The Brick — Local services in Saint John

I am delighted to see that so many people had a great experience with The Brick in Saint John NB. We were not so fortunate. We were moving out of province and as we needed a new bed and new TV for our new place we thought we would use a company that could deliver from the store chain coast to coast. We tried three Stearns and Foster king size mattresses and the one we could both live with was listed on the card for approx. $5000. I wasn't interested in investing $5000 in the mattress so the sales woman, Joanne F. said that she would speak to the manager. It took quite some time, approx. 20-30 minutes but she came back with a significant reduction, just a little over $3000. As she had spent the time to see if she could get us a better price we decided to move ahead with the Brick. We had never shopped at The Brick before except to purchase a Samsung Frame TV a couple of years prior. We actually added a large, new Frame onto the order with Joanne, so she made out like a bandit that day. BOTTOM LINE: The mattress arrived at our new home, delivered through the local Brick. Not only was it not the mattress we ordered, it was a lesser Stearns and Foster, hard as a rock. Had it not been impossible for me to sleep on, I would never have found out that not only did they replace the mattress that we ordered with the downline, the mattress that we actually paid for, the "$5000" mattress was actually approx. "$2500" full price. So the great "deal" that they said they gave us ($3000+) was $500+ more than the regular price. The local Brick staff and management in our new province and were wonderful. They checked the SKU numbers, found that we were correct and could not imagine why we were charged $3000 for the mattress. They checked to see if the Saint John Brick was a corporate or franchised store and were surprised to see that they were a corporate store, therefore same pricing as all corporate stores. They worked tirelessly to help us and to provide us with the product that we ordered at the truthfully listed price. Unfortunately, Joanne F. still gots her undeserved commission. Do your homework when buying from Joanne F. and her manager at the Saint John Brick. Shop around and price check with another corporate Brick on any quotes they give you. It seems pretty clear that it was a deliberate deception...

UPDATE: I want to reiterate that I've had very little issue with the in-store customer service and I really do feel that they're trying under the circumstances, any time I've gone in they've tried and have been very kind about everything. HOWEVER, I was finally given a GUANANTEED delivery date. When I went into the store a few days prior to confirm my delivery all of a sudden it was pushed back another week, after being offered a call back the day before my original GUARANTEED delivery date they called to let me know that it would be in Ontario in another month and delivered to me a couple weeks later. This is absolutely ridiculous. I understand the circumstances but let people know ahead of time that you have no clue how long its going to be. I'm now 4 months in going on 5, still no couch, will be getting a refund and NEVER offering my business to The Brick again. At the end of the day, regardless of the circumstances, fix your systems so you don't make promises you can't keep. I know this is a manufacturer issue but it's reflecting incredibly poorly on The Brick and their staff as well.

ORIGINAL: So far not impressed. Bought a sectional 2 months ago (mid August), the sales rep was excellent but was told the couch was delayed due to manufacturing and its expected to be in by September 24. That was no problem and I went in on the 20th to schedule a delivery date, I was only then informed that my couch got delayed ANOTHER month and it wouldn't be in until mid October. Now I was looking online and my couch is displaying an expected delivery date of mid November. To date I haven't received a single call from The Brick to even let me know about the delays let alone try to find an alternative option or solution. Its getting ridiculous, I never would have bought it had anybody even remotely suggested it could take so long.

I think the brick offers good deals and good products but if they don't have it in store don't buy it. NEVER trust them when they give expected delivery dates and don't expect any type of notice that's its been delayed or any help whatsoever. Once they get your money the good customer service goes out the window and they...

Long story warning, but hopefully it helps you.

First be warned that delivery can take a long time. I've made a couple of orders from The Brick; the first one went fairly well, but I had to wait 2 months to receive a couch and then received a call a few weeks away from my delivery date that the corner piece of the section wasn't available and would need to be delivered at a later date. This seemingly first OK experience is the reason the Brick was one of my first choices when later shopping for another item of furniture.

Later I decided to buy a TV stand; this would take 4 months to be delivered. In the store, I was told that the stand could be assembled by the team... When the delivery date finally arrived, the nice delivery men explained that they could not assemble the piece—and did not seem surprised in the slightest that the store had said assembly was included.

I was provided with instructions on who to call if I ran into any problems assembling the stand (non-subtle foreshadowing here). I started to assemble the item when I noticed that the pieces were not manufactured correctly in the factory (missing holes where cam screws should be installed); there were more than 3 locations on multiple pieces missing these holes. For some I was able to cut the surface layer to find the hole underneath, and for others there were no holes at all.

I proceeded to call the number and follow the instructions I was given. My calls went unanswered, and I was prompted to visit the website, where my remaining options were to call (the same number that indicates to go online) or fill out a form to be contacted in 3 business days.

Needless to say, I have received much better customer service at other locations that have picked up my calls after hours and solved my issues almost...