Ashley Store — Local services in Hattiesburg

Ordering furniture from here has been one of my biggest regrets. We needed a kitchen table, couch, and bedroom set with mattress and we payed cash for everything. We had to change the couch and dining table twice because we were told due to shipment/manufacturing delays, we would not receive those pieces until December 2020 or later. We were told we'd receive our furniture over two orders and portions of the bedroom set and couch would arrive with each order. This, of course, was not the case. Every delivery was missing items, we ultimately had to cancel the couch because Ashley's kept pushing the date. When we cancelled the couch, it took three weeks to confirm the cancellation, they attempted to cancel our bedroom furniture as well and they kept forgetting to cancel the couch and refund us. Once we finally got refunded for the couch, we were able to place an order with Miskelly's and we had a sectional with four days. We received the bedroom furniture in separate orders which we were warned would happen. We received the bed frame and mattress first. Within one hour of the bed arriving, the front leg broke when I was getting off the bed. I fell out of the bed as it broke and my cat was under the bed and would have been crushed if the whole bed collapsed. My husband just had shoulder surgery a few days prior so I had to fix the bed by getting paint cans and towels under the king size frame. Ashley's said they would send a temporary frame, they never did. We slept on the broken frame for about a month before another arrived. We slept on the new frame for a few days and we went out of town for three weeks. When we returned, we slept on the bed for two weeks before the screws became stripped and began to fall out of the frame. We attempted to fix this by screwing in a bracket at the headboard and the footboard. We informed Ashely's of the issue right away. This was mid-January. The employees at Ashely's Hattiesburg location told us they needed to contact the store manager but if we were okay with it, we could trade in the bedframe for the other bedframe in the set which is less expensive but would need a box spring/foundation. They said since this wasn't our fault and we obviously would've gone with the better quality bed from the beginning had we known this other bed was so poorly designed, they would ensure we wouldn't pay anything out of pocket. No one contacted us after this initial encounter or anytime after. We were constantly expected to call the store (the store's number does not go to this location anymore) or go to the store in person. Every time we showed up, we had to reexplain our situation and have an employee send an email to the manager. For whatever reason, the manger was never present and had no sense or urgency. It took nearly two months for the manager to acknowledge the situation and say they were not willing to work with us. Someone at the store also placed an order for the new bedframe without informing us or ordering the box spring/foundation. This meant Ashley's intended to take the broken bedframe which was again supported by paint cans and towels and leave us with a bedframe we could not use because we didn't have a box spring and they didn't bother to inform us. It took another week for us to get any information on this and finally get a box spring ordered. We could only get the assistant manager to speak with us and finally agreed on 20% off on the Ashley's foundation. I also learned at this point that Ashley's sold us a Tempurpedic mattress, mattress cover (per warranty), and our bedframe in September and told us we didn't need a box spring/foundation but according to the Tempurpedic website ever Tempurpedic mattress needs a box spring/foundation of some king, so don't trust Ashley's to keep you in compliance of your warranty when buying an expensive mattress. It also took three attempts for Ashley's to deliver the new bedframe. For some reason, they only ordered the headboard, no rails of foundation, but they still wanted to take away our old frame at the time of each...

The furniture is lovely. The "white glove" delivery service leaves a bit to be desired. I purchase a couch, loveseat, 3 tables and 2 lamps. When delivered, 1 of the lamps looked like it was going to fall over. The delivery man was going to leave it that way until I said something, then he properly assembled it. I didn't realize until he left that the loveseat was assembled incorrectly. Luckily, my husband and I were able to correct it.

Then we didn't realize until a day later that one of the tables was absolutely incorrectly assembled. It was so wobbly that it was at risk of falling over. I spent the next week on the phone with the warranty department trying to get it corrected. I kept getting transferred and then told I would receive a call back. No one ever called. I made multiple trips to the store, only to be told they couldn't do anything for me. Finally, after a full week of getting the run-around, I was able to submit a warranty claim. The table was finally replaced.

Edited to add: It is now one year later. I have submitted another warranty claim because the raising motor mechanism on one of the seats is no longer raising the footrest. I submitted a claim 8 days and was told I would receive a call within 24 to 48 hours. That has not happened yet. I have called multiple times, been hung up on multiple times, and then told that I have to send a video...of the footrest...not working. That is absolutely ridiculous. So I took the obligatory video of the non-functioning footrest. It looks exactly like the photos I had already sent in. Because it's NOT WORKING.

I called 72 hours after sending the video and was told that I would receive a response 24 to 48 hours after sending the video. When I pointed out that it had been 72 hours, I was told that my video had not been reviewed yet, but that I would receive a response within 24 to 48 hours of sending the video. We went around in circles like that several times. The representatives must be working off a script and don't have the ability to actually hear or understand what they are saying.

Edited again to add: It is now 2 weeks after my recent addition to this review. I finally reached someone called an "Escalations Specialist." She got the parts ordered. I was told they would be mailed in 10 to 14 days. Then I would have to schedule a technician to come to make the repairs. Now, 2 weeks later, I received a call from the Specialist that 1 of the parts will not come in for at least 5 more weeks. But maybe longer. I will be going 2 or more months with a couch that does not function as it is supposed to.

The Specialist told me that this repair is not being done under the extended warranty that I purchased since the problem occurred before the couch was a year old. She happily informed me that if I do not use the warranty before it runs out in 5 years, I will receive a refund of the amount of the warranty. By means of a credit in the Ashley store. I actually laughed out loud. I informed her that I will never EVER step foot in an Ashley store...

I came in on Black Friday morning pretty set on getting the sofa set that I had looked at a few days earlier. Upon opening the door, I was greeted by a woman who sits behind the front desk with a smile; everything seems normal. About 10 seconds later, there was an older couple getting in and I couldn't help but noticed how fast the front-desk lady jumped up out of her chair to greet them and handed them a paper bracelet for some type of discount offerred that morning. "You don't have to wear it; just show it to us when you buy something" she said. Why didn't I get one? I wondered as I tried to come up with a logical explanation. May be it was some kind of senior citizen discount? May be she was just trying to be nice to older folks. As I tried to make sense out of the situation, several other customers came in, one by one, all different age groups. Each and every time, the lady got up to greet them and handed "ALL" of them the paper bracelet thing that I still didn't know was for. After talking to one of the associates at the store, I found out that all customers that walk into the store on Black Friday morning should be handed a paper bracelet for a discount on their purchases. Jordan (the sales associate that helped me) was incredibly nice and kind. He asked me for the bracelet when I wanted a quote for the sofa set. When I said that I was the ONLY one who wasn't handed one; he seemed pretty shocked and apologetic. I wasn't angry. I just felt incredibly sad and my heart dropped when I witnessed how all the other customers were treated so differently (the shopping scene from "Pretty Woman" immediately came to my mind). I tried to come up with any reasonable explanation I could think of but none of them made sense. Then I came to realize that I was the only "Asian" customer out of those that were there that morning. She probably thought that I couldn't afford to buy anything so she didn't care to waste any of her precious time getting out of her chair to hand me the bracelet. I ended up leaving the store sad and disappointed in not getting the sofa set I wanted but I refused to support a store that made me feel singled out and discriminated against. Ashley manager, please tell your employees to never judge a book by its cover. You shouldn't be so judgmental when it comes to sales business. Also, your front desk person is monumentally crucial to your business. They are the first people customers see and speak to, which in turn can significantly influence your sales. Although the store's furnitures are high quality without any doubt (I own several pieces that have lasted for years); I would never return to the store after this sad, disappointing and dehumanizing...