Gift Giving Guy

SomethingStore leaves something to be desired.

As I described in an earlier post, you give SomethingStore $10 and they surprise you by shipping you something. What might something be? According to the site’s “Something Tracker,” the store just shipped a USB vacuum cleaner to Washington, a deluxe spa set to Minnesota and a Wahl cordless trimmer to Illinois.

Last month, I ordered two somethings, just to try it out in celebration of my first blogoversary. Then I waited 10 days before contacting the store. The automated reply to my request:

After recent publicity about SomethingStore and being featured almost simultaneously on large websites such as Thrillist, Gizmodo, LA Times, and Yahoo we’ve been receiving very high volumes of orders; a little more we have anticipated and were prepared for. This is delaying shipments to later schedules than our usual shipping times. We are receiving new merchandise and shipping them out as fast as possible. Also we are slowly getting back to normal processing times.

Our current shipping schedule:
- Orders placed on May 14th and May 15th will ship on May 28th
- Orders placed on May 16th, 17th and 18th will ship on May 29th
- Orders placed on May 19th, 20th and 21st will ship on May 30th
- Orders placed on May 22nd, 23rd and 24th will ship on May 31st
- Orders placed after those dates are expected to be processed within normal processing times.

We know you’re anxious to find out what your item is but we appreciate your patience and understanding during this unusual time for us.

So SomethingStore had some supply chain issues. I can understand growing pains for a months-old online retailer. But why couldn’t they have e-mailed me days ago, letting me know something’s wrong?

But my two somethings did ship on May 30 as promised. The U.S. Postal Service delivered a small cardboard box on June 3. My somethings were revealed: sunglasses and costume jewelry.

The necklace had a strong tinny-metallic odor. My wife called it “carnival prize jewelry” and asked how soon we could throw it away. The sunglasses are masculine and form-fitting. No brand name. But with my nearsightedness, I would need prescription sunglasses. Maybe I’ll use them lounging in the sun this summer.

But what can you expect from random gifts that cost $10?