Urban Underpriced — Local services in Indianapolis

Let me preface this by saying the store has great furniture, and the aesthetic is super cool. But that’s where the compliments end.

Now for the fun part.

We ordered a couch and ottoman on May 23 for our new place that we were moving into in June. We ordered them from Julie, who told us everything would be ready for delivery in 3-5 weeks, which lined up perfectly with our move-in date. Fast forward to the week 5 mark, we hadn’t heard a peep from the store about our order being ready for delivery. So we call for an update. A manager tells us that their warehouse just got back up and running as it was closed due to the pandemic. Wait. Hold up. Your warehouse JUST opened back up? Meaning...that it was closed when we put our order in on May 23, and when Julie quoted for 3-5 weeks, that was a lie, and she knew it. Let alone, why did WE have to call and find this information out? This “family owned business” decided basic customer service protocols, like communication about shipment delays and being truthful weren’t important to them. Just the sale.

Needless to say, we didn’t get our order on time. It was delivered on July 16th, about 3 weeks after we moved in to our new place. Oh, and get this: we didn’t even get our whole order. Our couch was delivered, but our matching ottoman was MIA, and we were told that it would be ready for delivery “in a few weeks”.

The ottoman was delivered today, August 12. Almost an entire month after the couch. Both pieces of furniture are great, don’t get me wrong. But what an unpleasant experience to get them to our place.

I get that these are “unprecedented times”. I get that businesses have never dealt with a pandemic in this century. However, I also worked in customer service for years and understand that communication and the bare minimum of human decency should ALWAYS be at the core, no matter what is going on in the world. The pandemic didn’t shut down your phones. But forget the pandemic. This communication issue that we had doesn’t just seem to be just due to the pandemic. Read through some other reviews before COVID was a thing. Do better. Customers should NEVER have the responsibility of initiating communication about where their thousand dollar order is. Even a dentist doesn’t have to pull as many teeth as we did.

Thanks for the delivery fee refund, guys, but the likelihood of Urban Underpriced getting our business ever...

I normally love going into the Urban Stores mainly because of the unique products and positive interactions with the staff. I bought a few items for myself in the past and in turn I highly promoted the store and encouraged anyone to go there and at least go in and browse for a bit. So it pains me to write a terrible review about the experience I recently had at a place I thoroughly enjoy visiting. The sign I ordered took 11 weeks to arrive when I was originally quoted at max 8 weeks. When questioned why at the end of 8 weeks, my order was still not there, I was told they are custom made and that I was put on the calendar to receive a phone call on a specific day with an update on the status of my order. That expected phone call was never received. I did receive a text, two days later after I was supposed to receive that phone call stating my order has arrived. I showed up to pick up my order and they gave me one that was slightly damaged. "Luckily we ordered two" is how that situation was handled by the store associate. At this point, if there was an apology for handing out a damaged product, it was not noticable. I received a non damaged sign, tested it to make sure it was functionable, and left. Long story short, I had to initiate all of the communication even after I was told they would contact me. The product ordered did not look custom made, at least not to the point where it would take 11 weeks to produce just one. It looked highly identical to the one in the store and the fact they quickly replaced the slightly damaged one tells me the company has the capability to mass produce the product. From this customers point of view, it appears there was a mistake made somewhere between the time the order was made to the date of product arrival, that caused such a huge delay. No one taking ownership of their mistakes, terrible communication throughout the span of 2.5 months, and excuses rather than apologies is what keeps loyal customers...

The beginning was great when Julie Ewing said her spiel about deals, that she'd let us shop, and to find her if we had questions. I fell in love with a couch there, comfor-gel in the corner. I decided we should check on reviews and other locations nearby since Castleton has 10 furniture shops I can think of quickly. You know, nothing reeks of desperation more than being chased down while literally getting in your car. She was screaming at us to come to her if we had questions and gave us her business card. WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. And the sad thing is, you're going to read this as "I need to change my sales pitch to not add a limiter of the word 'questions'." But in reality, I'm in sales too. You read us wrong. Out of the dozen shops we went to, this is the only one where we were chased down. Gross.You lost a sale.

Still love that couch though, but I'd rather pay full price online and not deal with her again than save 20%.

In response to the owner: Ashley's across the street is where we went next. They read the situation right. Flat out said he would check in every 10 minutes only because he was required to. He then followed that up with "we don't chase you down like some other places do". And we all got a good laugh at how ridiculous it was. So clearly, I'm not the only customer who is frightened by this tactic because other sales people at other stores knew about it. I've bought plenty of furniture in my life. FIRST TIME I've EVER been chased down. Legitimately, I thought she thought we stole something at the speed and determination she ran out that store. So you willingly want this practice to happen? To have employees chase customers? Chasing or following are rarely interpreted as friendly or welcoming or caring. That just confirms I made the right choice in getting my couch from...