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Furious customers of Asian beauty retailer W Cosmetics are demanding refunds and complaining to the consumer watchdog after attending a beauty event that promised $100 in freebies but left many walking away empty-handed after queueing for hours.
W Cosmetics, which has 30 stores that stock Korean, Japanese and Chinese make-up and skincare products, sold tickets priced at $35 to attend World of W, an “immersive beauty playground” in Sydney’s International Convention Centre (ICC) last week, that included a free swag bag, products and samples.
Asian beauty products are surging in popularity in Australia, driven by social media, affordable prices and the trendy ingredients of K-beauty. Across January 22 to 25, thousands of people attended the W Cosmetics event.
One attendee, who spoke anonymously to preserve her privacy, said she had purchased tickets for herself and a friend for $35 each and made carer arrangements to attend.
Attendees were allocated two-hour time slots to enter a sale that featured stalls from more than 25 beauty brands, where customers were expected to line up to collect free products and samples or play games for prizes. The customer, who went to the final session on Saturday, said she was given a tote bag containing a hat, pen and key ring but did not receive anything else.
“The queues were extremely long,” she said. “You might be spending 15 to 20 minutes queueing up at one booth just to get one item. Sometimes it’s just a little sachet, and sometimes you don’t get anything at all because you play their game and you don’t win the game, or you spin the wheel and it says, ‘Sorry, try again’.
“Lots of booths had already run out of stuff … There were signs just saying they were sold out.”
Many brands required attendees to follow their account on Instagram, share a social media post and tag the account in order to receive a product.
“[There were] all these hoops you had to jump through, even though you already paid to enter,” the attendee said.
Dozens of attendees took to Instagram, Reddit and TikTok to express their disappointment in what they said was a disorganised, poorly planned event.
“I spent around five hours here and left completely frustrated. This experience was nothing like what was advertised,” commented one user on a W Cosmetics Instagram post promoting the event.
“In the end, it was just leftover crap, unsold stock.”
Another described the event as “the worst event I had ever been to” and called on W Cosmetics to provide attendees with a discount code to make up for the goody bag that was not received.
In a lengthy post on Reddit documenting their experience, user gentlecinnamon said they had received several messages from others who had the same experience and urged people to report the experience to the ACCC.
A screenshot uploaded by a fellow Redditor shows the World of W Humanitix event page that reads: “Your general admission ticket includes $100 worth of FREE beauty goodies”.
The wording on the existing page was amended to state “up to” $100 in free items, sighted by this masthead. The Humanitix event page has since been removed.
W Cosmetics has not offered any refunds to date. Head of brand and marketing Narae Ko said the company was pleased to see high attendance and engagement during the event and pointed to positive experiences others posted on social media.
“That said, we understand that for some attendees the experience did not fully meet expectations. We are genuinely saddened to hear this and take all customer feedback seriously,” said Ko.
“As with any large-scale event, individual experiences can vary and our teams worked throughout the day to manage demand, maintain safety and ensure customers could participate across activations.”
Ko urged disappointed attendees to email wow@wcosmetics.com.au, where each case is being reviewed, she said.
“We remain proud of the event, the brands involved and the overwhelmingly positive response from our community and we are committed to learning from feedback to continue improving future experiences.”
A spokesperson for the ACCC said its media policy did not permit it to comment on specific cases.
“Many general customer service issues will not give rise to potential breaches of the Australian Consumer Law,” the spokesperson said.
“Whether customer service issues may go further and include potential Australian Consumer Law concerns will depend on the specific facts involved.”
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Jessica Yun is a business reporter covering retail and food for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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