Let's be clear: as a 50-year-old man, I am certainly not the primary target demographic for Brandy Melville, a trendy boutique women's fashion concern in niche markets around Southern California at least. But then, as the father of a 14-year-old girl, you would think the marketing wizards over at corporate would at least consider the possibility that I would need to venture into the store from time to time, or at least count for the possibility that I would be financing a small portion of their revenue.
Sad to share that, after today's delightful experience at their Glendale location, I'm not likely to have them at the top of my gift card list anytime soon.
Make no mistake, my daughter, and several of her friends, really seem to like the place. The clothes are stylish, not embarrassingly expensive for the most part, and don't fall apart after three washings.
No, my issue is with their idiotic and not competitive policies regarding returns. It seems like a stupid thing, and yes I'm aware that no company technically needs to legally accept the returns. But today's trip was to exchange/return a duplicate item that my daughter received, and to be honest, we would've ended up spending more money here on new things as she shopped around. The items in question were dubbed "Brandy Boxers"-- some short shorts that are worn under skirts and such, or if you're really adventurous, apparently, as outerwear. We walked into the store, tags still attached to the unwarned items, and were informed that all sales were final on these. I can understand not returning worn undergarments, and imagine that Glendale rents and tight margins would require some strictures on turning in dirty underwear for store credit or cash. But no, these unwarned items with tags still attached were not accepted.
We were further informed that items purchased online could not be exchanged in store, and needed to be shipped back for cash.
When we finally arrived at some way too return one of the items in the store that was not unworn undergarments or whatever, the young lady behind the counter handed me a receipt instead of a gift card, and informed me I would be receiving an email with some kind of authorization code. None of it made any sense, and stealing a chapter from one of my old marketing classes, this was clearly designed to screw the customer after I lose the receipt, put it through the wash, forget about it, let it expire, etc.
Again, Brandy Melville can make any stupid company-facing policies they want, so long as they're legal. And in this case, nothing illegal here. But the cost of that is other stores with customer-facing policies that seem to understand this is not a one time purchase like a home warranty or a timeshare, will see me as a return customer for my daughter's birthday in a couple of months, or for gifts she wants me to finance for her friends for their birthdays, or when winter turns to summer and we're shopping for the beach instead of school... you get the idea.
Too bad, Brandy Melville... what a good wife you would be; but my life, my love, and my lady is... gonna be buying clothes someplace else moving forward. read more