After I realized this was a problem, I went back on the site. In small, italic print on the product page, hidden in the technical specifications, they say "Works with optical mice鈥攆or optimal performance, however, consider our wood and leather mousepad." I did not see this message when I went to purchase the desk pad. It's not obvious and it's misleading, because the pad absolutely does not work with optical mice.
I was annoyed, but figured I should have read all the fine print. I went to process a return, but they have a ridiculously short return window of 15 days. Unfortunately I was out of town when it arrived and by the time I got home and realized the pad didn't work, the 15 days had already expired.
I tried to contact their customer service through their website, to see if they would be flexible and understanding in their return policy, but their support form literally does not work. When you go to submit your message, the submit button does nothing. They provide no other means to contact the company: no phone number, no email address, no chat interface.
So now I am stuck with an $80 piece of wool that's useless to me. It's really unfortunate because if they were more up front with customers about the limitations of their products and had adequate customer service, Grovemade would be a manufacturer of quality goods and I'd be giving them a positive review. But instead, I feel like they're intentionally misleading customers and purposely making it difficult to get support when their products fall short.
,
,