west elm — Local services in Bellevue

First off, we bought a number of big pieces of furniture from West Elm a couple of years ago and we’re overall happy. But today - I’m shocked at how poor the ONLINE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE and phone customer service were. It is abominable.

Quick summary of the issues:

Out of stock items don’t get reflected on the online store in a timely manner. This is going to waste a ton of customers’ time building a cart full of sold out items. Boy you have a vast amount of merchandise. Time wasted.

Some clearance items are pick up in store only. I entered my US address to check for store pick up availability. And I would still end up with an item in the cart for pickup in-store in Canada. Time wasted.

Customer service rep has no interest in helping you or helping West Elm make business or keep a frustrated customer.

Detailed experience:

Today Saturday I saw in my inbox West Elm is running a Clearance extra sale and I was immediately attracted to a few items on the page I landed on - The Crinkle Basket collection that contains different sized items. I was so excited to have found these items at a great price, I was ready to check out. But then I thought I might as well check out a few more things some I’ll have to pay shipping and I am happy to shop a little more to support my favorite businesses during the Covid Pandemic (so many of our favorite businesses have declared bankruptcy or moved to massive store shutters by now: Neiman, Nordstrom, JCrew, etc and I’ll not pull restaurants into this topic).

I spent about an hour piling in more good deals I found on the sale and ended up with $200 worth of non furniture items. I was excitedly going to checkout my cart. The next page after entering my address I saw a message that item 1 was no longer available. Continue, next page I saw item 2 no longer available. Continue, next page, repeat and repeat. Several pages later, I’m left with four mugs totaling $36.

I’m beyond bummed. What went wrong? Ok, somebody saw the same items and beat me to the checkout. Bad luck. I went back in the website without logging in, to see if there’s a chance these Crinkle Baskets are still available. Yes they are! Add to cart! Let’s start all over as another unsuspecting customer! Nope, I called customer service to see if they get a better picture of inventory to look for that chance I can get at least one or tell of these baskets. To their credit, their customer service runs Monday to Saturday.

I was told these items are not available. I complained that the website still hasn’t reflected the sold-out status even after a customer has failed to check them out of the cart. The rep says she apologize and some of them are left fort in store purchase only. I asked if I could ask the store to ship out to me, she said You Can, is there anything I can help you with. This all sounds reasonable when customer service will have been 100% replaced by AI. But I’m really let down by the human response I received.

Do I find furniture and homeware items I like at West Elm? Yes. Am I going to go back to shop at West Elm Online? Probably not until I know for certain they have fixed up with a robust inventory control on...

I have been in and out of the show room a few times while we decided on two purchases. The staff suggested that we order our items through the store, vs. online. Then if we were to have any issues with our order we could call a real human at the store and not the 800 number for customer service. I'm glad we followed their advice!

The Haven Swivel chairs we purchased are amazing. The staff recommended the performance velvet and I'm glad we went with their suggestion - I never would have picked that type of fabric on my own. It is holding up to kids and cat well so far! I'm grateful for the designers in the store.

The Table we purchased was less perfect. :/ We needed a small table and while the dimensions were great (as was the durability, color, etc), the legs of the table were such that we couldn't fit 2 chairs on the long side and we needed one short side of the table to sit against a wall (small space!). After living with it for 5 weeks I called the store and asked if we could return it. We loved the table but the chair issue wasn't practical. The manager was very nice and even though we were out of the 30-day return window, they agreed to make the exchange for store credit - an easy yes for us and something they didn't have to do. I doubt that the 800 number for an online purchase would have been able to have that latitude in making the exception.

I'm grateful for the design staff, manager, and the showroom so I can check-out finishes and furniture in person....

This place sucks. We ordered a king bed frame with their "White Glove Delivery"

On the day it was scheduled, my SO took a day off since they only deliver on week days. No big deal. Except, they called when they were supposed to arrive to let us know the hardware didn't come.

Fun fact- we sold out prior bed and had the person pick it up the day before.

So, we were on hold for a couple weeks. Today was the second scheduled white glove delivery day. Luckily, the SO was allowed to work remotely for the day, so a second vacation day wasn't used - and, SURPRISE SURPRISE, white glove delivery has now misplaced the feet (this issue wasn't mentioned earlier...), so they don't know when they can complete the order.

Another thing - west elm contracts with a third party for white glove delivery. Which mean they've been pointing fingers at eachother for the last several weeks. WAY TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY WEST ELM, or White Glove Delivery third party vendor, or whoever the hell you people are. Not to mention, when it was stated that we're sleeping on the couch, the customer service person responded with "I used to be homeless so I know how that feels." Congrats to her for making it out of the struggle, but really, know your crowd.

In other words, these clowns suck. Cancelling order,...