Why You Can’t Find New Drugstore Makeup at the Drugstore
The well has dried up in the drugstore makeup world. Several month ago I wrote a post about how Harmons never has the latest and greatest seasonal and limited edition drugstore makeup anymore. Harmons was literally the mecca for seasonal makeup releases and always had them at least 30 days before everyone else. Walmart was pretty on top of their game as well and had Covergirl Collections prior to anyone else not to mention Target was pretty good about getting the latest releases too.
But for about a year now finding new releases at Harmons or otherwise seems impossible.
What can’t you find the newest drugstore makeup at drugstores? Why are they arriving 30 or more days after you’ve heard about them dozens of times over on social media and even on the brand’s websites themselves?
Because a lot of brands are turning to online outlets to carry their latest releases. Yup, just like mid-range brands who cause a frenzy with their latest releases that are “limited edition” and available for “one day only” or at so and so store exclusively, drugstore makeup releases are also become highly exclusive as well.
Maybelline recently admitted on Instagram that their latest Summer 2017 releases hit amazon.com first! Over a month ago all the Summer releases started popping up at Amazon and the last few seasonal collections have also been available first at Amazon and 30 to 45 days later they started popping up at other drugstores.
I shop Amazon all the time! Can’t live without Prime and Prime Pantry! But I find it highly irritating that I have to wait for a month or more to find the latest drugstore makeup releases in stores. Why? Because Amazon ships horribly.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never had problems with Prime or anything I’ve ordered from Amazon until recently. I started ordering a few makeup items from them like the new Maybelline The City Palette and it was a bad, bad idea. I ordered the palette 5 times. FIVE times! And all five times the palette arrived broke. The first time I ordered it, it was broke, and the next four times were replacements that were all broke. Why did they break? Because Amazon tosses them in a big box without any padding aside from some brown paper.
Earlier last week they even had a note on Maybelline Studio Master Chrome Metallic Highlighter that said there were “issues with the shipping of this item” and it would be back in stock soon. It’s available now but I assume the shipping issue was it likely broke every time it was sent out.
Sigh…
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Amazon being the first to get Maybelline’s latest releases but we live in a makeup world where every release is somehow created to be a highly illusive launch that you must buy now or lose out. Don’t forget this also prevents BOGO sales, using coupons, etc…Mind you Amazon does have clip-less coupons from time to time and their prices aren’t too bad but sometimes you can score a better deal at Harmons in my experience.
How do you feel about the lack newest releases at the drugstore? Don’t worry they are releasing still at stores but just a little slower than before!
Are you ok with them being available exclusively online before they launch in stores?
Do share!