West Marine — Local services in West Melbourne

I had the absolute WORST experience with West Marine in Melbourne today! The worst and I WILL NEVER return! So today I walked in to return a few products. On Nov 22 I went to one of there stores in Jacksonville to purchase a snap kit and some fasteners for a project. When I arrived home I realized the kit was completely broken. (See attached picture/I also recorded the product the day I bought it and saw it was broken). They had wrapped the kit together in plastic and resold it to me. If that’s not bad enough I have been trying to return these items for weeks. I’m a full time RVer traveling the country so the next store that was closest to me was Daytona. After driving an hour to get there they were unable to process any returns because their internet was down and they refused to hold the product until it was back up as they said they can’t be liable for any products left behind. I left the store disappointed hoping I was in a location close to another west marine in the near future. Today I drove from Orlando to the store in Melbourne and had an even worse experience. I was unfortunately “helped” by Norine. Now whether she is a manager or not is still to be determined as when I asked her if she was a manager or not she REFUSED to tell me. She literally told me “ I don’t have to tell you anything”! I was in shock! Shock! Unbeknownst to her I immediately put my phone on record mode and continued to ask her. “ Are you a manager or not?!” She finally answered yes but she was not the general manager. (I have the video recording). This all started when I tried to return the broken snap kit along with a few fasteners I was unable to use in my solar panel project. They were unopened and obviously from west marine. She told me she could and would not accept them as a return since I had misplaced the receipt. I had signed up for their loyalty program after I had purchased these so the only thing on the computer was the snap kit and they couldn’t trace it back using my credit card. I asked her to please do a store credit as I couldn’t used these fasteners for the solar panel and was already upset they sold me a broken snap kit in the first place. Her response once again shocked me. She told me no and I should “sell them to a friend if I wanted my money back”. I was in awe. Sell them to a friend? I’ve never dealt with this lack of customer service in my life!!! I am a proud owner of a few Texas restaurants which has blessed me with the funds to travel. Guest service is what I know! This company or atleast this store lacks it in spades! These are not cheap fasteners. Total cost is nearly $90. The receipt was unfortunately misplaced at the Daytona store when I tried to make my first return but couldn’t because “the internet was down”. I will be calling Shane the General Manager tomorrow. Let’s see how he handles this but I will never again return to this establishment or to any West Marine again!!! The way Norine handled my complaints were UNACCEPTABLE! She repeatedly told me she didn’t sell me the broken kit so it wasn’t their fault. I don’t care if it was your store or another franchise store.. your company sold me a broken item, wrapped it in plastic and resold it to me. Now I’m stuck with $90 of fasteners I can’t not use for anything. Store credit is all I asked for. I hope someone in corporate reaches out to me so I can provide both videos and they can retrain Norine on how to deal with guests in the future, even though I think she has no business dealing...

I'm about to go real commercial fishing for the first time, just offshore and on short notice, a bucket-list item. Especially want to figure out how the captain finds and identifies the location, exact type, and catches his schools of fish entirely at night using no hardware but his five senses, nets, and brawn. Knowing I'll be jumping into the water to help with the nets etc, not the safest activity in the dark for a genuine novice, he recommended I wear specific gear. Literally no one in the Melbourne area had it, but was on the West Marine website. Chris repeatedly called their other Florida stores listing it in stock to ensure it would be here within 4 days, usually getting disconnected after waiting 10 minutes, while I was standing there. He called an hour after I left to say he finally found my size Helly-Hansen off-shore bibs in Ft Lauderdale. Everything arrived in two days, in the correct sizes and no shipping. Having the right equipment can make all the difference, and I can't wait to go tonight. That is what I...

We were completely lost! We took an Uber from our hotel to get on our dinghy and go back to our catamaran, only to find our dinghy stabbed to death 6 times and the motor stolen. We had no way back to our boat. Well, we have an account at West Marine so off we went. I don't know how we got so lucky to be greeted by Shane Allen but he literally changed our day from hopeless to ok, we can handle this. We came in with a list of dinghy, locks, harness, etc. You know what we needed. Well, he went to work and even delivered the dinghy himself to where we were stranded! He was an angel in disguise and I am so happy that he came into our lives. Completely and utterly grateful, ...