Yet another “sustainable startup” has left me high and dry

Since I alternate pretty reliably between shopping as a hobby and environmental minimalism, I can just as reliably be counted on as an early adopter of random internet startups that promote the latter. Basically, I am a sucker for anything that claims to be less waste, more organic, etc. etc. etc. I will take a free trial or free shipping or free “you can cancel later, we swear” any day of the week.

I was first burned in love by Brandless, the unbranded-branded line of food and personal care products with minimalist packaging and Eco-friendly values. And one irresistible gimmick: (almost) everything was $3. That’s some easy math right there. I was solidly on the Brandless train, you could even have called me a Brand(less) Ambassador (heh), when they started diversifying their price points and their offerings. Then came the partnerships with CBD oil companies and the like. Random items were discontinued or out of stock. I didn’t like every item they sold, but I did test out more than 50 with impressive results.

I tried to re-up my membership, which gave me unlimited free shipping for a crazy low annual fee, but the members page was nowhere to be found. I contacted customer service and got a vague email about how they had paused the program to determine how to best provide value for their customers or some PR-speak nonsense. I was suspicious.

Then, without much warning, their e-commerce site closed altogether. I was just getting over my grief when the company…