I've often wondered about this and have read/heard people who IMO have abused the policy (you wore your boots for 15 years and they wore out and you expect a brand new pair?!)
Letter from LLBean exec re: changes:
A Letter to Our Customers
Since 1912, our mission has been to sell high-quality products that inspire and enable people to enjoy the outdoors. Our commitment to customer service has earned us your trust and respect, as has our guarantee, which ensures that we stand behind everything we sell.
Increasingly, a small, but growing number of customers has been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent. Some view it as a lifetime product replacement program, expecting refunds for heavily worn products used over many years. Others seek refunds for products that have been purchased through third parties, such as at yard sales.
Based on these experiences, we have updated our policy. Customers will have one year after purchasing an item to return it, accompanied by proof of purchase. After one year, we will work with our customers to reach a fair solution if a product is defective in any way.
This update adds clarity to our policy and will only affect a small percentage of returns. It will also ensure we can continue to honor one of the best guarantees in retail, with no impact for the vast majority of our customers. To learn more, please view our full return policy at llbean.com.
L.L.Bean has stood for quality, service, trust, and getting people outdoors ever since my great-grandfather founded our company over 100 years ago - and that will never change. Thank you for being a loyal customer and we look forward to continuing to inspire and enable you to Be an Outsider.
I always wondered about their generous policy. Heard of more than one case of people taking vast liberties with it (one family claimed they only bought one backpack per kid and then got several more for free by returning the old ones over many years). On the other hand, when I gifted DH several pricy cashmere sweaters and they all developed holes quickly in the same place, I was grateful for how well the defective merchandise was handled. I’m betting it still would be. But normal wear and tear needs to be a different story.
Basically yes. We had a suitcase with a zipper that broke after about nine years of use. I vaguely remembered that it had an amazing guarantee, sure enough in my files there it was - ten year guarantee and my original receipt! They refunded the cost with no questions.
Some things should last longer than a year, but I do think having a lifetime guarantee was crazy.
Agreed that some things - like luggage - should be treated differently than a sweater - and their letter I think addresses that by saying they hope to be fair in their evaluations after an item is older than a year.
When my pups were smaller, my SIL gave them a lot of LL Bean clothes that she had purchased for her own kids on clearance, like 70% off. Most of the items were gently used, but kids grow so quickly they hadn’t worn out, and many of them were new with the tags still attached.
One new dress had a patch pocket that tore in the very first wash. We still had the tags so I returned it and explained the situation. They apologized profusely, and since it was no longer being made, they gave us full credit towards another one. I explained that SIL had told me she had gotten 70% off, and it was too much, but they insisted and said on getting us a replacement dress for her, since it was no longer being made. This experience made me an LL Bean customer for life.
The quality of their products is top notch - I still use my own backpack that I had in college - we take it on every vacation.
And despite the February spending freeze, I love my new LL Bean flannel sheets!
Anyone who has ever worked retail, knows that people abuse the return process horribly. I can almost guarantee you that anyone here has ever tried to return the crap that people try.
What I think this does is give L.L. Bean the latitude to turn down repeat offenders. It’s too bad that a few ruin the return process for everyone.
I returned a pair of wicked slippers that my D wore out in a year. They did question me, did I feel that the slippers wore out prematurely. Actually, I have been very underwhelmed with the wicked slippers. My H has put a hole in his already that he got last Christmas. I have a pair of uggs that are 5 yers old and still look great. But I won’t try and return them now, I might have before.
Does that mean I won’t order again from LL Bean, no, but I might think about it.
I once asked if they had a repair kit for an item I had broken. I told them the item was worn but serviceable so if it could be fixed, that’d fit better with my puritan values.
A box with a replacement arrived with apologies for not knowing of a good way to repair.
Made me a lifetime customer. That, and all the charming Mainers who work in the store. New Englanders at their best!
It is so disappointing that the bad apples spoil what has always been a great guarantee. That guarantee was something that set LLBean apart from the competition so it will be interesting to see where this goes. Just a few weeks ago I returned a sweater that I purchased about a year ago. I must have bought it at the end of the season and didn’t wear it until this fall. The navy stripes bled into the white when I washed it according to directions. I will have to be very careful not to let things sit around too long which I have a tendency to do.
My guess @GRITS80 , is that they would help you out in that situation even if the year had passed. I am guessing that this is more of a CYA policy as protection from those rotten apples.
Yes, I feel the letter clearly states that day 366 you are not out of luck. And really, even a year is so much more than other retailers might offer - especially for something like clothing.
I once bought a dress from LL Bean that was supposed to be machine washable. I washed it and it shrank. I hadn’t even gotten around to packing it up to return it when a postcard or letter arrived from LL Bean saying that they had discovered that the dress shrank in the wash, and giving me a credit or refund (I forget which).
Another time I called them to ask about whether I could get a refund on some certain item that had worn out. They told me if honestly I thought the item was defective and had worn out prematurely, they would promptly replace or refund. I thought about it, and realized that in fact I couldn’t honestly tell myself the item was defective, so I didn’t ask for the refund.
A policy that has stood the test of time for over 100 years changed because people are becoming increasingly unethical and greedy.
LL Bean has always been the gold standard - generous return policy (still better than most by far even with the change) and a pleasant, professional, and helpful staff.
Can anyone thin of a retailer that still offers an open-ended return policy?
Good for LLBean. Hope the other retailers with generous return policies will follow their lead. In the end, we all pay for these returns.
I once saw a woman bring an obviously well worn North Face coat to Nordstrom and demand an exchange because well… it was worn. The SA took it and gave her a full refund - at the current price. The lady did not have a receipt or any computer record of it. She could have bought that coat anywhere. I think Nordstrom changed their very generous return policy a bit ago.
@mathmom had a different situation which I’m sure that LL Bean will still honor - she had a specific guarantee for a specific length of time on an item. It wasn’t based on their return policy, which people treated as a guarantee. There’s a difference.
I don’t know if Nordstrom has changed theirs, but they did something for me years ago that blew me away. I was on a work assignment in SF in the 80s that went longer than the week expected, so I took some clothes to a laundromat so I could wear them again. Unfortunately, someone had left an open lipstick tube in the dryer I used for my whites and, of course, they were ruined. I didn’t care about the underwear, but the white pants and jacket almost made me cry. I went to a mall looking for similar replacements and wandered through a Nordstrom (had never heard of the store at the time) when a salesclerk asked if she could help me. I told her no, I was just browsing to replace a couple of items that had been ruined in the wash, and I told her the story. She asked me what brand they were, and I told her I didn’t know. She told me to bring them in and they would replace them if they carried that brand. I didn’t understand what she was saying at all. I told her I lived in another state and the items weren’t purchased at Nordstrom. She said it didn’t matter, if they were a brand they carried, they’d replace them. I brought the items in the next day and, unbelievably, they replaced both. (And the Nordstrom price on the jacket was north of twice what I had paid for it elsewhere.)
I know most people would end this story with “and now I’m a Nordstrom customer for life,” but Nordstrom is in a category of stores I don’t shop at, so I’ve never bought anything from them. But I do tell the story for the benefit of others who might shop there.
Also, DH used to buy items from Coach when they had a lifetime replacement policy on their leather goods. I guess that went away a long time ago. DH still sighs about it.