Registry Woes
March 1st, 2007 @ 4:40 pm by Mrs. Blueberry
We’re registered at B3 and JC Penney. As others have discovered, the B3 registry is wonderful, as are their employees–no complaints there, and I’d definitely recommend registering there to anyone! The JC Penney registry, however…that’s another matter. In the 7 or 8 months we’ve had the registry, we’ve had to go back three times and make significant changes, due to items being discontinued. Now it has happened again, just three months from the wedding. Luckily, not much has been purchased off that registry yet.
So now we’re considering just closing out that registry, and passing the word around that we’re only registered at B3. I don’t think this should be a problem for our guests; they almost all live in either St Louis or Kansas City, and those who don’t (ie our college friends) are definitely computer literate enough to make an online purchase from the registry.
If we do this, we’ll have to go in and put versions of each item from the Penney’s registry onto our B3 registry, which isn’t *that* big a deal but is still a hassle. Less of a hassle than continuing to screw with the stuff at JC Penney, though!
When we’re in KC next week, we’ll probably close out our Penney’s registry and add a bajillion things to the B3 one…one more thing to do.
Have you had any bad/difficult registry experiences?
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12 Responses to “Registry Woes”
We started out with a Target registry, but then realized that most of the wonderful things they had available online were not available in their stores. So, we found comparable items on BB&B and eliminated the Target one. Then we created an upscale registry on Macys (much smaller registry with fine china, silver, etc.). It’s only been 3 months, but we’re very pleased with both.
We registered at Bloomingdale’s, which had a few glitches. We were trying, when we were in the store, to get things in a variety of prices. Lo and behold when the registry is finished a lot of the stuff was on sale. That’s great for our guests in a way, but it would have been nice to know that during the process. There has also been a lot of problems with things being backordered for a long time. That causes problems with the note-writing, because I’ve heard it can get weird if you write a note for a back-ordered gift for something that was purchased, and then maybe they run out of stock . . .
We also registered at Sur La Table, which doesn’t have the most sophisticated system. Also, I did the registry in the store, but only after it was all set up could I see that many of the items were only available to for purchase at the store. It’s not a huge chain, so that was a bit of a bummer. I would have liked to have known that.
I registered at Marshall Field’s last year when it was transitioning to Macy’s. There were lots of problems — I couldn’t update without the computer creating a separate new registry (so I would have several with like one item on it). Some items were sent without a packing slip or card so I had no idea who’d sent them. Macy’s was very helpful when we were closing out the registry. They replaced broken things without question, and thye ran a promotion for those closing out their registry where you could use your closing out discount on anything in the store. Useful, since many things had become discontinued.
Really, I wish I hadn’t registered. I felt like I was forcing myself to choose thigns and thereby making friends and family feel compelled to buy them for me. That plus the problems we ran into, made we wish we’d never done it. Still, I do think it made things easier for people, especially those uncomfortable giving cach.
My only registry frustration was that C&B has such seasonal turn-over on a lot of their items. Some things we registered for (like our bedding), I really really wanted but it was discontinued and sent to their outlet so I ended up purchasing it myself. =( Boo.
We registered at 4 places because we kept not finding what we wanted…do you think that it too many? Some of the registeries are very small. We had bad luck at Macys, they messed up my name and our password, three times, and it was really hard to figure out, their phone and in store representatives were terrible. Also, they had a very poor selection in the store, and everything went on sale after we registered, and then some things were discontinued.
We had good luck w/ C&B, WS and B3. At WS my only issue was that we registered in store, and about 10-12 items weren’t avail. online, which is fine, but you can’t even see a picture online, and it doesn’t tell you if they are no longer avail. or not, it just says, go to store, or something like that, which I don’t think is that helpful.
Opened one at Target before we went w/ Macys and B3, but it was a disaster, and I heard so many terrible things about returns and customer service, we never added anything to it.
I was so torn about registering, there were certain things I really wanted, and I’m a bit of a foodie, so I LOVE kitchen stuff, but my FI and I really didn’t want that much, we’d rather people help us save up for a house….but we know a LOT of the people coming would want to give us presents, and we thought it was better they had something to chose from, than just getting us something random we won’t want.
What is B3?
juyon, b3 is “Bed Bath & Beyond”.
and i’m registered there and thinking to register at macy’s too. i love the 20% off coupons from B3!!
I had the same problems with JC Penney-only registered there because it was the only department store near my husband’s family.
It seemed like every week we had to add things due to items being discontinued. All we ended up with from JC Penney was a gift card.
B3 was great, as was Macy’s…
I am the last of my bunch of friends to tie the knot, and they gave me some wonderful advice about registering. B3 has the best return policy, hands down. On our first visit there to create our registry, the nice employee told us that if people give us gift cards to B3, we can even cash those out! I was impressed. With all the nightmare return stories about Target and other places, my friends advised me this way: Register for AS MUCH AS YOU CAN at B3. Even if you like the towels at Target better, or somewhere else, just register for something comparable at B3. So… residing on my registry are towels, bedding, dishes, etc… that really aren’t my top choice. BUT, thanks to their great policy, anything I don’t really want, I can just cash it in and go use the money to buy the item I really want at whereever I find it. This eliminates having a lot of registries, and hey… seriously… who can furnish a home from just one store?! I know I’m much too particular, and hunt for ages for the perfect colors/accents/styles. Thought I’d share this little tip!
If I was getting married now I’d register for gift cards at Sears (appliances) or a home improvement store. When you are setting up your first home you need so much stuff
C&B was fantastic! Lots of item turnover in seasonals, but core items were there for over a year.
But Macy’s was a mess. We never received our Macy’s Rewards gift card after the wedding and had to call and complain. The staff in store never knew what they were doing (at 4 different stores). Items would disappear off the registry and other items would just appear. I would not recommend it.
Mrs. Blueberry, Kansas City
Age and Occupation in 06: 21, Full-time Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Full-time Student
Engagement Date: September 10, 2005
Wedding Date: May 25, 2007
Venue: Wynbrick Center - a historic mansion in my hometown.
About Me: We're having an intimate, 125-ish person wedding with a full-blown dessert reception. When I'm not obsessing over wedding stuff or studying for my BA in English, I'm usually playing with our two kitty cats, blogging, doing crafty things, or hanging out with Mr. Blueberry!
We mainly registered at B3, Target, + Sears. Sears was mainly for my DH and was great. With the exception of redeeming out giftcards (buy online, pick up in stores doesn’t work).
Target, like it’s been discussed here are bad with returns without a receipt. You can return up to two items per person (2 wife + 2 husband = 4 total) OR if the items are cheap, up to $10 per item. We had received two towels sets from them and they cost barely over $40, so we got return everything but two wash clothes.
One little tip, OXO products have a specific barcode per store. Which means, if you registered for all of your OXO at one store, and they bought it from another, you can’t return it to where you registered for. I wasn’t aware of this and have since been carrying a sack full of OXO utensils that DH and I have no use for since we have no idea where they came from.