Elisa's Green Scene

What's in a name?

So, there are some changes brewing here, and I thought I'd turn to my readers here and open up the floor.

Bottom line: I'm looking for a new name for this blog. And I'm a bit stumped.

At the end of the month we'll be announcing a new blog for hip & zen, one that hip & zen's owner, Karen, will be writing herself, and will be more about the vendors she's working with to bring cool products to her customers.

I'm going to keep this blog, and its almost 3 years of archives. I'm going to keep writing about the subjects I've been writing about. But I won't be calling it "the hip & zen pen" anymore.

Next week I'll be able to tell you more about Karen's blog, and point you to it, and I'll be changing the masthead here...and the name. But what name?

I'm totally open to suggestions.

Following up on my unfortunate customer experience

So, I finally got a response from disappointing eco-company Matt & Nat, that's the good news. The bad news is that my order was just shipped "last week", and they quoted another 5-10 business days until I receive.

I so would have handled my case differently. First of all: If I were doing customer service and received this thread of emails from a customer, I would have included an apology for the inconvenience, the lack of response, and the lack of living up to the original quoted ship schedule. None of that included. And frankly, i would have lobbied for the company to pay for express shipping, again, given the delay between order placement and shipment, without any explanation apparently.

I sent the following reply to their email:

Thank you for replying, I appreciate getting a response. I think your site could make it a LOT more clear how to follow up on an order...this was the third email I sent, to various addresses, because there's no info I could find on who I should have been contacting.

Also, I have to say that getting an order in approx. six weeks rather than the two weeks quoted on the web site is not going to turn me into a regular customer, which I was certainly hoping to become, considering how adorable your products are.

I hope you can pass this feedback on to your operations folks, because after being really excited to find your site and place my order, my customer experience has really not been good, and I probably won't become a repeat customer. Running a company myself, I know what a missed opportunity that represents!

Again, thanks for the update. I'm still looking forward to receiving my handbags.

Best regards,
E

What do you think? Too harsh?

Again, my central point is this:

I often say that eco products need to be as fashionable and functional as non-eco products if they want to make inroads past the converted into the mainstream. I guess I should add that companies that make eco products need to have just as good customer service too.

Happy MLK Day

I have to take it back on Matt & Nat (so far)

Last month I waxed rhapsodic about an online handbag vendor I found via ecofabulous, Matt & Nat. They are a Canadian company that makes vegan bags, and in some of the cutest styles you'll ever see.

The very day I wrote the post I ordered two bags. (That was on Christmas Eve, 12/24/07.)

Now, they did have a message on the site saying that due to the holiday crush, orders placed would take 2 weeks to arrive.

But tomorrow it will have been four weeks, and no bags. And the holiday crush was over about four weeks ago too, so i'm not sure what excuse there is.

Worse than that, they have no easy way identified to check order status, so I'm left emailing whatever email addresses I can find on their site and from the original order confirmation (none of which are identified as the place to go to check on orders, but I'm hoping someone can have mercy on me.) I have thus far emailed three times, with no response...not from their info@email address, their shopping@ email address, or even their onlinereturns@ email address.

The only phone number available for the store is in Montreal (no toll-free, unfortunately.) I called it once, got a phone tree recording, which mentioned the info@ email address, so given the tolls to call Canada, I decided to hang up and try email.

I guess my next step is calling that number again...which I can tell you from experience will cost me a lot of money. So yeah, I'm thrilled to be spending money, so they can have more of my money.

There's no purse I need this badly!

I love their style, but I need service too.

I often say that eco products need to be as fashionable and functional as non eco products if they want to make inroads past the converted into the mainstream. I guess I should add that companies that make eco products need to have just as good customer service too.

So, I wouldn't recommend shopping at Matt & Nat at this point. And that makes me feel sad.

Green IQ...meh

So, I found my way to the GreenIQ site courtesy of ecofabulous, and looked forward to taking it and then urging all of you to take it.

But I confess I was mostly disappointed.

The one thing that was kind of a pleasant surprise was that they did ask about your meat-eating habits when calculating your Green IQ, which so many eco-folks don't really want to talk about.

But the rest of it was the usual stuff: how much do you drive, how much do you spend on utilities, which of about 15 actions do you take to reduce your carbon footprint to reduce your environmental impact.

But the worst part is that after you give your email to get your score (something I am typically loathe to do) you get a score, and then they suggest a bunch of partners from whom you can buy stuff to improve your score.

Hey I don't mind them having partners and sponsors, but I found that in your face approach (first step to improve is buy stuff, ah, yeah, you can get other tips and ideas if you're willing to click around a bit) obnoxious.

Is it just me? Am I just cranky this morning?

