For 10 years, Ima Asali has undergone the uphill slug that comes with running one's own business.
Mellow Cosmetics was born out of a desire to move out of the corporate world and into the creative side of product creation. After Asali's son was born in 2013, she knew then was a better time than ever to make the leap.
"I had a passion for makeup but it wasn't until I was on maternity leave that a fire was ignited in me," Asali tells Mamamia.
Watch: Things I've Learnt about Beauty & Skincare.
"I wanted to stay at home and care for my baby and start doing something with my passion. I did not see myself returning to my corporate job. I was watching a YouTube Video by [beauty influencer] Shaaanxo one night and the idea of starting a cosmetics line just popped into my head, it was more of a gut feeling and I knew instantly I had to follow it."
10 years on, Asali is the founder of a vegan and cruelty-free beauty and skincare line that is stocked in five department retailers across the globe.
With over 266,000 followers on Instagram, Asali has managed to build a beauty company that competes with major conglomerates.
But it isn't always easy.
Last week, Asali took to Instagram to share the reality of running a small business in 2023. In one post, she pointed out customers who "intentionally" alter their packages for a refund.
"You know when customers intentionally do something to the box of the product to get a replacement?" she wrote. "We quality check everything before sending so we know the product is 100 [per cent] perfect in perfect packaging."
Asali also called out fraudulent bank claims, asking how customers could "accidentally place an order."
"Or [you know when customers] lie and say they never received their package when we have screenshots of their signature loaded?!" she wrote. "Or they receive their package and go to their bank and say, 'Someone else used my card and claim their money back???' Or, 'I accidentally placed an order.' How do you accidentally put your card details in.
"Why?? What makes it [okay]for a person to think this is [okay] to do these things?? Do they not realise they are shopping from a small business and not a giant Walmart?
"Do they know the brand has to absorb that cost??? It's just not [okay]! The lies they tell!! We have amazing customers but there are ones every now and then. [You] can see right through their lies but can't say anything to them because the customer is always right, yeah."
Asali told Mamamia it's not that often they have to deal with customers who take advantage of small businesses but shared four ways to make shopping from a small business easier — not only for the brand, but the customer as well.
Be cautious before you make an order.
Believe it or not, but an incorrect order usually just comes down to... human error... or even a typo, Asali tells Mamamia.
"There are little things we can be cautious about as customers when ordering from online businesses," she explained.
"It can be double checking our address to ensure we put in our street number, or the correct postcode or placing the suburb name in the correct space so when we try to print the orders we don’t have to google for the correct address or email the customer to ask they what their street number is.
"It happens more often than people think."
Surprisingly enough, it's also common for customers to mistakenly use an old address.
"Sometimes they can place an old address they have saved on their PayPal account from five years ago and when we dispatch their parcel, the customer realises they forgot to update their address at checkout," she explains.
"By this point, we have already sent their parcel which then means our team has to make calls to the post and ask them to correct the customer address before delivery (that’s if we are lucky enough to get to them on time before the parcel bounces back to us)."
The pandemic has also made it more expensive for businesses to ship an order, a fact Asali says has an impact on small businesses especially.
"As an indie beauty brand, we operate with a fairly small team and budget and we absorb the shipping charges by offering free shipping to customers," she explains. "Most of our orders are over the free shipping limit and we pay for shipping which can be quite costly so for a parcel to be returned back to us [is extremely expensive].
"We get charged for shipping and for us to have to ship the parcel back to the customer is charge we absorb as well."
Asali says this can be fixed by simply double and triple-checking an order before going through to the checkout.
"I know as a customer myself we all love free shipping and we mainly shop from brands that offer free shipping which is a great incentive," she says. "But we just need to take extra care of putting the correct address at checkout when ordering. The mistake happens so much more often than people would think."
Research before purchasing a beauty product for the first time.
Unfortunately, customers can be unhappy with their order -- which is a point Asali says she always takes into consideration.
However, research is important even when making a simple order she says, as it can be costly for a small business and even the customer in the end.
"Check the brand's social media and the website images available," says Asali. "There are so many videos and photos of different people wearing that specific product customers might be interested in.
"Too many times, we receive emails from customers asking for a refund or a return or an exchange after they have opened and applied a lipstick or an eyeshadow because they think the colour does not suit them. This just isn't possible for a sustainable beauty brand."
Whilst fashion brands can allow customers to return a product that might not be right for them after trying it on, that might not be the case for skincare or makeup businesses.
"With makeup and skincare, it is just not possible for sanitary reasons. Once a product is opened and used, the brand cannot resell that product and it will go to waste," Asali says. "It is also not sustainable and for that reason, we personally have a no-return policy for those who change their mind."
99 per cent of customers are "perfect" but the few can ruin it for everyone.
There are horror stories Asali can laugh (or grimace) at now, but they are still cautionary tales.
On one such occasion, she recalls receiving an email from a customer requesting a refund for an eyeshadow palette.
Except the palette wasn't hers — it belonged to her deceased friend.
"She claimed that her friend had purchased one of our glitter chrome eyeshadow palettes and this particular person had found the eyeshadow in her friend's makeup bag after she had passed away," she says.
"She genuinely was asking for a refund. That was one of those cases where we genuinely had no idea what to write back to this person."
More commonly, Asali says customers claim their packages have not been delivered to their shipping address — despite having signature or email proof this isn't the case.
"Once in the early years, we sent a customer order three times before we realised she was trying to scam us," she explains.
There are also the moments anyone would shake their heads at, including Asali who recalled a customer attempting to return an old product.
"A customer complained and requested a refund for a liquid eyeliner she had received in a beauty box,
she says. "It was dried out. She didn't mention the eyeliner was from a beauty box released three years before.
"The eyeliner was dry because it was expired after all these years sitting in her makeup bag or vanity!"
Asali continued by saying there are plenty of people who go to their bank and claim their order was a mistake or "fraudulent".
"Some don't know this but the bank deducts their money back from our account and we get charged a $25.00 transaction fee by Shopify too as most of them are offshore transactions," she says. "What these customers don’t realise is that we are still a small business, and this is not okay. It’s really not even okay if they do this to a large business."
Listen to You Beauty, Mamamia's daily podcast for your face. Post continues after audio.
Australians and New Zealanders are the best customers.
Unsurprisingly (depending on who you might ask), Asali says Aussies and Kiwis are by far the most "honest and supportive" community.
"I do have to say 99 per cent of our customers are genuinely nice, loyal, patient and understanding and they come back to us time after time, so we are very grateful for our honest, supportive community," she says.
Asali says the worst experiences come from those in the United States.
"In my personal experience, I would have to say we get scammed the most by customers in the United States followed by those in the UK," she says. "I am not sure why or how but I know in the United States, it’s simply because if you purchase from a brand in that country, you can return the item without any questions being asked.
"They are so used to returns and refunds that they think even overseas brands offer the same refund policy. They don’t read the returns policy before purchasing and they demand for their refund request to be accepted due to a change of mind. This just doesn’t happen so much in Australia unless the product is faulty or the order is from a fashion brand."
She adds, "I would also have to say most of our returning loyal customers are from Australia and New Zealand and we have never had any fraudulent activity from here which maybe says a lot about us."
Feature Image: Instagram @ima_rose_a.
Calling All Australian Women! We want to hear from you in this skincare survey. Complete it now and go in the running to win one of four $100 gift vouchers!
Top Comments