the price of the bag! We do get testimonials that the take-out bags help their business and we hope that it does the same for you.
Again, you’re a gentleman and I apologize.
I look forward to continuing our dialogue.
Zal Puchkoff
Marketing Manager
Your Bag Lady"
My response…
"
Maybe I did not make myself clear. I have zero intention of putting my high quality product in any form of packaging that I know degrades it. If you were to instead offer a mutually acceptable solution I would be all ears. "
Re: Further response…
Amazing response from the company! I am speechless that they would… well… wow. Just wow. :shock:
Re: Further response…
How do I get a refund too? lol
We all take chances every time we try a new product or a new advertising idea. Some work great, some work, and some turn out to be a waste of money. The important thing is to keep trying new ideas. The second important thing is to let others know about these kinds of experiences to keep us from wasting our money. So Thank you to the O P for keeping us from geting screwed by these people, and Shame on you bag lady for selling junk and giving lousy customer service!
And to ask for a sample of marketing materials before making a large commitment.
Clive did you pay by credit card?..If so, is your credit card company involved?..
Were there any unexpected “brokerage” charges when your package arrived?..
I’ve got to say, and I doubt that you’ll like me for this, but why on earth did you spend nearly $800 on a product that a) you had not actualy seen and b) you had not tested???
I wouldn’t spend $50 on something that I hadn’t seen, or didn’t know someone who had use them let alone $800!
To coin one a well known phrase - fools tax!
Yeah good thing I only bought 250…
I started a thread about this product but I didn’t get any responses so I took the chance and got burned. You live and you learn.
why didn’t you ring them and ask for a sample? Just think what you could have bought with that $500?
Yes Royster, paid by credit card. Yes I am going there.
Yes I should have asked for a sample.
Yes maybe a bit more research was in order.
Got taken in by the ad I guess.
That all said, when I buy a product based on a set of advertised performance traits/expected use I expect it to perform
the job it was intended for. In Canada the Sale of Goods Act states that a purchased product must perform the job it was intended for. This is all I expected.
The rebuke from the vendor was the factor that put me over the edge.
I think we should all be grateful when someone posts something like this instead of knocking his judgement. I was going to buy bunch of these for my shop despite my current advice to always get a sample. It looked like a good idea to me too.
Charles
I’m not trying to know his judgement rather to shoiw the situation for what it is - hopefully others will learn from this. Steveo who also made the same judegment call of purchasing before he saw seems to have learnt and has asked about car toppers before he invests more money.
My advice is to also know what it is you are buying before you buy it so I’m sharing my advice with people in the way he is sharing his unfortunately position.
Wiz
Re: The response…
+1
I had a hard time giving them away. They were horrible, a total waste.
My comment was not directed at you. It was more of a followup to my advice of asking for a sample before committing to a large order. Although I meant it as advice to others, when I read it later, it seemed that I was knocking his judgment. And in all honesty, I had considered the bags myself and would not have asked for a sample until after reading this thread.
not a problem.