west elm — Local services in Alexandria

Believe the reviews you see online, we were hoping for the best but this company is truly as awful at delivering as everyone says.

We ordered 3 items from West Elm at the beginning of July, a king size bed frame, small table, and small coffee table with white glove delivery. We paid for white glove delivery specifically because we wanted help with the assembly of the king sized bed, the assembly of the two small items were just a bonus making the white glove worth it.

Then despite a promised delivery date of end of July, it is now mid August and West Elm cannot provide a date when the bed frame would even be shipped. They said it could take until end of September but even that is not guaranteed. So we have no bed to sleep on in our new home despite us moving in weeks after the original promised delivery date.

We called to cancel the bed since they have no idea where it is or when it would be delivered as we need to order a bed from another company. We also asked to cancel the white glove delivery and just pay standard shipping since without the bed we ordered, they would be charging us the full white glove fee to assemble the two small items and not the bed as well as originally agreed as it isn’t arriving. This we requested before any delivery service was rendered, West Elm hadn’t even yet reached us to schedule the delivery, let alone deliver and assemble it. Yet they still refused to refund the additional charge for the white glove delivery despite them acknowledging we wouldn’t be getting what we paid for. The supervisor we escalated to was the rudest, most unhelpful “customer service” person I’ve spoken to in my life, they kept interrupting us then just hung up after we were on a call with first tier customer service for over an hour.

We ended up having to dispute the bed charge and the white glove delivery charge with our credit card company. All of this was so unnecessary given they were the ones who were delivering the bed months late and with still no indication of a delivery date from their end, and we were not going to get the white glove delivery service we paid for assembly of the bed, so why refuse a refund before the service had even been scheduled? We were still even agreeing to pay the standard delivery fee on the remaining two items in the order which were ready to be delivered but held up by the bed that was delayed for months.

We ordered furniture from two other companies (Casterly and Article) for the house also in July around the same time, all arrived in great condition and exactly on time for similar price as West Elm. So please don’t ignore the online reviews like we did. Search Reddit as well as Trust Pilot. This is a systemic problem with West Elm delivery and they don’t care about...

I am very dissatisfied with the service and experience I received at this location. West Elm is known for great products and great service. I recently went in to inquire about an order I placed and returned an item that was sent to me with the wrong color. When I returned the item, a new order was generated for the correct color. However, the store did not honor the price I was originally given and it could only be fixed with customer service. The sale associate’s attitude was very nonchalant. The second bad experience happened the same day. The store was having a 75% off of lighting sale and sold me a chandelier shade with missing hardware. When I got home, I realized the pendant was missing the rod and electrical hardware. I contacted the store and I was told because the item was on sale, I could not return the item. The same sale associate came on the phone and said I could find the hardware at any electrical store. I searched several websites, Home Depot, Lowe’s and three specialty electrical stores. In all instances, I was told that it would be a specialty piece and specialty chandelier shades like the one I purchased from West Elm are item specific. I once again contacted customer service and I was referred back to the store because I should not have been sold a piece of lighting with missing hardware. After numerous calls and wasted time. I was given a 10% coupon toward the purchase of another chandelier shade. I normally don’t like to write bad reviews. However, given this experience I don’t want to have anyone else have this bad experience with this local store. I am sure this location makes a lot of money and my review won’t matter. However, I for one will never shop at this location and I won’t recommend this location to...

I purchased a few reed diffusers from here before the pandemic and they were worth EVERY PENNY! Recently I’ve been having a hard time finding ones with a good scent that also lasts. I purchased this one from West Elm this week and I’m gravely disappointed. The scent goes in an out sometimes you smell it sometimes you don’t it’s moreso you get a wift vs a lingering smell. For 29.00 this is beyond ridiculous! I’m not risking them anymore I don’t care how good it smells in-store! I don’t think West Elm is all bad. The variety is really nice. The quality appears equally well. The store makes you want to browse. My issue is the extremely high shipping cost. Not to mention some of their items like rugs are just over the top high. Then the return policy is slanted so you need to be careful if your purchasing a very high ticket item. I had a very good experience over the phone when I called and had a product question. Then I followed up an went to the store and received again a very good experience. When employees don’t greet and welcome you and have a rudeness with their body language it turns you off. I didn’t feel or see that at all. As much as I enjoyed walking around the store and saw a lot of things I could use, I decided to to go Home Goods and was able to find a really nice rug that was only 250 vs the 899 price West Elm wanted. I’m not objective to returning to West Elm to purchase some accessories. For me I’ll probably never order anything from them because the shipping is outrageous so if I can’t buy in store I just...