[harrybr]

Hi Josh,

it's good of you to step up and have this discussion. It seems that justfab is using a Conversion Rate Optimisation trick that you're either not aware of or that you're deliberately downplaying. Put simply, the UI is set to have VIP membership activation default to ON. Those people who are not paying attention will not read the information in the right hand side bar, will check out and will mistakenly purchase the membership.

The simple way to fix this is to have NO DEFAULT. When a user clicks check out, you should show them a page with both options equally balanced. For example, you could have two radio buttons with neither option preselected. That way the user has to make an explicit decision to choose to become a member or not.

This is your opportunity to put your money where your mouth is. Get the justfab team to redesign it. Make it impossible for users to opt in by mistake. Rely entirely on users making an explicit choice. After all, if you genuinely believe that all of your valued customers opt in to the VIP membership by choice, then this redesign will not have any effect on your revenue.

Ball's in your court. We're all interested to know how you will play this.

[pjbrow]

Very well said. I agree entirely - there should be a concrete change as a result of this thread. It's impossible for a reasonable person to read the opinions of the well informed people here and continue to think that everything's A-ok. This is an opportunity to prove your ethical bona fides, jdh.

[unclebucknasty]

If you look at their profile on consumeraffairs.com [1], you'll find a ton of complaints about this VIP program on the first page alone. In fact, the company replies repeatedly with a canned response.

They are well, well aware of what they are doing. If they do change anything, it will not be because they have been suddenly educated or even found morality. It will be because the sunlight is so bright that they fear for their ability to continue to profit.

[1] http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/justfab.html

[danielweber]

Here's a question:

Upon learning that many of your customers are unhappy and believe themselves to have been tricked into subscribing, do you:

a) change the process, or

b) defend the process?

[unclebucknasty]

Exactly. The fact that they have devised what appears to be a canned response for the issue is telling.

[tripzilch]

> Hi Josh, it's good of you to step up and have this discussion.

He's not having a discussion, he quickly tried to "defend" this website, as if he really believed it is not misleading, found that everyone saw right through his dishonesty, and cowardly retreated from any discussion.

> The simple way to fix this is to have NO DEFAULT. When a user clicks check out, you should show them a page with both options equally balanced.

This is exactly what the German version of the site looks like[0]. Because these sort of misleading practices are considered fraudulent in Germany.

Fraudulent.

They know perfectly well how they are misleading customers and feel they can get away with it, except in Germany. I wonder if they make any profit in Germany?

[0] the German version is no longer flat-out misleading, it still could be a lot clearer, but at least the offer is so fishy, it stinks.