planning

This week, I finally got my “replacement” apricot jam from As Ever, as well as the two bottles of orange marmalade jam I ordered in the most recent As Ever product drop. I’ve tried both flavors and I prefer the apricot, for what it’s worth, but I’m still dreaming of a raspberry restock. The most recent product drop was coordinated alongside the premiere of With Love, Meghan’s second season. It feels like the Duchess of Sussex has finally worked out the supply lines for As Ever, right? Meghan’s biggest haters have been screaming about how the most recent products haven’t sold out, but that’s a good thing – Meghan and her team have finally got enough in stock to ensure that people can buy her products whenever they want, like a real functional business. While the scarcity business model works for a time, when you’re selling jams, wine and crepe mixes, people want to buy products whenever they need/want them. It’s bad business to have a sold-out product line for months at a time.

One of the most bizarre conversations happening around As Ever is the “why doesn’t Netflix sell Meghan’s products in their Netflix shops??” Because As Ever is a stand-alone thing? Well, that answer is not good enough for the Mail, or Richard Osman and Marina Hyde.

Meghan Markle’s tie-up with Netflix to sell her jam, pancake mix and flower sprinkles is already ‘petering out’ after just seven months, it was claimed today. The Duchess of Sussex’s As Ever brand is partnered with the streaming giant but none of her products are listed on the Netflix website. Netflix is also opening its first bricks-and-mortar stores in the US later this year so fans of shows such as KPop Demon Hunters, Squid Games and Stranger Things have the chance to buy merchandise. But there are growing doubts that As Ever products will be sold on the shelves despite her formal partnership with the streamer only being announced in February, the Daily Mail understands.

Speaking on her The Rest is Entertainment podcast with Richard Osman, journalist Marina Hyde suggested that Netflix is quietly dropping Meghan’s As Ever.

‘Meghan’s jam is supposedly for sale in the Netflix store. But they don’t even have a tab for her show’, she said. ‘She has gone into a product partnership with them but I’m afraid that will just peter out’.

It came after Meghan and Harry agreed a new TV deal with Netflix but experts said it was a ‘downgrade’ on their previous $100million contract, marking a loosening of ties between them. Her second season of With Love Meghan is only at 136 in the Netflix chart, under two weeks after its release. And it also appears that the Duchess of Sussex, 44, has quietly shut down her ShopMy website, which sold items from £20 ($26) grey t-shirts to £1,600 ($2,000) silk gowns.

The As Ever range was widely expected to be featured in the Philadelphia and Dallas branches of Netflix House, the streaming giant’s first physical stores. But a Netflix source has insisted that no final decisions had yet been made on any of the products that will be on the shelves later this year.

[From The Daily Mail]

It’s surprising that no one has a real explanation for why Meghan’s ShopMy page is blank right now. While the Mail and other tabloids have screamed about it all week, no one has an actual Sussex source explaining what Meghan is doing there. I suspect that it’s not a bad thing, and I also suspect that Meghan is not shutting down her ShopMy completely. But we’ll see. As for Marina Hyde and Richard Osman’s pocketwatching and gossip-mongering… lmao. They can’t cry about “Netflix is cutting their ties with the Sussexes” anymore, so now it’s “Netflix is cutting their ties with As Ever!” Girl, why?? Netflix suddenly doesn’t like to make money?

Photos courtesy of As Ever’s IG.