Costco.com e-commerce confusion/bait and switch
 

What costco.com said Mrs UT was buying:

http://cellar.org/2003/bigotto.jpg

What was actually delivered:

http://cellar.org/2003/littleotto.jpg

The link to the page where the thing was ordered:

http://www.costco.com/frameset.asp?t...7&log=&NavTop=

(go to Dawson collection, then click "more info" under Dawson Leather Chair)

Notice the words "ottoman sold separately" which suggest that, OK, you should go to the other link to buy the ottoman. If you go to the page where the other ottoman is, it's different. But my wife, whose eye for inaccuracies located over $6M in accounting problems last month, was not keen enough to pick up the subtle differences...

We sent a message to costco.com customer service, pointing to this thread for more info. The site promises response in one business day.

Note to wiseasses, costco.com did not deliver the end table, lamp, carpet, bookcase w/ books etc. Wiseasses.

Wow
 

The ottoman really makes a difference.

What are the books on that shelf about? I just started reading fiction again. Today I started reading "Bright Messenger" by Gentry Lee. It's part of Arthur C. Clarke's Rama universe.

Get a bigger end table
 

That thing looks unstable man

Looks like someone got cute with Photoshop and "enhanced" the ottoman. You know, they always do that sort of thing in the burger commercials. When was the last time you got anything as tasty looking as what you saw on TV when you went into Burger King?

Looks just right. The ottoman and two dogs will be the same width as the chair. That's if you can get the dogs to give up the chair. Heh, heh, heh.
That's the problem with catalogs electronic or otherwise. The need for a reputable source is imperative.
Does the larger ottoman even exist if you could negotiate the web site, or is it just for pretty pictures?
Don't forget to tell them about you're posse. :D

Oh, hell...nevermind. They aren't even *remotely* similar, are they. More differences than size, there.

The food they show on tv isn't even real food! Every once in a while there will be a "behind the scenes" show on tv explaining all the stuff they use. The only one I remember is that they use Elmer's glue instead of milk for cereal commercials. It just looks tastier.

The Toads have a ton of books. That bookcase you see is actually one of two large ones that are in the "sitting room." Boggles my mind every time I see them.

Man...new car, new chair...you guys aren't buying this shit hot are you? :D

Naw! I'm as poor as ever but the wife has put in a literal TON of overtime - much of it finding that afore-mentioned $6M. At one point she had worked an entire month in a row, no days off. So these are sorta the rewards of that. (She's a superior accountant and reconciled their accounts even though the entire company had not been able to do it for many years in a row.)

Those books: we don't sort 'em much, so there's Dave Barry sitting next to the Home Veterinary Manual next to Ayn Rand next to a James Baldwin novel next to cookbooks etc. Two people accumulating them for 30 years and pretty soon you need bookshelves.

Shit, they look better than our weak-ass bookcase.

Man. Jenni and I were getting a pretty nice bookcase built up, and then, one day in December...

The cool thing is, the insurance company was pretty generous there and allotted us <b>$24,000</b> to buy new books. So, we're gonna have an even better library than we did. :)

Hey, about that, uh, you know... foot thing. Are they going to make it right?

The car, yeah, not special. But I couldn't afford that chair, I bet. :)

(I have to buy couches 'cause the house is almost finished and we're getting ready to move back. Ikea has some nice ones.)

I just got the new Ikea catalog yesterday. I've never actually shopped there, but I'm amazed at how reasonable their prices are...at least in the catalog. I already see our future furniture, waiting for me to buy it.

When buying Ikea furniture, remember that it's all made of soft pine and will scratch and dent easily and never lasts. Consider buying unpainted furniture, especially for bookshelves, and finishing it yourself. It's not hard to do, although it requires a place where it won't be a disaster if the stain spills, and where it can all dry without gassing the family.

/middle-aged man

More About Ikea
 

1. The couches are always more uncomfortable than they look (and they look really damn uncomfortable).

2. "Easy Assembly Required" is a lie. Someone mistranslated the Swedish for "There are parts for four different pieces of furniture in here. None are compatible."

