Large outdoor goods retail chain in the form of a co-op. They're known for having a very open return policy as well as cash back to anyone who joins their cheap membership things.
(Naturally, they're not perfect -- so they're known for putting small shops out of business when they arrive and for becoming more faceless to some of their employees as they grow.)
> They're known for having a very open return policy
Since 2013 it appears to be a one-year return policy. That's shorter than the warranty on most of their clothing brands (basically "forever" excepting long underwear), and about equal to warranty on most of their footwear brands.
For "vectorizing" returns-- e.g., dealing with multiple pieces of clothing/gear-- it's probably quite convenient to be able to return a bunch of stuff at once to an REI physical location.
For a single item exchanges or replacements, it's probably just as easy going through the vendor's warranty form on their website. In fact, most of those companies have stellar customer service on the phone.
And I do mean stellar. Like, imagine the exact opposite of Gmail's tech support. Honestly, if you have a broken zipper on a recent Patagonia jacket or a cracked buckle on an Osprey pack, call their customer support and enjoy the maximally productive humane conversation with someone who is truly interested in helping you, the customer of their company. It may restore your faith in humanity (though potentially at the risk of making you question your line of work in ad tech, so be warned...)
With the old returns policy, people were buying boots, wearing them out on the Appalachian Trail, and then returning them. Or buying a whole touring bike (REI sold their own fairly respectable model called the Novara), riding coast-to-coast, and then returning it. Once the internet era arrived and customers learned just what behavior they could get away with, the community was saying it was only a matter of time before REI would tighten their returns policy.
I’m a long time REI customer/member, maybe 20 years, and I was pretty happy about the move to a shorter return period. I always considered it my responsibility as a good citizen to be as honest and forthright as possible in return transactions. If something didn’t work out I didn’t feel bad returning it within reason, but if I had used it too long (like 2-3 years or put serious wear on it) I would not return it out of principle. I didn’t want to take advantage of such a good policy, and I knew they’d have my back if I ever did have a long term return.
But then I had a person who worked there in my friend group at one point and they told me the same stories you did. Just people absolutely abusing the heck out of it, taking maximum advantage for personal gain. Doing things like buying kids shoes then returning them when the kid outgrew them.
This behavior is highly unethical in my opinion, even though it was technically legal and within policy. So I was happy when they made the change to 1 year returns. I had rarely, rarely had long term returns like that and took them very seriously. In one case, for example, I had a tent for the summer that I never got around to using. Used it about 1.5 years later for the first time and quickly realized it didn’t work for my needs so reluctantly returned it after one use.
According to an article around the time of the policy change, people were even buying cliff bars and returning the wrappers for a refund, saying "I wasn't satisfied." It wasn't just young or broke people either, the CEO said they were looking at demographics and it was all over the place, just an all around increase in abusive returns. As usual, the internet and social media is a likely culprit.
I don’t know how frequently those things happened.
But I had the zipper break on my duffel bag after about 5 years and they told me they wouldn’t help. This wasn’t a crazy drop or mishandled, it was just some defect that caused the zipper to pop off one side when it shouldn’t.
I’m never buying anything from their line again. Had I gotten a Patagonia duffel, they would fix a zipper decades later.
I blew out a shoulder strap in a Patagonia bag because I loaded it down with _way_ too much gear. A store of theirs sent it in to repair, and the repair person told me to pick a size of the new model because they couldn't repair the damage I caused. All shipping was covered by Patagonia.
Patagonia is drastically more expensive than REI gear, but included in the higher quality is a better return/repair policy and ethical manufacturing standards. REI is competing on price, not those standards.
Also there were those amazing garage sales, I have always stocked up on high quality hiking boots, almost new, with like 80%-90% discount. Thi was like 10 years ago, now I think they have a section and it's not anywhere as good in both selection and prices.
They discontinued Garage Sales during Covid. I enjoyed those as well, usually meant waiting in line early in the morning with a bunch of other die hards to rush in and hope they had the item we wanted! The new sections aren’t as good, but I think that’s because things trickle in and so you have to get lucky to happen to be there when something particularly good for you gets put out, which is less reliable than hanging out for a few hours on a particular day before the store opened.
