Over half a year of Papergang boxes!
When you are following my blog for at least a month, you might have seen that I am doing a monthly review of a subscription box called Papergang by OhDeer. It’s a box that gets a new design and content every time and I have had a one-year subscription for a little over half a year now. So I thought I might give you my first thoughts about what I liked and what I did not like so far. Keep in mind there are still 5 boxes coming(while I am writing this review), so they still have time to improve upon some things. But let’s start with the impressing stuff!
Impressing stuff
This monthly subscription box was the first one of its kind that I ever got. Even though I really love the concept of it, I think they might not be as popular in Germany, which is why many have never heard of them before. I can’t even remember how I got to know about this box in particular, but I am very glad that I did! I do love stationery and art and this box combines them both and it feels like the people behind it are very passionate about what they do and with whom they work together.
I love that the box is designed in a way, that it fits into a regular mailbox with no problem. Especially since the pandamic hit, I really hate taking on parcels personally, so I love to send them to special package stations in Germany. The only problem is, that these package stations can only be open by the customer and the workers of DHL, the biggest german mail company. Meaning that if I get something from outside the country, which is not shipped with DHL, I can’t let it be delivered to one of those stations. So having it fit into my mailbox is almost as good, if not even better, because I only have to go check my mail, to get it out 😉
I had some troubles with getting the boxes shipped to me in the first place, which might sound like a bad thing, but it’s actually nothing the people over at OhDeer can be blamed for. It often was a customs problem, in the time where the UK was leaving the EU and some parcels just got missing. But the customer service at the Papergangs HQ, has never let me down. They answered emails fairly quickly and always tried to either explain to me what happened and calm me down, or got to work on a solution right away. And as of now, all the missing parcels were replaced without a problem.
Things to improve upon
Sadly I have to say that not everything worked out as expected. What got me into wanting a year-long subscription of the Papergang boxes for 2021, were the pictures I saw of the boxes from 2020. Mainly the October and November boxes got me hyped up and very sad about not getting one of them! They were not only beautifully designed but also packed with great stuff, on some pictures I was even surprised to see how many things fit into such a small box. And I know, there should not be quantity over quality, but I feel like both of these things have gone somewhat down.
What I mostly miss in the boxes is a theme, a thought behind why exactly these stationaries were chosen for a particular box. Are they part of a kind of letter set, that I can use to write my penpals? Or are they part of a note-taking set, an office supply set, and so on. Because oftentimes, especially with the last 3 boxes, it felt as if they would have just randomly put together some stationary, put a unique design over it and call it a day. As I said in my reviews, stationery is never too much, I will always find a use for a pen, or a notepad, or something similar. But the boxes just don’t get me as excited anymore, if it just feels like I am getting random supplies. I really hope they can improve upon that with their last 5 boxes of the year because that will really be the tipping point for me to decide if I want to get another subscription of them or not.
This last point might be a bit contradictory to the last point I spoke about in the “impressive things” category because it’s again about shipping and customers service. As I am writing this review, my august box has still not arrived and it’s less than a week till the next month(as of me writing the review, might post it later :P). But I knew that would happen because I got an email saying that some shipping errors arose again and my parcel will only be shipped at the end of august or the beginning o September. Someone took responsibility for it this time and promised some “extra gifts” to compensate for the inconvenience. Now I have not received these gifts, but I really hope they will be there in the first place. Because even though I can understand why the shipping errors happened at the time of the Brexit, it does kinda get annoying when it happens over and over again. And before this email, I got nothing to compensate for it. So I guess if they really will be following up on this email, it will an improvement, if not, I know what to talk about in my full years’ review of the boxes 😉
Final Thoughts
The Papergang got me into subscriptions in general, which I am super happy about and grateful for. But I have to say at this point, I am already thinking about if it would make sense to keep up my subscription or to use my money on another one next year. Just because the excitement I got in the beginning, did not really last until now. And like I said, I think that’s because of the “randomness” that I get with many of the boxes. When the next 5 will be better, I will change my mind and I would gladly do so. Because I still really love the idea behind the boxes, not only just repackaging some products and shipping them, but designing them, working with artists, making it a very unique experience. That’s what I bought my subscription for, that’s what I loved seeing the old boxes. So please Papergang, fill me with this excitement again!
Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress