Patagonia - Palo Alto
Vaibhav “Dr.V” Agrawal Feeling Small from in-store experience
I’m a Patagonia fan, have bought merch >15k at this store since I was a student at Stanford over 10yrs back; Today, the return service was bad — for a second time — and that’s why I’m writing this review.
— I returned a pair of kids gloves bought 3 weeks prior. Our toddler (2yr old) tried it a couple of times on the ski slope and didn’t fit it well. I came back with the gloves + the tag (unattached). I got a ‘oh I need to check with Ben’ from the saleswoman. then Ben + the same saleswoman spent 15 mins turning the gloves inside out, visually inspecting each seam … after sometime … asked me again what happened, gave some spiel on why it was not in resellable condition …all the time I felt they were judging me, or worse, trying to find flaws in my account
— Next came my 6y old Patagonia down jacket. It had whisks of down feathers poking out in multiple areas — which Ben offered to repair (great, thank you). He applied 4-5 patches, but also gave me an unsolicited 15-20 minute lecture on ‘pointy feathers’ and ‘why this happens’ … to the point that I was pissed.
All in all, worse returns experience than REI or Walmart! Especially because the salesperson made me feel small. Unlikely to come back to this store.