Academy Sports + Outdoors — Local services in Virginia Beach

I’ll start by saying I was looking forward to getting an academy in the area. Went in to look for track cleats. I was not greeted by the person at the front door (who was not actively engaged with a customer). Ok cool no big deal. New store so I try to get the lay of the land. No help so far as I pass a couple associates. I see one and ask where the item I’m looking for is located after trying on my own at first. He shows me and then takes off. Cool, probably not his department. Stand around looking at the selection, which granted is early in the season so I didn’t have my hopes high. Had to flag another person down to ask about availability. He answered and was nice. I know people have jobs and tasks to do but for a store that was relatively empty in the morning before noon, you would expect a better level of customer service. I wanted to give academy my money. Unfortunately, I went around the corner and was immediately helped and made aware of the selection due to the season not completely starting. I was given suggestions on sizing and after my kid tried on a few sizes, ended up getting it ordered online in the store. It was easy and pleasant. The customer experience goes a long way for me personally when I’m spending money. Especially in this economy. I’m just a dad trying to get my kid geared up for one of two sports they participate in so the ease of a purchase or the helpfulness of staff goes a long way. I don’t expect a red carpet or anything, just good help when needed. I was disappointed but will give academy another go to check out their fishing selection since I always need (want) a new rod n reel setup...

3 stars earned based on variety of product, and professional sales staff.

2 stars lost because of nonsensical sales/pricing policies of store. Says Will beat competitor pricing but will not match pricing from academy’s own website to customer to purchase in store. Will honor website pricing if order placed through website for store pickup. That means that same people, same products, arbitrarily process payment through website rather than register, with same method of payment, wait for the online portal response, tag with pickup tag, and the hand purchased products to customer in store for website advertised price which could have been done in 1/4th the time using POS register.

Staff explained this was a store manager policy. Customer feedback to manager, notwithstanding professional behavior of sales staff, is this is a dumb policy.

Discourages in store shopping at brick and mortar location. You want customers in store because it generates showroom sales opportunity, and customer likely buys more from impressive in store inventory. Incentivizes instead more website shopping which pits stores like academy against businesses like Amazon, Walmart, etc. that are better at online marketing and customer has competitor price comparisons at fingertips. In the era where brick and mortar is losing to online delivery services this policy contributes towards making store manager and in store staff roles becoming obsolete.

I’m incentivized to buy...

Truthfully service kind of sucks. Came here when they first opened and looked at a coach gun. Knew I wanted it but didn't have a lot of time that day. Came back today to get it four people behind the counter. One helping a customer. One looks like they were putting in information on the computer. Two more faffing about. Me and another customer at the counter and they don't even come over to say hi or can I help you or anything. I give it about 5 minutes because I'm also looking at other things, but never have any of them walk over to me. The other guy goes and ask one of them for assistance and it still takes a couple minutes before they even help him because they have no idea where the keys are. Surely was going to purchase today, but now I'll go buy it...