TOPS - Texas Office Products & Supply — Local services in Austin

tl;dr: No returns. They charge 25% for exchanges of new items, and you only have 15 days. No returns or exchanges on used items.

I've been a loyal customer of TOPS since the early 2000s and had only bought used items before now. I used to love digging around in their cavernous warehouse on East 5th.

But I'm grown and decided to level up and get a really good chair. This time, I sat on dozens and bought a new chair, had a great time getting excellent customer service from Rachel, and brought it home. Unfortunately, I realized it doesn't fit with my desk keyboard tray because of the way the arms are designed. I emailed the same day about exchanging it, but hadn't heard back from the email 2 days later, so I called to find out about exchanging it, planning to buy a more expensive chair. Then I learned that there's a 25% charge to exchange a new item. This means that for a $250 dollar chair, I'll be paying $65 to exchange it and buy a more expensive chair. Say what?

I think a policy that's unusual like that needs to be verbally stated to the customer prior to sale. I would have measured and returned prior to buying.

This policy pretty much sours my 25 years of good feelings about TOPS. To return a new item with tags on two days after purchase, for an exchange, should not cost 25%. That's pretty much stealing from the public. Management should consider the impact of this policy on customer feelings and make a...

During the covid crisis I needed a new chair to work from home. I spent a lot to get what I thought was a good chair, but after a few days I found it didn't fit me was was causing significant pain in my legs. TOPs wanted 23% for me to exchange it for another chair. I agree I made a bad purchase and it's their right to set terms on returns. Their undisclosed "restocking" fee will make me never to business with them again. It's not on the receipt or on the website, only on a small sign that I was supposed to see in their office while masked and trying to avoid the virus. I was trying to do the right thing by limiting exposure and I cost myself hugely. I should have spent a lot more time sitting in that chair before I bought it. They would not even give me any (none at all) store credit on the restocking fee. I'm trying to do the right thing and limit exposure, clearly they don't care about customers. I wasn't asking for everything back, just to work with me, I got nothing. You should not expect any flexibility from them even in a pandemic. If you're a customer,...

Went to the Kramer store to buy an Aeron chair. Looked on Ebay and 2 other stores on line but wanted to buy local. Tops has all Aeron chairs at the same price $ 595.00. After looking it was apparent that some were older as evidenced by different mechanism levers, some were in better shape than others, and some were missing features like lumbar and forward tilt. I asked the lady at the front desk if they accepted offers lower than the 595.00. "No, the owner will not negotiate" was the answer. I said that I noticed that they were not all the same quality and not all the same features...... and at that point she interrupted me and told me that I should leave. I really wanted to buy the chair today and I really wanted to buy locally. I was shocked. I went to Ebay and got a fully functional chair from a top rated seller for $ 503.00 including delivery. Unusual for Texans to be that rude, so I'm guessing...