Big Whale Consignment — Local services in Seattle

I had a terrible experience & left an IG comment at first, but they blocked me instead of simply Hey Sorry about that! I went on Sunday, June 29, afternoon. I was shopping for 2 dining chairs.I went to big whale consignment & everything has big signs don’t touch serious inquiries only. In the display window, I saw some pale pink chairs, and I thought how cute and I tried to shimmy around it without touching it to find a price, but there wasn’t one. I asked the person working there and she said everything’s on the website so I went out to my car and got my phone. I started scrolling through but it's very time consuming & couldn’t find anything listed that was in the store. I ask her again for a price she ignores me. I go further back into the store but all the chairs are on a high shelf just underneath the ceiling, I'm 5'2. I asked her how could I shop for chairs I cant see or reach or touch. She again points me to their website. Again, the chairs are not all listed on their site, for example the pink chairs in the display. I try really hard to shop small & used, so I'm glad I remembered The Furniture Guy Consignment is right up the street & over on Greenwood N. Night & day experience, everything is displayed to be tested out, inspected & everything is priced. I was asked a couple of times "let us know what you need!" Anyway, in regardds to BWC I thought it a bizarre business model & felt bad...

Great selection but everything is priced way too high, despite what they say about the market. They also do not do any restoration work on their pieces so it’s really hard to justify paying these prices. There are plenty of other MCM dealers in Seattle that actually put in the effort so please spend your money wisely. Especially when this place is charging upwards of $600 for a coffee table.

edit: Word to the owners, you need to understand that the open market you referenced in your attempt to play the victim also includes the ability of consumers to label your items as over priced. I messaged your company directly via OfferUp asking about your restoration process and you fully admitted to not having one. I suggest taking the time and effort it took to craft a poorly constructed victim complex and apply it to learning the art of furniture restoration. My review was neither irresponsible nor was I making any blind accusations, I simply posted my opinion of your business and its practices that was formed from my experience with it aka a review.

As stated before, there are a number of MCM furniture dealers in the Seattle area that put in the work to earn the amount on their price tags rather than marking their estate sale...

I would never recommend this business to anyone. Although they appear to have hundreds of beautiful midcentury and antique pieces, this business is run by shady, disorganized people who have been ripping customers off for years. To name only a few issues, they regularly falsely advertise and misname pieces (ex. "Solid wood" when it's veneer, "vintage" when it's new), price gouge everything well beyond an appropriate value, keep a disorganized and inaccurate inventory system, and are poorly responsive/helpful to inquiries and/or resolution for these known issues. Buy your vintage furniture literally anywhere else for an earthly price and avoid giving more money to these dishonest individuals taking advantage of people who just want quality vintage.

I imagine the owner is just going to respond to this saying "you just don't understand how to price and curate a vintage collection like we do," and accuse you of picking on a "small business." If you'll notice their response to every other negative review (including on Yelp) is something similar, I think the takeaway is that is their only defense. Pretty illuminating that their MO is to make money, not to run a legitimate business or...