Grooming Dept

Hi all, sorry for not replying to individual posts. All orders have been packed. I'm taking everything to USPS-SFO in few hours. USPS won't show acceptance status updates until after 10:00PM-PST.

Thank you Mohammad! Can we start bugging you to get a release date for the upcoming roll please?

Seems like frenchy just doesn't understand the fact that "it's just soap" is beside the point. The oft repeated refrain by the fanboys of "but it's just shaving soap" when any kind of complaint arises means nothing. It's not even about the soap or the fact that "you'll get it eventually". It's the principle of the thing and how to correctly run a business. Over-promising and under-delivering is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Receiving an item you ordered 2 weeks to even a month after ordering is just a bad look. Mohammed knows this. So stop trying to act like it's not a valid complaint because it is. If you don't mind then great. Other people take issue with it and it makes sense. It's not hating or creating drama.
Also, the "one man show" argument does not hold water either. Most soap artisans in this hobby do everything themselves and don't have anywhere near the amount of inventory/shipping issues we see here. My suggestion to Mohammed would be to STOP putting release dates out there and promising things he can't deliver on. Just make the products and put them on the website when they're available and most if not all of these expectation issues could be solved.

First things first, I love Grooming Dept. and I don't envy Mo trying to take on something alone that has the following like his products do. I want to call out that Mo is truly talented at what he does and that should be celebrated! I am also someone that feels that stressing over waiting an extra week or two for a soap isnt good for anyone's health. People pay money to just be added to a waiting list for some brushes and razors and sit there for months if not years, so waiting for any handcrafted product can be impacted by a ton of different factors. Let's be honest, a ton of us have dozens of soaps or have had dozens of soaps in our possession. You are chasing a product and you want to see if you have found that end all be all product that will have you satisfied for life. The honeymoon phase ends and no matter how much you love that soap, you are looking at the site for the next one to try. Hell, I think the anticipation of waiting for a product and having that delivery to look forward to is what people love, even more than if the product lives up to expectations or not.

With that said, I think the business practices lead to unneeded frustration. I don't care what the product is, people are bound to be frustrated if they pay for something and don't have a clear understanding of when to expect it. When you go to a fast food drive thru and pay just to find out that you need to go park and wait for it when you are used to immediate return in that circumstance, you start to process that negatively whether you want to admit it or not. It's human nature in today's climate. I don't care if it's justified or not, you stare at that door waiting for someone to walk that food out to you. Other places make you wait and you don't care, but in this case you don't enjoy it because it differs from the expectations that business has set with you. If you were asked to rate your experience even when that burger was fantastic, you factor in that difference in experience. People love online shopping from big retailers and people love B&M shopping when you can walk out with the product right then. If you are a smaller company with other capabilities and expectations, just standardize that. If you don't have the product ready to ship, sell preorders and do what Mike does, publish what order dates you are fulfilling at the moment and give a real, honest ETA. If you have the product ready to ship, sell outright. I don't care if it's a pencil or a car, structure your shop based on capacity and availability. You will never have to go through this, if you do. It's clear for everyone who you are and what you can do. No one is going to knock you if you just align expectations to reality. I don't think for a second that Mo is doing one thing shady or misleading, it's just about managing capabailities and that is a different side of running a business that the craftsman of the shop can struggle with.

I’m just going to leave this right here and say this drawer doesn’t include all of the back up GD soaps that I have and the open slot on the left row is where my Before the Fire goes that I used today and is now drying out before I put it back. There will be 2 new spots made for the 2 new soaps that will be on the way this week along with 2 new spots on my back up shelf for the backups that I ordered. Happy Shaving and I truly appreciate Mo’s talent!!


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I’m just going to leave this right here and say this drawer doesn’t include all of the back up GD soaps that I have and the open slot on the left row is where my Before the Fire goes that I used today and is now drying out before I put it back.  There will be 2 new spots made for the 2 new soaps that will be on the way this week along with 2 new spots on my back up shelf for the backups that I ordered.  Happy Shaving and I truly appreciate Mo’s talent!!


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WOW!!

Seems like frenchy just doesn't understand the fact that "it's just soap" is beside the point. The oft repeated refrain by the fanboys of "but it's just shaving soap" when any kind of complaint arises means nothing. It's not even about the soap or the fact that "you'll get it eventually". It's the principle of the thing and how to correctly run a business. Over-promising and under-delivering is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Receiving an item you ordered 2 weeks to even a month after ordering is just a bad look. Mohammed knows this. So stop trying to act like it's not a valid complaint because it is. If you don't mind then great. Other people take issue with it and it makes sense. It's not hating or creating drama.
Also, the "one man show" argument does not hold water either. Most soap artisans in this hobby do everything themselves and don't have anywhere near the amount of inventory/shipping issues we see here. My suggestion to Mohammed would be to STOP putting release dates out there and promising things he can't deliver on. Just make the products and put them on the website when they're available and most if not all of these expectation issues could be solved.

This is how you’re spending New Years Eve? Writing this tome....about a tub of soap? LMAO!!

Seems like frenchy just doesn't understand the fact that "it's just soap" is beside the point. The oft repeated refrain by the fanboys of "but it's just shaving soap" when any kind of complaint arises means nothing. It's not even about the soap or the fact that "you'll get it eventually". It's the principle of the thing and how to correctly run a business. Over-promising and under-delivering is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Receiving an item you ordered 2 weeks to even a month after ordering is just a bad look. Mohammed knows this. So stop trying to act like it's not a valid complaint because it is. If you don't mind then great. Other people take issue with it and it makes sense. It's not hating or creating drama.
Also, the "one man show" argument does not hold water either. Most soap artisans in this hobby do everything themselves and don't have anywhere near the amount of inventory/shipping issues we see here. My suggestion to Mohammed would be to STOP putting release dates out there and promising things he can't deliver on. Just make the products and put them on the website when they're available and most if not all of these expectation issues could be solved.

This is how you’re spending New Years Eve? Writing this tome....about a tub of soap? LMAO!!

Quit with the trolling already. If you think it helps Mo to keep deriding the feedback he gets, you are mistaken.

gentlemen, relax...I have much better things to do with my time than deleting posts about shaving soap.

if we can't play nice, I'll start locking threads and issuing temporary bans.

Agree. Thank you Andrew

And a Hearty and Happy New Year to all!

I’m just going to leave this right here and say this drawer doesn’t include all of the back up GD soaps that I have and the open slot on the left row is where my Before the Fire goes that I used today and is now drying out before I put it back. There will be 2 new spots made for the 2 new soaps that will be on the way this week along with 2 new spots on my back up shelf for the backups that I ordered. Happy Shaving and I truly appreciate Mo’s talent!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How the hell are you getting that column on the left to float up in the air like that? lol