I buy a lot of my gear at REI. They don’t have everything for lightweight backpackers but they are getting better.
The reason I shop there is they take back any gear that fails you—you don’t have to deal with the manufacture.
You pay 20 dollars for a lifetime membership, then at the end of every year you get about 10% back of the money you spent there.
If you loose your card they will look it up for you. So you don’t have to worry about hanging on to it.
They also have a record of every piece of gear you bought from them so you don’t have to save receipts.
They are friendly about taking back your gear.
This is the REI guarantee: If you’re ever dissatisfied with an item, you may return or exchange your REI.com or REI-OUTLET.com purchases at any REI store or through mail order.
I used my Black Diamond Spot headlamp every day for 2 years and then it quit working. It had a 3 year warranty, so I brought it back to REI and since the price had gone down, I got a new headlamp and some money back.
Some people kind of push the envelope, like one guy I know returned his backpack because a mouse chewed a hole in it.
There are people that say REI stands for Return and Exchange Indefinitely.
REI hires people who know the gear and the hikes/trails/rivers/etc. in the area. And they treat their customers well. That, and their return policy, are reasons why I’ll pay a bit more if I have to, to buy gear from REI.
backcountry is great with their returns, too.
one time i received a camp chair that was broken, and instead of making me send it back and then sending me a new one, they just sent me a new one. no questions asked.
and all i had to do was hop on-line and chat with someone on their website.
…now if only they would open a few hundred more stores.
I do have one objection to raise about REI. I have shopped there since the ’70s. For some time now they tend to not list the weight of many of their items.I am talking about items that would naturally be useful for backcountry users. Long ago this was not the case. Often I have to find the item at its manufacturers site to get its packing weight, an extra step I would prefer that REI do for me.
But all in all, I have received great service from REI.
Hey Steve,
I agree they would be wise to put the weights on things or supply a scale in their stores so you could weigh it your self.
I have brought my scale into REI so I could compare weights of things. If there is a heavy security tag on the gear, I ask for a one so I can weigh it and then use the tare feature on the scale.
Some of the sales staff are great, some have no idea what’s going on. I was looking at bicycle recently and asked what sizes the bike came in, the sales person left to go ask someone else and came back with a questionable answer. I went home, jumped online and realized that he gave me the wrong information. So like everything else in today’s world, just do your homework before you go.
& I agree 100% about the need for a scale in the store and the need for them to post the weight of the items, especially sleeping bags, it drives me nuts.
Some of the sales staff are great, some have no idea what’s going on. I was looking at bicycle recently and asked what sizes the bike came in, the sales person left to go ask someone else and came back with a questionable answer. I went home, jumped online and realized that he gave me the wrong information. So like everything else in today’s world, just do your homework before you go.
& I agree 100% about the need for a scale in the store and the need for them to post the weight of the items, especially sleeping bags, it drives me nuts.
Yeah, I have found that as well. I used to think that one of the drawbacks of shopping at REI, is their sales staff really don’t know much about gear.
I met a hiker on the trail who said he looked at the Osprey Atmos 35 for a thru-hike and the sales guy said that there was no way it was big enough..and then he went around picking up gear and a big pot and all this other stuff and tried to stuff it in the pack to demonstrate how the atmos 35 wouldn’t work for him.
But when I bought my pack there this summer, the sales guy had hiked the PCT, AT, and CDT.
I don’t depend on sales staff for backpacking gear because I know a lot about backpacking.
But if say I wanted to start biking, I would probably buy my bike from a bike store.