A Socially Conscious Journey
In this case, we have a socially conscious concept being utilized to make a defective, more than worthless product. Similar to the Friendly Cup in many ways, this is a Chinese company with shady business practices. Take a look, and make sure you do not buy from Bake Everything!
After getting through a final bag of plastic zip baggies, I knew the conscientious thing to do was to transition to reusable, non-plastic silicone. In the recent Birchbox, I received one silicone seal-shut bag and it is great. The zero waste store near my house was gone (moved, I later learned), so I turned to an online search to find a set.
The average prices for starter sets is about $50-75. But I saw Bake Everything’s 8-piece starter set for $19.99. Even though I just know that it should ring alarm bells, it’s nearly a compulsion that I just can’t resist a deal. I mean, I have to keep working on this. If you click the linked articles above, you’ll note a recurring issue I have, and I bet a lot of people have this issue.
The order was placed on March 12, weeks before the April Buy Nothing Challenge, and I would be amiss to say that this experience didn’t contribute to why I wanted to complete the challenge.
By April 12, when no other purchases were rolling in anymore, I realized I still didn’t have the bags. I wrote to customer service to cancel the order, but they said the only reason I could cancel was for quality. UGGGGGH not this BS again. All these scammy Chinese companies use the same English translations, I swear.
After some back and forth in which they said it had “shipped” and “orders were taking longer because of COVID” – a flat-out lie at this point – I had to give up and eat the $25 cost. Their return policy was not going to let me send them back at their expense, either, just as with all the other Chinese scams.
As it was Buy Nothing April, I didn’t buy replacements at the store, which is what I absolutely should have done in the first place.
Instead, when I received the silicone bags in May, after over 60 days, I decided they looked pretty good so we tried them. The bottom is flat, a feature I genuinely liked when I picked them because they stand up on their own.
Bake Everything is absolutely worthless.
There are two parts to this story that make the whole Bake Everything scene even worse:
As a person wanting to reduce waste, I often feel I toe the line between hoarding and a genuine desire to re-use or re-purpose things.
Update: I ended up using them around the house for the most part, to stash things. NOT worth purchasing for this, but it was the best of a stupid situation.
Pingback: Surprise Lessons from a Birchbox Review – Becoming Woke