Spirit Halloween — Local services in North Olmsted

My daughter decided last minute she wanted to be M3gan so we went to the local spirit in Medina. They didn’t have the costume there but called North Olmsted and they had one and I was told they would hold it for me but if I don’t pick it up tomorrow (10/29) they would put it back on the shelf. It was already 9:00pm and since it’s a 40 minute drive to north Olmsted I decided I would go the following day. I pass through Strongsville to get to NO so decided to stop at the spirit there just to check. First of all google is wrong, took us to Brunswick, then the mall then finally someone at the mall informed me that it was across the street by the pet store. No costume there. I drive to NO and when I get there I get told they gave her costume away to the next person in line. The guy showed me his phone and it said hold through 10/29 which was today! It wasn’t even 24 hours like they said they were going to hold it for. So I said can you check another close spirit to see if they have one he tells me they do at rocky river. I ask him to call to double check and to hold it but he didn’t know where the phone was so I just said never mind I’ll drive there. So another 20 minutes later I get to another spirit and guess what? Can you guess?? Yep, NO COSTUME!!! At least the employees at the rocky river store were helpful and super friendly. She called brook park and they didn’t have one and apologized for the other stores incompetence(my word, not hers). So after 2 1/2 hours of driving around with 3 kids in the car I had no costume. To make matters worse there is ZERO customer service, when you call they say cHEck tHe wEBsiTe but there is ZERO inventory for any locations.Plus the costume I was looking for wasn’t even listed on their website to put the inventory number in on the phone. I drove 4+ hours to eventually get her costume from Walmart for half the price then what spirit charges. I wasted so much time, gas, money and exhausted every bit of patience I had. They need customer service, they need inventory for their stores on their website and until that happens I won’t be back to spirit for Halloween costumes...

Not everyone who does not donate to the Spirit of Children at the checkout is a terrible human and hates kids. Before cashiers send serious attitude to the shopper who says no to donating or rounding up, consider the following:

Maybe they shop at Spirit a myriad of times every Halloween season and have already donated or plan to donate at a later date.

Maybe they just came from another retail store (or five other retail stores) that also asked them to round up that same evening. Their "rounding up" budget may be done for the evening.

And finally, maybe they have their own cause to which they already devote a great deal of money. Perhaps they rescue dogs with pre-existing conditions that come with large veterinary bills.

To the higher-ups at the corporate office, please stop putting so much pressure on the managers and employees of these stores for donations. The stress of these donation "competitions" ends up being taken out of customers, and it makes for a less-than-enjoyable checkout process.

Our experience at North Olmsted during checkout was a prime example of the swift and downward mood change toward us as customers when we did not donate to SOC. Up until then, the gentleman at the checkout was very pleasant. After he was given the answer of "no" regarding a donation or rounding up, the mood was...

WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!! The staff in this place are racist I couldn’t look around and shop in peace because they just kept on asking me if I still needed help looking, and just sending different staff to check on me normally I don’t care at all but it happen about 3 times in an hour and I noticed they just kept coming up to me, mind you I was the only person who’s skin color was different. I then picked out my costume and the staff at the register were rude I handed her cash in her hands and she was trying so hard so that I wouldn’t touch her, then I received my change it was placed on the counter very rude made me feel awful and worthless I left crying. I get that you don’t want any germs on your hands but maybe this isn’t the correct job for this person. NEVER had I EVER felt this way after leaving in establishment. Definitely be more diverse...