Meghan Markle ‘rushed to market with product that wasn’t ready’ with new brand launch

Meghan Markle “rushed to the market” with a product that wasn’t ready when she soft launched her new brand last month, according to a royal commentator.

The Duchess of Sussex revealed her new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard on March 14, launching an Instagram and promo video at the same time.

And, in the latest episode of The Brand Breakdown with Courtney and Michelle, the co-hosts put a spotlight on Meghan’s business strategy, and while they’re “rooting” for her, they do find the timing to be puzzling.

Michelle said: “It does make me feel like it was a little bit rushed.”

Courtney agrees about the timing being a little off: “It does seem like she rushed to market with something that wasn’t ready to go to market.”

The website has yet to have had any updates since the soft launch, which Courtney finds confusing. She said: “You usually have some idea of what the heck they’re going to be doing, but… nothing, we got nothing.”

Michelle responded: “It looks like American Riviera Orchard is seeking a CEO, so, we have a soft launch of a brand that didn’t have leadership in place, which I thought was an interesting… tactic?”

They believe Meghan is trying to “give Gwyneth Paltrow a run for her money,” but Paltrow is the CEO of her company, Goop, which started off as a newsletter and then slowly evolved into an e-commrce website.

The Brand Breakdown hosts speculate that Meghan choosing not to be the CEO means she may consider herself the “visionary” and leave the heavy lifting to someone else.