REI — Attraction in Tualatin

I have mixed feelings about REI. They have a great selection of products and employees are generally friendly. If an employee is not knowledgeable in an area you are asking about, they will generally help find you an employee who is.

That said, REI corporate has laid off a staggering amount of employees over the last several years, and in other cases there have been employees I've known who moved from one location to another and REI refused to transfer them to the local store there (so they had to find a new job)

The product selection itself is great, and both the store and the website are laid out an intuitive manner.

They have one of the best selections of maps I've seen at any store. Far and above what the competition has. They have a great selection of hiking boots, crampons, sleeping bags, tents, electronics and more.

That said, they did get rid of their rental department here so you can no longer rent things such as snow gear, Bear canisters, camping and hiking gear, snowshoes, cross-country ski gear, cycling gear, paddling gear and more. So that's a real bummer, and I did deductive a few star for that because that's a pretty big loss.

The nearest rental location is Olympia washington, and the next closest is Tacoma, issaquah, the Seattle flagship store and Bellevue. So, needless to say it really sucks they cut the rental department here as there's nothing left in Oregon for this.

Overall, REI is a mixed bag. On one hand, they could treat their employees better and they could have kept at least one rental location in the Portland area. It's crazy to think they have six rental locations in the state of Washington and none in Oregon.

That said, they do have a great selection of gear and you can ship anything from the website to the store to pick it up, a the employees are generally friendly and helpful when you come in. They also sell all sorts of passes such as the America the Beautiful national parks pass, the Northwest forest pass, and even the yearly state parks passes.

REI used to be a great place, and even though it still has a great selection and friendly employees it's a bummer that it functions more like a large corporate entity now than the co-op they claim to be. At this point, REI is a co-op in name only, not in how...

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE- older woman with short hair, manager? I bought a pair of climbing shoes that ended up not fitting as well as I would have liked. I took them back the next day with the receipt. The woman at customer service started the return process and told me that I was welcome to pick out a different pair that fit better. She was very nice and helpful. So I went and started the shoe picking process. However, I shortly found out that she didn't do the process quite right, she had taken the receipt and the old shoes so I had nothing to "prove" that I had bought and returned a pair of 80$ bouldering shoes. When I had found a pair that I liked I took them back and it turned out that the woman had gone on break, that's fine but she didn't inform the woman that took over what was going on. I explained the situation and this new woman just looked at me like I was trying to scam her. She rolled her eyes and didn't believe me. She made these inconvenient huffy noises. I told her "Look lady if I was going to scam you wouldn't I come up with something better than this?" I asked her to go and find the woman that was here before and figure it out with her because it wasn't my problem if the process was done incorrectly. People make mistakes and that's fine but I don't really appreciate getting treated like a delinquent, being a 20 something I get enough of that everywhere else. This woman never apologized for the way she talked and interacted with me, I was...

FROM FAILED ORDER TO SUCCESS: I ordered something online and was excited to pick it up at the Tualatin store. Two minutes after I got there, I got an email that cancelled the whole order. I had someone look again and no such luck: the inventor said 2 were available, but nothing was on the floor or in the back. Bummer.

I decided to order it again because every store in the area had it except this one. I like the way the team put this together for me so I can walk out with some success. I don't like driving around, waiting in line, etc. In a few days, I'll get this at my doorstep.

As a business consultant, I have pretty high standards. But what I sometimes enjoy is seeing how a team handles setbacks and failures. I had a small order, but they treated it like I was buying up the whole story. They were nice. They were helpful. I think they actually cared! All businesses have glitches. There protocols that need to continuously be improved. Anyone can handle the easy stuff. I like the way these folks handled the hard stuff.

So now, I'm sold on the customer service and selection here. I never understood why so many people were crazy about REI. I mean, $900 sleeping bags? Get real. But they have a lot of high quality things with variable price points, product knowledge, and great customer service. I'm really glad I stopped in even if I didn't walk away with what I...