Oh, how could I forget Williams and Sonoma?
What is wrong with return policy at B& N?
They really don’t take returns at BN…or at least they have a gazzion policies against them. Why would I buy a book there and not be able to return it (e.g. A gift not liked or already had) when I can buy a book and return it at any number of other places.
I bought a book for my Peace Corps daughter. It turned out it was not needed. It took longer to ship it back and forth than allowable. I didn’t want money back…I would have been happy with an exchange…and I had the sales slip. Nope…over 30 days so they do NOTHING.
No wonder their brick and mortar stores are closing one by one.
Anyway…I miss our local bookstore…a lot. BN put them out of business.
Thanks Thumper. I guess I haven’t had to return so haven’t run into such obstacles.
We have a delightful independent store, Murder on the Beach bookstore. They have guest speakers on many Sundays.
I like Barnes and Noble because it’s the only store left in our area where I can walk around and look at books. I like it less nowadays, since they took 25 percent of their space and turned it into a Nook department at the front of the store. And when they took another 25 percent of the store for upscale toys, puzzles, and games, that annoyed me. But I still like browsing the books and go a couple of times a month.
I like Trader Joes. I don’t much like Wegmans any more - they’ve turned huge portions of the local store into a mini-mall - but I respect them for what they do: great service, decent variety, and good produce. The meat has taken a nosedive in quality over the past few years, so I buy that elsewhere.
I like my local Talbots because they let me shop in peace. The salespeople attach themselves to you like barnacles at my local Chico’s, so no thanks.
Walmart never, Target when necessary.
Won’t go into Walgreen’s. Last time I did it turned out that the prices marked on merchandise were the ones you paid if you carried whatever they call their customer loyalty/tracking card. Since I don’t want my purchases tracked by every retailer out there, I was expected to pay a higher cost for my small purchases. Nope, not going back any time soon.
I feel,the same way about CVS. Their “rewards” program is a huge waste of time. Huge. Same with Petco.
CVS has the most ridiculously long receipts. You can buy 2 things and have a receipt that’s 18" long or longer, partially due to all the coupons they attach to the bottom. Didn’t someone in the news dress up as a CVS receipt for Halloween one year?
My kids laugh at me because I’ve never been inside a Taco Bell. I avoid those places. It took me years to take my kids to an Olive Garden. They’ve since been back on their own. I just am not crazy about a lot of chain restaurants. My favorite chain restaurant and one that I wish I had around here is Cheesecake Factory. I love going to our local restaurants, nice ones and for fast take out. My parents were chefs and owned a restaurant, this may have something to do with that! My kids always had prepared from scratch meals. I remember one of them came home from a friends house when they were younger and said to me: " we had chicken noodle soup from a can, mom, how come we never have that"?? 
Hate CVS receipts! I throw them out as soon as I get home or my receipt draw would be filled to capacity in a week. Obviously I don’t bother with any of their coupons - not even the ones I get online. But the CVS closest to me is open 24 hours and that is important to me.
But I do get lots of those big dollars-off coupons on my CVS receipts.
Hate is a pretty strong word. There are stores I will avoid or I just kinda don’t like …but there is one store I hate…Verizon company owned cell phone stores! I tried getting help in them in the past, but the only thing they were helpful doing was taking my money…but only if I tried using their self serve machines which never worked.
If I was shot by a gun walking past the entrance door to a Verizon store, I wouldn’t even attempt to crawl into the Verizon store to borrow a phone to call 911 for help because I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Verizon store ever again. My blood pressure goes up just thinking about the bad experiences I had with Verizon…I hate Verizon stores.
I’m with lizard, hate is such a strong word. I’m not fond of Forever 21 or Claire’s and glad I don’t have to go into them anymore with a teenage girl. Won’t go into Lush as I can’t handle the smell. I find Chico’s too crowded and the sizing too confusing. I am not a fan of Dillard’s return policy so it’s a place I usually avoid.
I like my local Talbots as they are super helpful and the clothes fit me well. I also like White House Black Market. I try to use local businesses as much as I can. I have 2 local independent bookstores, I’m so lucky.
D had such a bad experience at Verizon when her phone broke she was so close to paying the termination fee just to not have to deal with them. My local store was helpful and she’s in another city and it was a nightmare. The good news is that we rarely have to deal with them, but when you do…
I don’t have problem returning books to Barnes and Nobles, as long as they are not magazines. But I only buy small token book for them because I get to browse for hours. The small book pays for seat for a few hours.
Love: Local stores such as Longfellow Books, Miccuci’s, Sweetser’s Apple Barrel, and Pat’s Meat Market. Patel’s Indian supermarket and ShopRite in Norwalk, CT, The Wilton Market. The LLBean flagship (also local). White Flower Farm in CT. Penzey’s in CT. Treasure Island in Chigago.
Good chains: Trader Joe’s, Costco, Sephora, TJMaxx, Home Goods, The Market Basket.
Stores I can’t stand: JC Penney, WalMart, Macy’s nowadays, Sears, most mall stores.
Department stores I used to love: Liberty’s and Harrods in London, Saks Fifth Avenue flagship on 5th Avenue, Bonwit’s a bit uptown, and most of all B. Altman. I Magnin in Chicago.
I bought some sealed note cards and journals for D to take on a trip.
By the time she decided she didn’t want them, B & N would not accept a return, not even for store credit only.
I won’t be going back.
I will say Verizon is not any worse than A T & T, the only other cell store I’ve had the “pleasure”, of doing business with.
AT& T, does not care if you ever return.
Indeed, during the fires in Eastern Washington last summer, AT & T, did not make any attempt to maintain service to customers. They just hightailed it out of there.
Verizon put up antennas and charging stations.
The only store that I go back to the US for: Target. And every expat that you speak with will tell you the same thing. There is just not an overseas equivalent. Good quality stuff all under one roof - from hardware to bakery. Plus, clean restrooms and dressing rooms, friendly staff and, if you’re really lucky, a Starbucks.
I shop Walmart all the time, because they really do have the lowest prices on most food items, but I always have to steel myself mentally for the trip. I hate, hate, hate the aesthetics of the store, the colors and signage, the noisy cavern-like acoustics, the crowds during most operating hours, and the aisles clogged with pallets of goods awaiting restocking during off-peak hours. It also never ceases to amaze me how, despite the fact that Wally World is known to have “the largest and most sophisticated distribution system” of any retail chain in the world, they nevertheless frequently run out of essential staples. If I didn’t have to be price conscious about groceries, I’d buy virtually everything from our local Harris Teeter, which is always clean, organized and well stocked. A new, fairly large Kroger is due to open here in about a month (though I don’t think it’ll be a Kroger Marketplace), so I’m looking forward to checking that out. There are Wegman’s stores where both my D and my sister live, and I generally love shopping in them, provided I have the energy to browse a massive food and goods wonderland. Speaking of food and goods wonderlands, my stepson and family live in Cinncinatti, where there is a famous grocery emporium called Jungle Jim’s. Man, is that place a blast to look around in!
Jungle Jim’s is on my “to-do” list - it’s a “must” go to place here in Ohio!
i know many folks hate Walmart, but with Sams club and Walmart next to each other where I live, I can park once, go into 2 stores, and get pretty much anything I want. And…Target is also close-by.
I do admit that I really love Walmart.com…you can get almost anything thru Walmart.com…and delivered right to your home for free. lol…I just had laundry detergent delivered to my home for free…ding dong, there was FedEx with my laundry detergent. yay!
Target.com also has this benefit (yay RedCard), but Walmart.com has literally a gazillion options and choices.
With the Redcard they ship free??