At Home — Local services in Fort Wayne

Oh where to begin…….

At home has a ton of really great items for your home, indoors and out. We walked in with no intention of purchasing any certain item. Then we saw they had a great selection of outdoor umbrellas. We said, “oh we could use one of those for the patio” so we purchased one. We settled on a 10’ articulating umbrella for $130. Not bad I thought. On the way out my wife and I thought some twinkle lights would look great with it. So we found some and purchased two sets.

Fast forward a few days my wife sees that the same umbrella is on sale at At Home for 25% off. So she decides to go to the store and see if they are willing to honor the discount and give us a store credit or refund for the difference. The difference came to roughly $21.

The cashier had to call a manager. A younger female manager came to assist. She said, “we can’t honor the lower price like this.” My wife rebutted with, “can I return the item and re-purchase it at the lower price?” The manager answered “No, due to us knowing that you’re doing it just to get a lower price.” This infuriated my wife as it would most people. My wife said, “if that is the case I will return the entire order and purchase it from a local competitor”. Now that two managers are involved they came to the conclusion of “okay!”

So my wife went home, took down the umbrella, loaded our 1 year old son in the car and drove to At Home. She returned the entire order of $140 and got a refund. She then drove down the street and found that Menards had a 10’ articulating umbrella with built in solar lights for $100.

In the end At Home lost a customer that lives in and is a part of the perfect demographic for them over $21.

The local At Home managers could have simply honored the lower price and provided a $21 STORE CREDIT, which probably would have been used on a larger sale, all because they didn’t want to.

We will no longer shop there and will tell everyone that we know, and that live in the area, that the prices are exuberant compared to local competitors and that At Home is not here for the local customers in Ft Wayne.

Sincerely yours, One Less Customer.

P.S. thanks Menards for the great priced umbrella, as seen...

Stopped in for the first time today. I've been excited to check it out. I read reviews first and saw a lot of comments about items seeming a little bit higher priced. I decided to take that with a grain of salt and see for myself.

After visiting, here's my personal opinion. All of the items are very cute and I was in love! I feel they have a very large selection of anything that you'd need to decorate and design your home. The downside is... I agree that prices seem a bit too high. Similar items at homegoods, hobby lobby, etc... are priced quite a bit lower.

I'm not sure that I will be back anytime soon, I will stick with homegoods. If you have a bigger budget and money isn't a problem, at home would be good for you. If you're on a tighter income like my family is, at home may not be a good...

They have a great selection. Prices are ok. My complaint is that Holiday (Halloween) decor is not stocked well. I was checking every other day, even though I was told they only get a truck every 1-2 weeks. I even signed up for email notification for when an item is available. I never received an email for the items that I really wanted to get. By chance I went in to return something and there was 1 pumpkin that I had wanted. I purchased it. The others items now say out of stock. You couldn't even order online, never received notification. I wonder if FW doesn't get much or what. They need a better system and inventory...