I am currently in a … “dispute” (VERY hesitant to call it that, because I absolutely love them) situation with them, because I returned some items which no longer fit, and they credited the amount of the refund to now-defunct (issued a new card - cut the other one up) Master Card.
Long story short, the check they sent to Master Card has to “run its course” and be sent back to LL before they will cut a check, or issue a credit ti my present card (Visa). This, I am told, could take as long as 6 months.
So you see, that “Guaranteed For Any Reason” does have its drawbacks.
Lands’ End has the same policy, but I’ve never done any late or unusual returns myself. However, a person I know had a few expensive sweaters that had been bought during an unwise spending spree and never worn once in several years. I was taking some pictures and preparing to sell them on Ebay, when I thought of that return policy. She sent them in and I think she got her money.
I think it was morally okay since they were pristine with the tags still attached, but she had reservations (not sure if they were moral or that she didn’t believe they would take them) because they weren’t the same style as the current ones.
It does suprise me that they’re able to have a policy like that without it being taken advantage of too much, especially in this day and age with the Internet and all.
Well, that and the fact that the prices are quite reasonable, IMO. Anyway, their policy did allow for what I did and I must say, the item was in great condition.
Oh, and if you return an item in person with no receipt they check for the last price in their system. If you say you paid more and give them the amount, it appears they will check back further to confirm and will give you that amount. They will refund you with a gift card in that case.
When I went with my brother this past weekend he got the gift card, added a few bucks of his own money and bought shoes. The total came to over $50, most of it being their gift card, and they gave him a $10 gift card because they were running a special where, if you spent over $50 that’s what they would do. Even if most of the $50 was credit from a return.
So, LL Bean is a bunch of suckers, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to take advantage.
Oh, and I should say - there is nothing stylish about their stuff, so I think sending old but unworn/lightly worn stuff isn’t bad. It never goes out of (or into) style. They have a clearance store in Freeport that sells some of it.
The only thing I ever ‘returned’ for repair to LL Bean wasnt actually a return. I was wearing a hudson bay blanked jacket from the 50s that belonged to my grandmother, and the clerk noticed that a pen had fallen through the pocket [it had a tiny hole in one corner] and took it in the back, and someone repaired the pocket, lubricated the zipper and gave it a good brushing out. Not bad for a 35 year old coat=)
Even though the policy is “any time for any reason,” I think that I would draw a line between dissatisfaction based on the fault of the purchaser vs. dissatisfaction based on the fault of the product.
For instance, product wears out…that’s the fault of the product, and the purchaser is within their ethical right to return it, no matter how long they’ve had it. Purchaser gains or loses a bunch of weight and the item no longer fits…that’s the fault of the purchaser, and they really shouldn’t make the store take a hit for it, no matter what the return policy is.
First off, this policy is **brilliant **marketing. Right now, we’ve got a gaggle of people chatting on about how wonderful this merchant is, plus the 800+ people that have read this thread. Care to take a guess at how many of those 800 people have told someone “Did you know you can buy something from them and they’ll take it back even if it wears out after ten years?” There’s a better than excellent chance that this generates more than enough sales to balance out someone exchanging a tattered thrift-store find for a new garment.
How about another retailer that’s had an almost exactly same policy for decades? Has anybody ever argued that it’s immoral to find a beat up Sears Craftsman hand tool somewhere and exchange it for a new one? Whether the handle on your grandfather’s hammer finally breaks after 50 years of use, or your kids the pliers out in the rain and they rust into a useless lump, they’ll cheerfully swap it for a new one.
Another retailer that’s done fabulously well with an outrageously liberal return policy is Nordstrom, and they’re not exactly hurting. The most famous example is how in 1975, someone brought in a tire. Seems that Nordstrom had moved into a building that was a tire store, but John Nordstrom refunded the man $25 for the tire and presumably won another customer, even though Nordstrom has never sold tires.
I’ve got the latest catalog in front of me and I still feel that everything is overpriced except for the “gifts under $20” section. Maybe the stuff only seems expensive to me because the clothes just aren’t my style.
Most of the returned items are offered to employees for very little money. My sister happens to work for the company and supplies me with most of my casual clothing. She just picked up a 6’X9’ area rug that normally retails for $300+ for $6. A fleece vest for $2 and a pair of snow boots for $3.
LL Bean snow boots are really the best there are in terms of function. Hideous though. I do love the chain print they leave in the snow. And I could run over them with my car and still wear them for the rest of my life.
I disagree. Products have an expected lifetime; if it wears out before that then a return is warranted. If it fails out after years of dependable use, you got your money’s worth and a return isn’t warranted.
Beans will honor their policy either way, but I’d never ask them to in the latter case.
I actually agree with you in general…like Qwisp, I would not return something that I feel I got reasonable use out of before it wore out. But I wouldn’t think it was necessarily wrong to do so, considering that LL Bean has a lifetime guarantee. To me, that’s what their policy means…that it shouldn’t wear out, and if it does, they will replace it.
I also think that if you are dissatisfied for some other reason (you don’t like the way it fits, maybe), you should figure that out and act on it in a reasonable amount of time. The OP doesn’t say why she decided she was dissatisfied with the jumper, but I can’t imagine why it took her so many wearings and so many years to make that decision.
Sometime in the seventies, my father wrote a letter to L.L. Bean praising the garden hoe that had been used by his mother and later by him to weed the family’s vegetables for fifty years before finally irreparably breaking off at the end of the shaft.
He did not try to return the item.
He did not complain – rather he praised the item and the company.
He was not a big or even a small customer of L.L. Bean.
He got, unasked for, a new hoe. Three days later.
O.K., full disclosure: the new hoe wasn’t so hot, and didn’t last. This time, though, we kept it to ourselves.
That said, if you cheat someone who cheerfully accepts being cheated, that makes them generous, and you still a cheat.
I don’t see it like that. All things wear out with normal use; if the object wears out before a reasonable person would expect it to, then you should return it.
My father sent in a 35-year-old pair of hunting boots (knee highs) that’d finally worn out. They needed new rubber treads, he thought. He offered to pay for the cost in a letter, I believe. I’m pretty sure the outcome was that they were retreaded for free. He also had another old pair that they swapped out for new. That’s in the spirit of the policy and a testament to their solid products.