A Word to the Wise About Gift of the Month Clubs

Earlier in the season, I wrote an article about the options provided by Gift of the Month Clubs. I still believe in those which I suggested but in my research, I weeded out one possibility because I had mixed feelings about the sort of deal that it represented. I left it off my list of promising ideas but have decided to go even farther and write an article about what may be potential pitfalls in dealing with Mrs. Beasley's (16805 S. Central Avenue, Carson, CA 90746 or www.MrsBeasleys.com). All I have seen is their catalogue and I'm going to leave it at that because of the following reasons:

Most of us haven't heard of them!

Sure, sure - they have branches in Beverly Hills, Costa Mesa, Encino, Tarzana, Pasadena and a Cupcake Store at South Coast Plaza. It may also be true that they are "Hollywood's Favorite Bakery" but that doesn't mean doodly to those of us who are hunkered down in the Midwest and have never personally seen or tasted a Mrs. Beasley's goodie. Until this Christmas I hadn't even seen one of their catalogues (and I thought I had seen them all!) For most consumers in this country, the folks at Mrs. Beasley's are still at the starting gate and we must therefore presume that they are offering us the very best deal they can to seduce us into gambling on their entry into the race. If that is true and this is the best they have to offer, that's not saying much for Hollywood's Favorite Bakery.

How about those shipping charges!

Most of the Gift of the Month Clubs I wrote about earlier had either reasonable shipping or no shipping charges at all. This is very important because with a Gift of the Month Club - especially one of those 12-month bonanzas - there is going to be a whole lot of shipping going on. A case in point is Mrs. Beasley's Cake of the Month Plan. These cakes - costing almost $30 each - are a bit of luxury to begin with but get a load of these shipping charges - $26 for an $84.95 Three-Month Plan, $50 for the $169.95 Six-Month Plan and a whopping $99 for the $329.95 Twelve-Month Plan!

Yes, you read that correctly - for the Twelve-Month Plan, you have to pay more in shipping charges than you would for three extra cakes. That may work in Beverly Hills but it probably won't fly here in Illinois, especially this year when most people are either recovering from or shouldering on through the recession.

We can't be sure what this stuff really looks like.

Somewhere there are shoppers who actually can walk into a Mrs. Beasley's Bakery and see what this stuff really looks like! Until I am among that number, I refuse to buy a cake even from God's bakery unless I know exactly how much it weighs. No, don't tell me how many people it will serve, I want to know exactly how big it is. This is especially important when gifts of food are involved and I stand here now, testifying as someone who learned this the hard way.

Every year, I send a goodie-loving pal some kind of gift from Mrs. Field's Cookies. That this is an outfit we have all heard of cannot be denied and most of us have seen or sampled the famous sweets for ourselves. I could have left well enough alone and stuck to sending cookie baskets but one year I was tempted to break step for a CAKE which appeared in the Mrs. Field's catalogue to be a towering structure of splendid proportions. Nobody mentioned how much it weighed but assurances were made that this cake would serve 9 to 10 people.

I ordered this for my friend and the four other people in her family and ventured a step farther by ordering one for myself to take to a Christmas party. My friend graciously thanked me for my wonderful gift and there I was, basking in glorious fantasies about the young family wallowing in cake when suddenly the identical cake I bought for myself was delivered to me. Imagine my shock to realize that this cake was so tiny that it would have been a stretch for it to serve even three cake-lovers! As humiliating as it was, at least I was able to apologize and rush out and send something else to my friend to make up for what must have been a horrible disappointment. After that, I never buy any food by mail unless I know exactly how much it will weigh and how big it really is.

They will have to SHOW us.

Mrs. Beasley's may be a wonderful outfit, with the sort of shops most people can hardly walk by without stopping in to buy something. They may really be Hollywood's BEST Bakery, but most of the people in this country have no way of really knowing whether that is true. Until that changes, Mrs. Beasley's is going to have to start offering us better enticements than I found in their catalogue. For the folks in my neck of the woods (and most other parts of the country), the folks at Mrs. Beasley's are just going to have to work harder to convince us.

Sources:

Mrs. Beasley's Catalogue
Mrsbeasleys.com
Personal Experience