L.L.Bean — Local services in Salem

I Went in tonight to spend several hundred dollars on new hiking appreal, shoes, and socks. The female sales associate who I had to track down, was perfectly useless. I described the look I was going for (leggings and layers) and she was unenthusiastic and lazy about helping me find anything. After finding a waffle quarter zip long-sleeve in a pretty color on my own, I asked her for help with shoes. She referred me to the stores "hiking shoe expert". This guy preceded to tell me I was a size 10 to 10.5. I literally laughed out loud. I probably buy a new pair of shoes every one to two months and have never worn anything beyond a size 8. He then looked me in the eye and said "well, as we age are feet expand".. As if I was supposed to believe my foot grew two and half sizes since I entered my mid thirties. So patronizing and rude. He then proceeded to bring out size 10 and 10.5 shoes that were clown shoes on me and I demonstrated I could fit my whole fist in the back. He then said if I get anything snugger than that I would get blisters. Um.. no, wearing a shoe 2.5 sizes too big is what will rub and give you blisters. We then went through the same process with sizes 9.5 and 9. Still to big. He eventually brought out some sizes in the original size I requested, and what do you know? Size 8 was a perfect fit. Plot twist though, the store has nothing in my size of the styles I originally requested. So, it is likely he knew that from the beginning and was just trying to convince me to buy a size that is completely inappropriate to make a sale, not because my feet have exploded in size in recent months due to my old age. The whole experience was a disaster. I ended up buying the socks, since I tried on the shoes with them and the half zip because I liked the color, but could have done without any sales associate assistance. Bought a pair of Salomons off Amazon which is what I should have done in the first place. It's such a shame sales people offer nothing to the shopping experience anymore besides negativity...

Good: A gorgeous store, plenty of staff, an excellent inventory. Many things that showed out of stock at every other LL Bean in New England were in stock here. Also a pond behind the store which I THINK you might be able to use to test out kayaks looks amazing.

Bad: I was there yesterday around 6pm, and while there were approximately 4 customers, and at least 10 team members on staff at the time, I found it really difficult to get assistance purchasing hiking boots for my two daughters. I'm not sure if the cranky kids scared them off (understandably, I don't like my children when they're cranky either, but having a staff members assistance would have given me an opportunity to make them less cranky) or if they were simply aloof but every time we needed a different size or style I had to go hunt someone down from across the store, they would eventually get the shoe but it was always the wrong color or style from what I requested and by the time I'd even opened the box the staff member had disappeared again. What should have taken 15 minutes ended up taking over an hour. In what appeared to be a totally empty store.

After we were there 40 min or so, a really kind older staff member did come over finally get us the size/color we needed for one of my daughters and was truly excellent, he stuck around to make sure it was the right shoe, that it fit, and if it didn't he was right there to get another pair. I only wish the literally SIX staff members we interacted with before he showed up could have done the same a bit sooner.

The store is gorgeous, but I'm posting this review because this is a SUPER kid filled area, and I'm hoping the staff members might get some training on how to handle it when a mom with multiple kids comes in. The answer is not to run away and hide from them, if you want the kids to buy the kid items and leave, helping them is the best way to get them out of the...

My parents bought a fleece for my son for Christmas at the Conway, NH store on 12/5/24. He's had it since Christmas day and it’s already falling apart. I brought it to this store in an attempt to return/exchange it because my son liked it and was upset he couldn't wear it anymore. My parents couldn't find the physical receipt so they gave me their credit card statement and the credit card they they made the purchase on to locate it that way. First, the store associate suggested I was lying about it being purchased on 12/5/24 because "it looks like he's had this for a long time." (Clearly that’s the issue because it’s been used for all of one month). Then they told me because I didn't have the receipt they had no way to do a return and I needed to call customer service to get the receipt. I did that but even with giving customer service the date of purchase; the store it was purchased at; the credit card number it was purchased on, etc., customer service could not locate the receipt. Customer service insists they have no record of the purchase despite that it was clearly charged to my parents’ credit card on 12/5. I wonder if they will maintain that position when they receive the charge back request/payment dispute from Discover? They tried to connect me to a manager but hung up on me TWICE in the process. So we were unable to successfully return this and I went elsewhere to replace it. From now on, we will shop exclusively at Patagonia and other companies that actually stand by their products. If you think about it, LLBean has no incentive to make a quality product now that they have such ridiculous return policies. My son has had better quality fleeces from Target for...