Don't buy anything here unless you know FOR SURE it's what you want. I don't usually write reviews, but I am so annoyed I just have to warn people (I know, that's how these things usually go). As a typical party store, they're fine. Typical party supplies, typically way over-priced. If you're not looking for something highly specialized, I suggest the dollar store.
Anyway, I decided to try to get a jump on Halloween this year because I usually wait until the last minute and find myself scrambling. My forethought brought me no rewards, however. The plan was that our family (all adults - siblings and spouses of siblings) would attend a Halloween party as a group of gangsters from the roaring 20's. We started out costume search in September, right when the Halloween items started to be available in stores. We found that Party city offered the same "Roaring 20's" costumes as the pop-up Halloween stores - some items were more expensive, some less, but it averaged out the the same price. We decide to start with 'gangster hats' and boas, Both items costing $10/pop. For a group of 8 the cost came to just over $80.
BEFORE buying we inquired into the return policies of all of the stores under consideration. We were buying for our family, knowing we would see them over the weekend to show and test what was purchased. Party City claimed that if the items did not work for us and/or did not fit that we could return them on 3 conditions:
1. we had the original receipt
2. if there was packaging it was unopened
3. it was before Oct 24
We purchased on Thursday (by the way we had to look at many many hats to find 4 undamaged items with tags on them), and saw our family on Saturday. The hats didn't fit 3 of the 4 men in the family...not even enough to squish them on. The boas shed non-stop as well, and we all concluded that we should perhaps rethink our theme...I didn't think the boas would have any feathers left by Halloween!
On Sunday, I attempted to return the items to Party City. I had the original reciept, the card I made the purchase with, there was no 'packaging' to have been opened, and it was wall over a month before the Oct 24 deadline. The boas were accepted. The hats were rejected. The manager said to me 'how can we know you didn't wear the hats and then try to return them?"
Well, I didn't know how to reply to this (civilly), so I took my crappy hats and walked out. First of all, the hats were being returned in better condition that most of the other hats on their rack. Secondly, I was TOLD I would be able to return them and the 'supposedly' reasonable return policy was the reason I chose party city over the competitors. Finally, most stores' return policy is based on the premise of good faith. Clearly, Party City doesn't believe in good faith, thus it shall no longer be received from me. read more