Duluth Trading Company — Local services in Saint Charles

An Utter Letdown in Customer Service

As an online consumer, one expects the bare minimum: timely delivery, accurate order fulfillment, and efficient customer service. However, my recent experience with Duluth Trading Company was, to say the least, a far cry from this simple expectation.

The predicament began with the delivery of shorts that were not the size I ordered. Unfazed, I initiated an online exchange, promptly printed the return label, and sent the products back the very same day. That evening, I received an email notifying me that my return had been processed. In hindsight, this communication was a poor predictor of the ordeal that was about to unfold.

Fast forward two weeks, my replacement order had not arrived. Deciding to investigate, I reached out to customer service, only to be told that the return department was lagging five weeks behind. Apparently, the email notification I received was nothing more than an automated response, bearing no reflection of the actual processing timeline. The information was misleading and the lack of transparency was startling.

In an era where customer experience is the prime competitive edge, the service agent's defense that "they are not Amazon" seemed far from comforting. The reason given to justify this horrendous delay was fraud prevention, an explanation I found hard to swallow. The customer service representative couldn’t offer any solution to expedite the process either, painting a picture of an unmanageable system and a deeply flawed customer service approach.

Exasperated, I decided to cancel my order. After a five-minute hold, I was informed that the procedure to cancel was being "worked on". When inquired about the timeline, the agent responded with uncertainty.

The product might be high quality, but this ordeal with Duluth Trading Company has revealed a company whose grasp of customer service is tenuous at best. The system appears to be convoluted, unresponsive, and riddled with inefficiencies. The company's vague procedures, coupled with the disconnect between its automated communications and real-world operations, make for an utterly frustrating shopping experience.

In this digital age, with countless alternatives at our fingertips, companies should understand that efficient and effective customer service is not optional, it's obligatory. I am profoundly disappointed with my experience and can't recommend Duluth Trading Company to others until significant improvements are made to their customer service practices.

Update: Two weeks after the cancelation of the order, I got a form letter from customer service, it said they were sorry and gave me a $15 gift card. I acknowledge the effort, and maybe one day I will consider...

I was looking for bib overall shorts for gardening & had seen a pair in the store at Mark Twain Shopping Center last summer. The Store is off Hwy. 70 turning right into St. Charles onto S. 5th St. and then left at the next light into Mark Twain Mall. The Store sits at the far back plaza past Bass Pro next to Bellacino's. They had the exact pair I wanted still, only no size small! The clerk stated he could order them for me. I was ready to write a check & was told they cannot place orders by check. I told him that's okay, I will just pay with cash. I was shocked to hear him say he could not receive CASH! Only Credit or Debit which we have never used debit cards & are trying to stay away from CCs as we are on a fixed income and cutting back in retirement. We left & called their main offices. They advised us that what we should have been offered was the opportunity to purchase a gift card and then purchase the overalls on the gift card. So...for anyone wanting to avoid a similar situation...I suggest you do as we were advised by their headquarters and you should be fine. I looked online, but didn't like the idea of getting something from overseas and it not being what was advertised or the sizing not correct and them giving us grief about returns. I prefer to shop local and Duluth Trading has quality merchandise and though I have not purchased much there, I have nor been disappointed. I do recommend...

This company has gone to the birds!! Orders delayed without any emails! If you ordered something by mistake they have no way to cancel or change it, so they say??? you just have to wait for the wrong item to be delivered and return it ! While you better have enough money available to pay for the correct item on top of the mistake , we just spent over a thousand dollars on a duplicate order to get a holiday discount because they can't / refuse to find the order and cancel it. Calling is useless! I've spent so much money with this company over the past few decades I'm done with them ! It's like they have a caveman as a webmaster that can't design an ordering system that can handle a mistake. The tracking is useless if you order as a Guest! The call center can't help unless the items are backordered even if you just placed the order within the hour! I don't know who's running this company now? It's been going downhill since they got cheap and killed off the lifetime warranty. I'm starting to think they sold out to a corporation and have to please the investors before the customers. This business model won't last forever it will eventually kill a company like Cancer and the investors will move on leaving the business looking like it was hit...