3. Don't get too excited over the free hex wrench. It's metric. It doesn't fit anything else in your house. You can pound it into the drywall for use as a hook for a set of keys.

4. Never buy bedding or sheets at Ikea. Like everything else. They are metric. They do not fit your English measurement bed. If you buy an Ikea bed you will forever be buying your sheets from them, unless you like buying flat sheets only and making hospital corners. Despite working in a hospital, I am not capable of making hospital corners. Many of my patients aren't allowed sheets anyway.

5. I have many accessory items from Ikea. I love my 50 cent garlic press and my $1 antifreeze in the handle ice cream scoop (the identical item is sold by Pampered Chef at those stupid parties for $15. I regularly piss off Pampered Chef "Hostesses" by announcing this loudly when the item is displayed.)

6. They used to have great ads "Mom, can I have a cookie?" They seem to have fired this ad agency. Too bad.

Hmmm...interesting concerns. Gracias.

Ha, ha, ha. That's really funny.:thumb:
Maybe you should hang onto the wrench since there's a good chance that everything you by in the future will be imported.

Imported, yes. Damn near everything we buy NOW is imported (have you tried to find underwear made in this country? damn near impossible) anyway ...

Even if the other stuff you buy is imported, it still won't fit the proprietary Ikea hex wrench.

Oh now...I must got to bat for IKEA! Love IKEA! I roadtrip to Chicago to partake. (Maybe its the lingonberries talking.) Poang chair is beech and leather. very comfy. no dent yet. You do need the footstool, too. Their rugs rock. Endtable-a-rama. Shelves and more shelves, of all sorts and a variety of woods/finishes. The kitchen, bath stuff is great, lamps are fun and inexpensive. For office organization,you can create whatever storage and surfaces you need. Very sturdy! I am good with measuring tape and hex key. TAK!

I do not feel sorry for the old lamp.

I'll bet they've got thermos bottles. RED thermos bottles. C'mon now, fes up. You've sold your soul to Ikea for red thermoses, haven't you. :D

DOh! Bruce, you read me like a cheap novel. Lets just say they have heat conserving vessels.

The real thing that Ikea does is they nestle down in that rather large space just above Target, Pier one, discount store pressboard, not yet cured rainforrest mystery wood furniture, but below the big-buck, I-wish-I-could-afford-but-I'm-no-dave Herman Miller, Room & Board, Amish craftsmen, fine woodwork. Its assemble yoself, but at least its real woods. And its got the cool Scandihoovian style thing goin on.

Ah, the Herman Miller Aeron is worth every penny though. That's one thing you should just bite the bullet on.

Update: costco.com failed to live up to their pledge to respond personally to all e-mail within one business day.

Ikea stuff mostly sucks, but it's cheap and there's a huge gap between Ikea prices and the next level up. I bought my picnic table at Ikea for $100 (chairs for $30 apiece); would have cost me several hundred elsewhere. Of course it's not going to last, but I keep it outside; nothing lasts too long out there.

The table and chairs, BTW, came almost fully assembled; they merely needed to be unfolded and locked into place. One of the pins for doing so with the table was missing, though, not that it matters much.

Finish unfinished furniture? Ha. Ha Ha. Hahahahahahahahaha. Yeah. I can see that happening. It'd sit for a few months in my house waiting for me to do something. Then I'd move it to the garage or basement and stain or paint it over the course of a few weekends. I'd be left with a piece of furniture bare in some spots, globby in others, with definitely-visible fingerprints, which would never dry.

Having furnished a household in the 1970's-80's while living less than 10 miles from the Plymouth Meeting store, Ikea has been a significant part of my life. Some of their stuff is decent. Some of it is not. Examine prospective purchases closely in the store.

Metric you'll just have to live with...also note that anything they sell having to do with paper (file drawers etc.) will assume ISO paper sizes, which makes sense for Eurofolks.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/iso-paper.html

But apropos the Aeron thing....I'd recently heard that there was a vastly cheaper (half the cost?) Aeron-type chair produced by the Aeron folk to sell into the post-bubblebust market. Excuse me....I mean "to bring innovation to the long-neglected mid-price category".

http://www.hermanmiller.com/mirra/

Anyone tried it?