New to the blog roll: My Recycled Bags.com

If you're into the many purses hip & zen sells that are made from recycled materials, then you may also want to check out MyRecycledBags.com. Carrying on my recent theme of DIY, this blog is written by a woman who is all into the DIY spirit and makes purses from a multitude of recycled resources, from the plastic bags that loaves of bread come in to old sheets.

Once again proving that I am sometimes most fascinated by the stuff I would or could never do!

Check her out!

Apple makes eco-headlines at MacWorld

This week at MacWorld there was the usual breathless anticipation about the Steve Jobs keynote presentation. And there was the usual deflation post-keynote, as no speech can ever live up to the fantasies of the most ardent fanboys and girls.

This year it seems like Steve has made more of a splash with eco-bloggers than tech bloggers. All because of the thinest laptop ever, the MacBook Air.

Steve made sure to point out the eco-friendliness of the product himself:

“There’s a few things we’ve done on the environmental side. It’s enclosed in a fully aluminum case — it’s easily recycled, highly desirable by recyclers. It’s our first mercury and arsenic-free display. All of the circuit boards are bromide and PVC free. We’re very happy about that as well… the retail packaging is 50% less volume, this helps a great deal in energy expended in transporting and disposing the materials.”

And eco-bloggers are noticing:

Groovy Green: Apple’s Macbook Air Is The Greenest Laptop Yet

Ecofabulous: Take A Bite Out Of This Amazing Apple

Hippyshopper: Macworld Expo 2008: Three eco-friendlier announcements from Microsoft, Apple and Brenthaven and MacBook Air: The greenest Apple yet?

Do I want one? Well, I'd never mind having any new Apple product, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to sacrifice the speed and memory for the tiny tiny thing...especially at that price ($1700 for the cheapest model...the one nobody will actually want to buy.)

But I wouldn't kick it off my desk for eating crackers,if you know what I mean!

DIY for those of us who aren't DIY

So, I've acknowledged I'm not too crafty. But what if I want to purchase and wear, display or gift wonderful DIY gifts? Well, there are a couple of sites that are just made for people like me.

The first is the newly-discovered (for me anyway) Repurposed 4 You...which is pretty much what you'd expect...lots of products repurposed from other items. I can't say most of the items are expected, however, as you will find things form the kitschy to the totally creative and amazing. A lot of it is jewelry, but nothing wrong with that!

Of course the mother of all DIY sites is Etsy. You could not spend too much time on Etsy, because there is always more to discover.

I have one co-worker (Jen from NotCalm.com, if you must know) who wears something every single day that makes me exclaim, "that's so cute...where did you get that?" And just about every day she says, "Etsy."

So, what if all this drooling over other people being DIY masters makes you want to shed your non-crafty exterior and indulge your inner DIY'er? The you must visit ReadyMade and Make, the folks behind Maker Faire.

I'm still living vicariously through all of the creative types I see on these sites. But some day I fully hope (nay, expect) to give it a whirl myself.

Speaking of DIY: DIY cleaning

Now I may not be into DIY, as I mentioned in my last post, so why would I be into DIY cleaning?

Well, it's not exactly the cleaning itself that ecofabulous is talking about, but rather DIY cleaning products. This from a company/site called Eco-Me.

Sounds a bit like a domestic chemistry set, providing al of the recipes and many of the materials to make your own natural products. Now, you do end up needing to add some common household ingredients...like oil, vinegar, baking soda and water of course.

There aren't just kits for home cleaning, though, there are kits for your dog, your cat, your baby, your skin. There's a whole range of products.

The Eco-Me site also has eco-tips, eco-news and eco-links, so it is well worth checking out.

More pop-tabby goodness

Yes, I blog about pop-tabby goodness a lot because it's just so hip & zen, and cool, and attractive, and functional.

So, imagine my delight to find MORE pop-tabby goodness at Great Green Goods. (Note: I believe hip & zen has the same Escama bags for less right now, so that's awesome.) But also there are other cute pop-tabby things that hip & zen doesn't carry.

My favorite is probably the pop-tab bracelet with a green bead, but I also like the pop-tab macrame bag, and the belt. The post even includes instructions in case you want to weave some pop-tabby goodness yourself. I don't know if I've made clear how much I am NOT a DIY type of gal, but for those of you who are far more creative and crafty than I...here's your chance.

I like this quote that the GreatGreenGoods post includes:

"We are not silly enough to think that keeping a few pop tabs out of the landfill is going to save the world; but we believe in our hearts that the true power comes from creating beautiful things out of trash. If one person opens their mind just a little tiny bit in the direction that not EVERYTHING needs to be created from scratch just to then be thrown away, a beautiful new bag has brightened the world."

Well, amen to that.