We've been coming to abide for the better part of six months as we redecorate our house. They have…read morea great selection of in stock and special order furniture. Further, their designers Ashley and Jan are absolutely top-notch ladies! They are so very helpful. We thought very highly of Abide as a family-run business, until today.
Earlier this year, we contemplated purchasing our Canadel dining room set from Abide, but we opted to purchase it from a competing retailer as we were able to save about $2,500. In fairness, we didn't at the time provide Abide an opportunity to match this price as the difference neared 40% and we honestly didn't want to insult them as they were so kind. When we did tell Jan (the designer) of our decision, she was understandably disappointed that we didn't give them a shot to match the price, but encouraged us to come back when it was time to pick out a rug.
So, we did. The final pieces to our redecoration project are a rug and a buffet/entry table. Abide has a huge selection of rugs at all price points, so it was natural that we'd visit again.
We came in Thursday evening and met Ashely. She helped us pick out a rug and a buffet. We purchased the rug but wanted to think about the buffet overnight. Unfortunately, the rug was not large enough for our space, and also had some runs in it which we noticed as soon as we got it home. Abide gives a 48-hour return guarantee on rugs, and we brought it back within 27 hours of picking it up--well within their grace period. The rug issue aside, we decided that we wanted to move forward with the buffet.
When bringing the rug back, one of the owners immediately scolded me for having it folded up, instead of rolled. I let him know that his brother (the other owner) folded it up like that the day before, so I just copied how it was folded to bring it back to them. He was clearly displeased by this. I then showed him pictures of the runs, which he called normal on machined loomed rugs.
I didn't let that interaction bother me, and advised Ashely that we wanted to purchase the Canadel buffet if they could match the price. I showed Ashley the price quote from the competing retailer (which I did initially point out as being from July) noting the $350 price difference. I asked her if they could match it. She came back with the owner who told me "it [was] dishonest to ask [them] to match a price from July." I explained that dishonest would have been to misconstrue the date of the quote, but I was upfront about it being from July. He rudely asked me to not come back to the store and processed my refund for the rug.
Matching competing pricing is part of being in retail. I am a commissioned sales rep and deal with folks trying to save money every day. It's a completely normal part of doing business. Plus, one of the first rules of sales is "you don't get what you don't ask for." But, based on my interaction with this owner today, I cannot recommend Abide to family or friends. This is a shame because Jan and Ashley are very talented designers, and super easy to work with, and we really wanted to buy a rug and the buffet from Abide to support a locally owned business, since we previously opted to purchase the bulk of our furniture elsewhere.