Turns out you could get an actual Aeron for that price from eBay.

costco.com update: no response after two business days.

But is it an actual Aeron? Or perhaps an Aeron that has been but a helpless player in an unfortunate and excessive display of human acrobatics? Or maybe the victim of a toddler covered in maple syrup? Or kept for 17 months on the deck of a ship? Beware.

Cost co continues their suckiness. Boo.

:angel:

Needlessly cruel.

But how do we know that UT didn't photoshop his own photo? Maybe he just wants to scam Costco.

Man, that's really low, UT. I thought you were cool, but now you're using the Cellar as a tool to steal. What an asshole!

Or, since Mrs. Toad apparently was the purchaser of this...

Look at UT being played by the missus! No way I would let Rho do that to me!

The picture Leus made still doesn't match the original ad which has 3 horizontal bands (plackets?) on the front, like the chair.

Ah, shaddap, you party pooper!

Okay, you nitpicker.

Well, the bigger problem is that the height of the dumb ottoman is about two inches lower than the chair.

:D :D :D

Don't suppose you could cut the feet off the chair.
No...I didn't think so. Sorry.

Is there some way we fat lazy bastards could picket Costco electronically?

It's now been an entire business week with no reply.

Perhaps the one person who's designated to handle complaints of this sort is out on vacation this week.

Have you or Sharon called them yet?

Open a can of angry Pearl and Bean on 'em. They'll rue the day...

Sharon is completely in charge of this one -- I just post the info. It's her thing, I probably won't even sit in that chair.

Maybe so UT but if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.:D

Update: finally called costco directly, they agree that the web site is misleading, and they're going to contact the manufacturer and see what can be done.

Does that mean they've put you off until they can decide what to do with you?

"Shit! Someone caught on...time to pay the Sheppses a visit..."

I don't understand. What is the manufacturer of the sofa going to do about costco's mistake? It's not the manufacturer's fault or responsibility.

I think the website is the manufacturers and costco is just the pimp.;)

Yes, I think they are trying to figure out whether they can get us the "real" ottoman, otherwise the whole thing goes back.

The real test will be if they change the web site.

Now I get it. :)

Can we get an update, UT?:confused:

Ah yes, sorry. The chair part was picked up by the same delivery people that brought it. Since they didn't deliver the ottoman - it was sent separately - they didn't take the ottoman away. Thus we were inconvenienced a final time by having to take the ottoman back to the KoP actual CostCo store. Although this was a better arrangement than having to get it shipped back otherwise.

So we are minus the chair and have gotten all our money back, and are generally happy with the transaction, except for one thing:

The item remains on their website with the same photo.

Maybe you could hack your photo in it's place.:D
Cheer up, now you'll (plural) have all that extra money for the party.:beer:

Call Tracy Davidson at NBC10...they'll get Costco to change the pic...and at the same time, you and Sharon can get on TV and sob about how much you really wanted said items.

Naw, this is a terribly upper-middle class yuppie suburbanite problem and would deserve a severe mocking if they showed it on the news. This is Mrs UT attempting to get the entire house, except for my little section of it, to meet her highly exacting style. She's done a great job of it too, one that I never could have done. I was in favor of sending the chair back, but if they delivered it to me and it was left to me, I would be just as likely to boost up the ottoman with 2x4s and ruin the whole effect.

Nah, you could completely play it up: Costco fucks up the "American Dream."

How about calling the better business buerau and telling them that they're engaged in false advertising?

Don't forget Costco got screwed here too. Because of the suppliers website, they lost money. Not only lost profit from the sale but the cost of paperwork, and possibly a pissed off customer. They may not be a big enough player, to this supplier, to press a website change. ;)

Hey UT....hum, does this look familiar? Except the ottoman is a wee bit smaller:rolleyes:. Your buddies at Costco.com e-mailed me their specials and guess what I found? They are offering a $100 rebate on it too;).

It's not exactly the same! That's got different feet on it, and a different quality of leather... close though.