BRU rant - suggestions?
I took a trip to BRU this weekend to finish up the loose ends on my registry (only those things that I really needed).
Two things were highly annoying (besides my usual annoyance with BRU which is terrible customer service and poor in-store organization):
1. they had so few things in-store it was laughable. For example: I had a coupon for a humidifier, and the one I had on my registry is the very common crane humidifier. In the 'humidifier section' there were 4 there. None of which were the one I wanted. I can get the one I really want, but was told they are no longer doing ship-to-store and I have to pay shipping. absurd!!! Same thing for baby's bath tup, ergo carrier, and others! As a general trend, I noticed that they carried a ton of the BRU brand items in store, but not much else. BOO!
2. this one is so freakin' ridiculous to me: so apparently you don't get the completion discount until AFTER your baby is born?! Really? I can't get 10% off a box of newborn diapers I had registered for but am now purchasing myself because my baby isn't born yet??? I like to be prepared and have these essentials on hand when baby gets here, so I think this is pretty darn lame.
Does anyone have suggestions for how to deal with this? I didn't even notice I wasn't getting 10% off things until just looking at my receipt now.
What to do, what to do?!
Re: BRU rant - suggestions?
I got my completion coupon a few weeks ago... my biggest complaint is that not everything was discounted with the coupon, for example I was told that no diapers or feeding supplies like formula could be discounted. Shouldn't those be the two ESSENTIAL things that people CAN get on discount? I only ended up buying a couple of things with my coupon... nothing i really needed, just some nice to have things so that i could use the coupon... sort of stupid - i spent money i didn't need to just to use the coupon lol
Now I realize how stupid completion coupons are... The only place I wasn't completely disappointed was at buy buy baby...
We finished our registry this weekend and had a similar experience. We never got our coupon and had to ask for one. The girl at the registry desk wouldn't give it to me and said it would be mailed 2 to 3 weeks before due date. We are 4 weeks out now. I told her I would just go to buy buy baby and finish it there and they would lose the several hundred dollars I was about to spend there. The manager overheard and gave me the 15% coupon. It did work for most items and especially sine they didn't have much of our items in stock. The manager went through our receipt when we checked out since we had other coupons that didn't work. She made sure all discounts were applied and we saved about $300.
If you feel like you missed out on a lot of savings, I would take the receipt back to the registry dpt, ask for a manager and have them refund the missed discounts. Also have them ship the humidifier to the store so you don't have to pay shipping and can get the discount. I would assume they would do this.
Diapers and feeding items are excluded as PP mentioned, so we went in to buy just a box of diapers with a coupon, but discovered while there that our travel system was being clearanced. We spoke to the manager about our concern that it would be gone before we got our completion coupon, and he immediately agreed to print off the 15 percent completion for us instore to use that day, and also honor the lower online price of our stroller.
As we went around finishing the rest, we ran into the problem of certain brands of things on my registry not being in the store. We were told to add the available items to our registry as we went and they would honor the new items.
The completion coupon CAN be combined with other offers, but there are limitations. We got Boppy and changing pad covers at the "Buy One Get One Half Off" rate and used individual item coupons for a couple things. Only total purcase coupons should be excluded.
All in all it was a bit of a hassle but the store really worked with us and we saved a LOT of money, so I am happy with our experience. We ended up getting our stroller, bottles, milk storage bags, medicines, car seat accessories, changing pad, Boppy and changing pad covers, and a toy for the 250 dollars in gift cards we used.
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions (including 'shop elsewhere!')
I will bring in the receipt and ask them what they can do about the discount (I asked if it was automatic, and both the registry person and the check-out person said yes, so it sounds like even they don't know!)
unfortunately it's the only big baby store in my area, which is why I registered there and got tons of gift certs) but if I'm going to have to shop online anyway, I'll pick somewhere else for other things
it is nice to know I'm not the only crazy one, but does sound like it's site specific
oh well!
and now I can't even log into my registry online! it goes to a toys r' us page as soon as I enter!
how weird...