Our Best and Worst Wedding Registry Experiences (Hint: Avoid Sears) |
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This past year Energi Gal and I finally tied the knot. As part of the process we decided to register at a number of places. We picked three stores:
Macy's - Macy's has a strong national presence, which is great when you live in the San Francisco and your guests are from Boston. It also has a strong Internet website, making it easy for anyone to buy gifts
Amazon.com
Sears - We really like Craftsman line of tools and this seemed like a natural place, especially considering that Home Depot doesn't much of a nationwide registry.
Grading the Registries
Macy's - Grade A - The selection was good and there were no problems along the way. For everything that people bought off of that registry, we got 5% of that added to a gift card. So if people bought a $1,000 gifts, we'd get a $50 credit card. On top of that, two weeks after our wedding Macy's gave us a coupon for some percentage off (10% or 20%) of anything that wasn't bought on our registry. It turned out that some of the things we wanted were already on sale - so we used the gift card bonus and it went a long way.
Amazon - Grade B - As I previously mentioned, Amazon had the best selection and people found it the most convenient. Many were happy to not pay shipping on several of the items we registered for. Everything was fantastic - until after the wedding. Amazon somehow retained our old Boston address as the shipping address for gifts bought after the wedding date. It seems like we only changed our shipping address, billing address, pre-wedding registry address. In most cases three out of four is not bad. Unfortunately this is not the case.
One person in my wife's family bought a gift, but it was shipped to our old address that we missed updating. Since we don't live there, it was returned to Amazon and their accounts were credited. We tried to explain this to Amazon, but there was nothing they could do. This has lead to a bit of a family feud. My wife had spent $1200 for this person's wedding and this person has seemingly taken this opportunity to escape giving a gift. "Escape giving a gift" may not be the best choice of words, but my wife's family have mentioned this to her a few times. We don't care about the gift, but my wife's family is up in arms about this. Anyway, it could have been avoided if Amazon had one place to update your address.
Sears - Grade F - I'm tempted to invent a few grade levels below F. The website of the registry has been broken for weeks. The e-mail address that we used as our username is no longer accepted. This means that while we can search and find our registry, we can't log in to update our registry. We got a gift, but they neglected to tell us who sent it. My wife has spent all day trying to get this information so that we can send a thank-you card. She's talked to 5 people from Sears - all five of them say the order number on our invoice doesn't exist. My wife was hung up twice and kept on hold for 45 minutes once. She spent a half hour at the store today and no one knows anything about wedding registries. No one at Sears can do anything to help us. They finally suggested that we write the corporate office a letter. It sounds like a fantastic idea, but overall we have little confidence that anything will come of it.
In short no one at Sears corporate cares about registries. It trickles down to every employee with their lack of training. My wife ended her last call by suggesting they cancel their registry program. It's cost them at least two regular costumers.
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We have also had terrible problems with sears and their website. No one seems to know what the heck is going on with that company. How can you be the third largest retailer in the world and suck so bad.
We used MyRegistry.com, which works pretty well. You can select items from any online store. The person can order it from that store or buy it offline and simply tell the registry that they bought it. Disadvantage is that they have to go back online to tell the registry. But we didn’t want to lock people into stores.
Hi Lazy Man,
Sorry about your poor registry experience. Thought you might like to read these local news stories in Boston about the problems folks here are experiencing with Sears. Interesting that the problems seem to extend to the registry service as well. To me it looks like the retailer is ripe for failing now that they are doing such a good job of alienating customers.
Sears Blames ‘Perfect Storm’ For Repair Service Problems
Sears CEO Apologizes To Boston-Area Customers
But on the upside - you and Energi Gal have received the best gift of all - each other! Awwwww…..
Macy’s is great, I’m a huge fan of them. As you probably have read, I hate(d) Target.
I don’t know how this post escaped my attention when it first came out. I am tying the knot next year and have been pushing for a Best Buy registry . . . not gonna happen. But Amazon sounds like a great option. I’ve also seen sites that allow people to give gifts like “money towards a down payment” or money towards a honeymoon.
Like I keep telling people, “I don’t need any more pots and pans, what we have works great. What I need is a nice, big TV to watch the game after dinner.”
Great post! Target’s registry has its problems, too. When hubby and I were married five years ago, our registry at Target didn’t keep up with items purchased from the list by our guests, all of whom had informed their clerk that it was for the registry. That meant getting a few repeat gifts, which led to frequent visits to Target for returns and exchanges. Waste of time and money. I spoke to several other brides and new moms who had the same problems with Target. Apparently, they’re notorious for it.
Salut,
Marjorie
Sears has basically been run into the ground by Ed Lampert in order to cut costs. It’s really a shame. A few years ago Ed was being touted by press as the new Warren Buffet, turning Sears into the new Berkshire Hathaway. Alas he’s not. Warren always brought good companies with good management who served the customers. Ed on the other hand is about cutting costs. Cutting cost is important but at some point you actually need to run the store.
Great story - I think it was pretty lame of your guest to not send another gift.
Mike
I just don’t know why Sears is even in business. It’s not like management really wants to run the thing anyway.
We also registered at Sears for the tools. A guest mentioned to me that she went to the store and couldn’t find our registry. Since we had started the registry online, I thought that maybe it wasn’t also be available in store. I called up to find out and/or fix the problem. When I explained the situation, the person just kept telling me that wedding guests aren’t required to purchase of a registry, and that it is just a list of items we may like to receive. It was the most bizarre thing. She kept repeating that, over and over, with the exact same wording, no matter how I tried to rephrase what my issue was. I eventually asked her if she was a computer rather than a live person. She got very mad at me and threatened to hang up if I didn’t apologize to her. What was I supposed to think when she wouldn’t say *anything* except to tell me what a registry was?
Thanks for the ideas! I’m getting married next year and we hadn’t considered Amazon - good thought.
I got married in June 2007 and had the best experience (by far) with Bed, Bath and Beyond. We did the majority of our registry online which was very convenient. After the wedding they were the best at accepting returns without a receipt (no problem!). I highly recommend them. A distant second would be Target - they were good for sheets and towels, but their kitchenware is kind of cheap and they have a lot of items that or only available online. Macy’s was the third place that we registered. I wasn’t crazy about their selection and felt that a lot of their merchandise was way overpriced, in particular the bedding.
my boyfriend and i tried to purchase a wedding gift for friends from sears and couldn’t find their registry online for the life of us, even though they insisted it was there. we finally gave up and just gave them money.
Sears is THE WORST!
Their customer service is non-existant.
They installed a faulty washer/dryer unit in my condo last August. It flooded my first floor. I called Sears 15-20 times and all I’m ever told is, “Someone will contact you in the next few days, Thank you for choosing Sears.”
10K later, my place is almost back to normal, but I’ll never again even buy vacuum cleaner bags from them.
They’re the perfect example of what’s wrong with the world today.
I’m getting married in the fall of this year and we were considering registering at Target and Sears. Glad I read this b/c i will be steering clear now. I’ll def. check out amazon.com. Thanks everyone!