Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Little Black Bag - OMG!!!

Have you heard of this service yet? OMG! I'm a little obsessed with it right now. I found Little Black Bag through my perks on Klout. Sorry, I had go check if anyone wanted to trade with me. Anywho, I believe Little Black Bag has been around since at least the beginning of the year. It is based on the Japanese concept of fukubukuro or "lucky bag sale". The Japanese purchase a mystery bag of fashion items and then trade their unwanted items with friends. Little Black Bag is just a tad bit different.

With Little Black Bag there is a gallery of items for you to choose from, items like purses, home goods, make up and jewelry. You choose one item and that one item is guaranteed to be in your bag. Then the stylists pick a couple more items for you and throw them into your bag. You get a clue as to what the items are and how many extra items you could receive. Your bag total is at least $100 if not more. After you go through the check out process and commit to the service (you aren't charged until your bag ships and there are two price options), you are shown what the other items are waiting for you in your bag.

This is the fun and addicting part. You can trade any of the items you don't really care for, for items you love or must have. And you can combine items to trade for larger items or trade your larger items for a bunch of smaller items. I'm totally addicted to the trading part. It's like a game. What can I trade up or down to get what I want? You could end up with totally new items than what you started with or even end up with more items than you started with.

You have 7 days to trade out your items for new items. After 7 days, whatever is in your bag is shipped to you. If you finish trading sooner, all you have to do is click the "ship my bag now" button and your done. The items you've settle on are shipped to you. Now the waiting begins.

In the event that you STILL end up with something you're not happy with, Little Black Bag accepts returns. You won't get the full value of the item back, but a portion based on the percentage of what that item was worth from your full value total and what you paid. Ex. $40 item from $120 total = 33%, if you paid $49.95, you'd get $16.xx back.

The subscriber price for this service is $49.95/month, but you don't have to fully commit. You're given the option to skip a month and they will still let you cancel as well. The one time try option is $59.95. There are also a couple of coupon codes I've seen when you "like" the Little Black Bag facebook page and perusing pinterest. Sounds like fun yes? Also, I was not paid or asked to write this post. I just thought it was totally awesome and wanted to share this with you and I needed something to blog about. Kinda. ;)

Okay, so enough of that technical stuff. Since this was a perk for me on Klout I had some extra credits to use and ended up with two bags (instead of just the one I chose), jewelry and a cosmetics pouch. This is the bag that I choose, that I felt like I had to have. There were a lot of great options. And I've been holding on tight to this bag and have denied all trades...thus far. lol


My second bag was meh. I didn't really care for it at all and spent quite a bit of time figuring out how I was going to trade it. A handful of my trades had been denied. I then combined it with the cosmetics bag and finally traded it out for a lovely nude colored bag. I definitely feel like I came out with the better hand in that trade. I still wasn't completely happy and ended up trading it for the black version of the same bag. I won't post it just yet. I think I'll wait until I get it. I gotta keep some things a secret. Since the bag I'll be receiving is black, I decided I don't think I need TWO black bags and am now trying to trade out the above bag for something more colorful, like the bag below. Pretty isn't it? The reviews have said that it's actually more of a red and navy, not the color that it appears to be. I'm fine with that.

That means my FOUR items are now THREE. My last item was a beaded necklace. Also meh. I had my eye on a cute bicycle ring and now that ring is mine. Yay!!! There were a lot of bangles and earrings that people have attempted to trade me for the bags and jewelry I have, but no. Bangles don't normally fit over my hands and I have stretched lobes so I'm really picky about earrings. I'm still waiting on the perfect trade for the original bag that I picked out. If that trade comes along that means I will have traded EVERYTHING that I originally had for all new items. That kinda makes me laugh, but thus far it's been fun. I currently love everything that I have (I still have 6 trading days left) and if that's what I end up with that's okay. I'll either figure out a use for the extra bag or return it. I'll be back and share what I end up with and a little review with how the rest of the service panned out.

Has anyone tried Little Black Bag?

4 comments:

LBB Team said...

Hi Melissa!

Thank you so much for your blog post! We loved your picks for this month and are glad you traded until you were happy with your items. For future reference if you aren't happy with the color of something (luckily it worked out for you this time!), you can let us know and have it resolved by e-mailing support(at)littleblackbag(dot)com.

--LBB Team

Melissa Boo said...

Thanks for commenting. I'm still in the middling of trading and can't wait to finish up so that I can have my bag shipped. I'm pretty excited.

Amanda said...

Wow that sounds pretty awesome! I might have to give it a try!

Melissa Boo said...

@Amanda - Thanks for stopping by my blog and yes, you most definitely should give it a try.