West Marine — Local services in Woburn

I am a loyal customer to West Marine, I visit the store many times throughout the season. Although that will probably change after this last visit. I was searching the website for the product I wanted, the web offered a 10% discount on orders over $100. I decided to place the order online for pick up in store. Note that the products were listed as in stock at the location. An hour later, after traveling 30min, I am greeted by a kind young associate. “Can I help you with anything today?” Yes, I am picking up an online order. Directly proceeding, the manager barges in. He asks if I have an email saying that my order what ready for pick up. I told him I only have the PayPal receipt , I was yet to receive an email. The conversation quickly became hostile towards me. He was very confrontational, saying “so what did you place the order in the parking lot and walk in?” I told him I did not want to make a big ordeal of it, also reminding him that the products were in stock. He proceeds to tell me that my order has not been pulled yet, and reminded me that I did not receive an email stating my order was ready for pick up. Then I witnessed that poor manager degrade one of the young gentlemen working the floor. As the associate is mopping the floor, the manager says “when your done with that, make sure you get the trash it’s piling up”. Seeing as there was five people working in the store and I was the only customer in there, his time should have been directed towards more important things like getting my order together. Continuing on the manager arrogantly belittles me, telling me, “you can come back when you receive an email”. I am a very mild mannered person, not knowing how to respond to his lack of professionalism I ask him “I’m here now, how can I leave with my order today?” . He tells me “you’ll have to go pull the products off the shelf yourself and make another purchase, we will cancel the other. But your not getting the discount”. That’s what I ended doing, feeling defeated. All that needed to be done was for him to grab the products and hand them to me. Instead west marine lost a long time customer.

Visit the Danvers location, they are great.

Even better, visit boats and motors Wakefield, Ma. Mom and pop shop. Mary is very kind and knowledgeable, stocks everything, competitive prices.

update*

The situation had professionally been made right and handled by the District Manager John Dualey and the store manager Bob. Never had a bad experience here other than...

I went to the Woman’s single bathroom and there was a badly broken toilet seat. Needless to say, it was very difficult to use the toilet. I let one of the associates named Bill, know that I’m sure they are aware of the broken toilet seat and I assumed that they would be fixing that very soon. Bill went into a story of the old manager and the new manager and how they are related etc. He then told me that it would be done in the next month or so and that there is no one to fix it. I told him that was a very long time for a woman’s toilet seat to be so badly broken. He replied with “Well, who’s gonna pay for it? An associate isn’t gonna go over to Lowe’s and spend $30 or more to buy a toilet seat!” I replied that it important to for a woman’s toilet to have a seat where no one could get hurt using it. He had nothing more helpful to say. I said the men don’t always need a toilet seat, and he agreed! I suggested that he could exchange the men’s toilet seat for woman’s toilet seat at least. He walked away. I was not happy at his lack of respect, empathy, and problem solving. Very poor poor customer service. I will be going to the Danvers of Boston store from now on....

The last two times I was in the Woburn Massachusetts store were terrible experiences and I'm never going back. Both times I stood at the counter ready to purchase items and was completely ignored. The employees wandered around the stores, talked to other customers or each other and did not attend to me at all. The last time a customer, who was in front of me brought a piece of electronic equipment. I was asking the cashier how to do the install. They perceived to take the item out of the box and discuss it at length for quite some time before they put it back in the box and decided to walk the back of the store. The customer asked the cashier if they should stop and take care of me really quickly. I had several hundred dollars worth of items. I was right to purchase them. Instead, the cashier ignored me completely and left with the customer. While I was glad the cashier was taking the time with the customer to show how to set up the electronics. I'm not sure that was the appropriate location when other customers are waiting in line. I ended up leaving my items at the counter and walking out. This is the second time that has happened and I...