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My husband and I went to a DirectBuy meeting yesterday. This is my take on it. I did not find it to be high pressure--except. They require that you make up your mind to become a member on the spot. No time to go home talk it over, and figure out what you might need/want to buy. It's just make up your mind to do it now, or you're NEVER invited back.
Anytime someone tells me that I must decide instantly to spend $5,300+ for a 3 yr membership when I haven't been given the opportunity to research it, I'm out of there. In my opinion, no company that is confident it has a good program or is reputable does that.
The owner of the franchise "waffled" when someone asked about returning items and warranties. But the gist was that if you're dissatisfied you have very little recourse. Not a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
You have to arrange for pick-up yourself or pay them to do it. So if you buy several appliances or pieces of furniture, you probably need to rent a U-haul or something. That cost has to be deducted from the "savings" you getting. If you can't install it yourself, you must find an installer. You provide the measurements for flooring, tile, countertops, cabinets. If your measurements are wrong, that's your problem.
Although we didn't go into it with our salesperson, my bet is there are some serious interest charges if you have to pay for your membership in installments. Needless to say, we didn't buy into this and we're not a bit upset that we won't be invited back!! We wouldn't waste another second listening to their hype.
Great points. Thanks for the feedback. I received an "invitation" to visit a showroom. It sounded sort of hokey to me. I'll let everyone know what the real deal is as soon as I meet with them.
I was originally intrigued as well, but I was told before I went for my "appointment" that it cost $3500 for membership. I just never showed up after that. That seems to be a ripoff. Also, if you look in the Sunday employment ads, they are always hiring due to high turnover. I don't think it's worth it unless you have a LOT of money, a HUGE house to furnish, and want to drop $50,000 plus.
Has anyone checked the Better Business Burea to see if they have had complaints filed against them? You know what they say..."if it looks too good to be true...
I have been a member for 6 months now and I’m surprised at what I hear. I guess a lot must depend on your local center as to how your service is because we have been treated great. We are in the Syracuse NY area. What do people expect from directbuy? Yes the initiation is expensive, but it depends on what you’re going to buy. If you’re looking only to buy quality products that in the retail world are not cheap than you can expect to save a lot. If you think your going to recoup your money purchasing Wal-Mart toasters for $20.00 forget it. We purchased lights for our new home and saved nearly $1500.00 over retail. We saved $600.00 just on a refrigerator and another $800.00 on our washer and dryer. All our other appliances we saved on average of $100-$300 each. All savings are including shipping and handling fees. The whole idea is that you can get High end products at lower end prices.
wow finnally someone tries to come up with a great idea TO NOT PAY RETAIL MARK UP ANYMORE, and because the membership fee(they think)is to high they do not even go in gee,what if there were great savings,like there ARE!,well continue shopping home depot and lowes and raymour and flanigan AND TOSSING YOUR MONEY IN THE STREET because they want ya to.my membership was 3990.00 and that was the best money i have ever spent.i don't buy everything there but what i do buy i have saved alot of money.on my carpet i saved 2000.00,on a ref,washer and dryer i saved 1400.00 and a t.v i saved 250.00 and when i do my kitchen i bet i save a ton,so don't judge by people who havn't went to the appt.because what they thought,listen to people who are members and see what they say. IT WORKS GREAT!!it is somewhat tough looking at catologs but the savings are well worth it .and about the better business burea who dosn't have complaints about them????as soon as someone dosn't get what they think they should let's call the BBB give me a break!!!!!!! i have been treated great in the boothwyn,pa office!!!
DirectBuy membership is a complete waste of money. The $4,600 membership fee I paid 2 years ago plus S&H charges prevent any real savings. I paid the outrageous fee because I was going to remodel my kitchen and bathroom. DirectBuy staff told me they carry the two top cabinetry brands in the U.S. and that my granite countertops would cost $28/ft. Neither was true. The cabinets arrived in poor condition and months later I am still trying to get replacement parts. A local granite fabricator was significantly less expensive than the granite guy associated with DirectBuy, who took weeks to return phone calls. I would have ended up paying about the same and experiencing significantly less aggravation going to Lowe's or ExpoDesign (the high end of Home Depot).
To be fair, I did save about $100 on cabinet hardware. Not a good return on investment
Last edited by gypsyeyes; 01-31-2007 at 05:42 PM..
Reason: spelling error
DirectBuy works very well if you are willing to put a little work into it.
This is not a retailer. They won't do everything for you.
You have to be willing to do the research and the work of helping make the orders, etc.
But if you are willingn to pay the upfront fee and learn to be a smarter consumer, you can save an enormous amount of money.
Don't get me wrong....if you are not going to be spending a lot of money on home improvements/furniture, then this is not for you.
The upfront costs are high to be sure. But the savings are big as well. Once you join, you will be paying the same prices the retailers do for virtually everything they offer.
You do have to pay for shipping to the showroom and then you have to go pick it up. But would you be willing to do that in order to save $500 on a sofa that retails for $900 that you can get for $400 and change.
I've been a member for more than 10 years. At that time, membership fees were only a little over $1000 and then a $100 per year maintenance fee.
I've saved more than $15,000 in that time buying stuff at cost what I would have paid retail for.
You have to become a very good consumer and know the manufacturers and how they sell. Once you do that, you can save a lot of money.
Most of the people complaining here simply think that they can save the money and don't want to have to do any work to get that discount.
If you are in that category....then skip this and go on paying retail while the rest of us save a boatload of money.
We joined direct buy a few weeks ago. I definitely understand the 'used car salesman' experience. The first person we met when we went to the open house epitomized it. He was dreadful. Blessedly, we were then led to watch the informational dvd and met the sales manager with whom we worked for the rest of the day. If we'd had to stay with the first guy, we'd have walked because he was so obnoxious. One couple that got stuck with him did walk. I had been doing some shopping around for major renovation items but didn't have all of my information with me which I wish had. After my initial shock (and small heart attack) about the initial cost, I decided that joining was the right thing for us. I thankfully had information about a tub I liked at Home Depot. The cost via direct buy was 55% of what was at HD. We spent several hours looking at bathroom and kitchen renovation materials. I also looked at high end camera equipment. What I had planned on being a $12K bathroom renovation will now be around 6-8K. That's HUGE!
It was made very clear to us the kinds of materials they carried, what things we would not get better deals on (computers, some bldg materials that go on sale at HD and the like, etc). They were also clear that although there is almost always someone there in the office to order materials for us, they are not sales/retail/contractor staff. Like a previous poster noted, you have to do a bit of work but it is so worth it. From my perspective, it's forced me to be a more educated consumer and for folks with large projects, this is definitely worth considering. Our investment will pay for itself before I take a bath in my new tub!
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Direct Buy
