Liz O.
Yelp
I don't want to totally write them off, because they probably have a lot of unusual items, but I was not impressed by this place based on my one experience.
I was having a large party, and excited to have an excuse to check out this place, since I've passed by it for years. Based on the name ("economy"!), the location (industrial-ish), and the fact that they touted their price guarantee, I figured this place would have good prices. Wrong.
I went in looking for a punch bowl, as the ones I found online were ugly & expensive. The ones here I found to be... ugly & expensive. But then I spotted large glass jars. The jars were Anchor Hocking 2 gallon glass jars with lids. They were about $30 each from TriMark. Seemed expensive, but I figured that it was just what they cost. After all, TriMark did have a "price guarantee."
I bought 2 jars, and when I got home, saw on the bottom of the boxes that they had a walmart.com sticker. Curious, I looked online at walmart.com and saw they were available -- no price listed (had to go to store to pick up), but I looked further online and Anchor-Hocking had them for sale for $16.99 (now on sale for $9.99). I then looked on Crate & Barrel and saw the same "Heritage Hill" jars for sale for $19.99. Yes, Crate & Barrel was significantly cheaper than TriMark, people.
So I checked TriMark's "price guarantee" and it says if you can find a lower price at a *local* store, you can get a price adjustment. Since the Anchor-Hocking online store isn't local, I brought in the Crate & Barrel web page to show. The cashier wouldn't accept it, saying it has to be the same item. Even though the jars had the same model name and looked exactly the same. She sent me to the manager. The manager initially gave me some hassle, because he said "but you have to add on shipping to the Crate & Barrel price" and I said "no, there's a Crate & Barrel store a mile away from here. This is a local store." We went back & forth a couple of times on this. I'm really not sure why. Eventually, he relented and gave me a partial refund. Such a hassle and waste of time, but at that point, it was the principal of the thing.
Lessons learned:
- "Econony" is a huge misnomer. Do NOT let the name of this place fool you.
- Crate & Barrel actually has some reasonably-priced stuff.
- I should check out Walmart's kitchen supply area next time I'm near a store, because they apparently have some nice stuff that's probably really cheap
- Make TriMark your *last* stop, not your first. Only if you can't find what you need elsewhere. Or at least, don't buy anything here without shopping around first.
- Also, TriMark is kind of dirty.