Academy Sports + Outdoors — Local services in Montgomery

This place sucks. Here’s my experience in the last week. We placed an online pickup order for a polo, supposed to be size S. We realized after leaving the store that we’d been given an XL, so we brought the polo back the next day. There were no smalls in that polo, in any color. I’m unclear as to whether the store ever had a S, but either way they definitely filled the order with a wildly incorrect size.

We then tried to return the wrong item, but the store’s return system was down, and they couldn’t process a return. Whatever there. So a few days later, we’re making a 3rd trip to Academy for a $30 shirt. On Saturday morning they had one register open and I stood in line for almost 30 minutes. Finally get to the register to return this stupid shirt, and I have the paper receipt with the shirt. But that isn’t good enough, the store also needed to see the email receipt, which was on my wife’s email, and I couldn’t get her on the phone while standing in line. I had to leave the store, again.

Recapping: we now have about 2 hours of time wrapped up in a $30 shirt, including three trips to the store, and we still have the wrong item, because the whole thing was the store’s screwup to begin with.

I also looked for some shoes for my daughter on the second trip, and the kids’ shoe section is a disaster. Completely scatter shot about the sizes they have stocked, and half the boxes (not the display ones) only had one shoe in them. We’ll never...

I am heading to do hurricane relief work in Big Pine Key and am gathering supplies to take with the group of us going down there. I needed to purchase some steel stakes to secure palm trees that are damaged from the storm. I went to the Montgomery Academy Sports Store and purchased these stakes. I talked with the salesman in the back and notified him of our mission and asked him if they could give us some kind of discount and was told no. I asked him to ask the manager and he did and the manager said no. When checking out of the store the manager was up front chit chatting with an employee and a customer ( doing nothing) and I again asked him face to face if he could help us out and he again said no. All the other companies have been good about discounting supplies. Lowe's of Wetumpka, Marvins in Millbrook, Harbour Freight, Home Depot all have been helpful especially Lowe's in Wetumpka. After being told no face to face I told him I appreciated it and then proceeded to name the other companies that have responded responsibly. I have bought alot of product from academy over the years but this experience has left a bad test in my mouth with the company and particularly with...

Update 7/8/24: Went in today after not visiting for a while and the shelves were about 1/4 bare. When I was leaving, a man carrying a new backpack with tags on it that was stuffed full (very obvious theft) walked out and none of the employees even said anything to him. Also, clearance shoes are no longer sorted by size and other areas of the store were disorganized. I bet this Academy will not last much longer. East Montgomery is going downhill fast. Pretty standard as far as Academy Sports goes. Their prices are fair, which is significantly better than average prices at several competitors. They also often have clearances with great deals. This Academy has a smaller Kayak and Kayak Accessories selection than some Academys I've been in. Their fishing equipment is mostly freshwater, gun, camping, and other outdoors activity selection is good. Update: Academy has shifted somewhat from actual outdoor gear to more trendy outdoorsy-like things like fire pits, pizza cookers, etc. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of. I just tried to get a force air propane heater for a shed and all they had were...