Has Anyone Joined Direct Buy?

I thought about joining direct buy until I did a lot of internet research. I found out that a lot of people gave it very bad reviews and decided to stay away from it. If I were you I'd do some research before you decide to join. It's a lot of money to just hand over without knowing what you are getting.

My husband and I joined about 3 years ago. We remodeled our kitchen and saved about 10,000.00. Like others have said it is a very high buy in and the freight cost are a bit high, but if you are looking into purchasing alot it is well worth it. We have also rehabed a home, and purchased all the flooring and counters through them and saved about $5,000.00 and that.

I think some people get discouraged because it is not like a store where you go in and pick out what you want, it is a place that has manufacturer catalogs, pricing and some samples, you have to do your homework before you go. Pick out your purchases at retail stores and then go and see how much it would be at direct buy. It will take you longer about 4 to 8 weeks for dlvy, but when you special order somethings it's about the same. They will tell you that some things are cheaper to get at the stores. Cabinets, and furniture will cost you about half, lets put it this way my cabinets cost $6,000 (high end) and it would have cost 14,000 at a kitchen design store.

Think of it this way, the furniture you can afford at a retail store and the furniture that you can get at direct buy is much different. Go to a upsale furniture store and see the prices. You'll think how can anyone afford these. Well you can at direct buy.

They also have other places that they deal with and you get a discount, such as wholesale flooring places, granite, and appliances.

I have never had problems with the customer service at the hoffman estates office, they have always been very nice and helpful.

You should call them and go to one of their pitches, it doesn't cost anything to listen. They will also show you the books, so if you have an idea of what you want then you could look at the books and see if it will be worth it for you.

I looked into it and decided not to. High initial start-up, so you need to buy lots in order to make it worth it. Good selection though, but financially not feasable for our 2,000 sq ft. home (when we first moved in from a little apartment.)

I have never used them, but I used to work for a company that did business for them and heard FREQUENT complaints about their customer service and policies from their customers. I would advise to do your research -- sometimes regular retail stores are cheaper - ESPECIALLY if you buy on sale.

We joined about 5 years ago in Cincinnati before we finished a basement. Back then it was called UCC Total Home. Like others said I think you can get great deals at retail stores if you do your research before. The one downfall to Direct Buy is the freight cost and shipping/handling costs that are added to your order. I haven't purchased from them for a couple of years, but while we finished our basement we bought LOTS of things through them and save a TON of money on cabinets, bedroom furniture, wine refrigerators, stereo componants, etc. Depending on how much you need you can really save a bundle...especially on cabinets. I couldn't believe the difference between them and Home Depot!

Hi N.. I have belonged to direct buy for five years. It does save you money, but you have to do you homework. Luckly with the internet it does make it a little easier and direct buy has a website that you can shop product and prices. It does have a high buy in price, but if you have a lot of stuff to buy you make it up very quickly. I joined right after I was married, so we had a ton of furniture to buy. We made our money back in our first order. The two downfalls are you have to order from a direct buy office, with some exceptions, and you must pay in full. Hope that helps.

N.,
My husband and I joined about a year ago while in the process of building our new home. We needed everything from electical and plumbing fixtures to window treatments and sofas. We priced out everything through DirectBuy and online for comparisons but in hindsight didn't do enough research. We saved money on several light fixtures, our Jacuzzi, our plumbing fixtures and our sofas - that's it! However, although we saved a fortune on the sofas, we never would have spent as much as we did but felt there was just so much savings for such a high end sofa. That has become one of the catches of shopping through them . . . you joined to save money but may be tempted to spend the same for higher quality. Bottom line, it's not worth the cost. By the way, I agree with the other responses stating poor customer sevice both within the store and when trying to design a kitchen. Also, the seperate shipping and handling costs and the tax REALLY add up. Oh, by the way, I just bought my window treatments at Smith and Noble and Linens and Things because the selection at DirectBuy was minimal. I hate to discourage but I hope this helps!

A friend of mine calls Direct Buy the worst mistake she ever made, and she still feels stupid for having been taken in by the scam. She says the prices aren't great and the whole thing is a hassle to use. (Plus, for the price of joining, you could buy a living room full of furniture!)

Hi N.,

Almost three years ago, before we were married, my husband and I bought a membership to Direct Buy. We figured we would need the savings that direct buy offered once we bought a house. We did buy our house two years ago and put direct buy to work for us. What we found out was that you have to be a very savvy consumer and know what you want. That includes the style, the manufacturer, the price at the store, the type of fabric, the grade of leather, etc. We spent a lot of time combing through books of merchandise just deciding on what kind of bedroom set to buy. It is not as easy as it sounds, but we did save a bundle on bedroom and living room furniture. The set we liked retailed at 1600 for the couch and love seat alone. We paid DirectBuy 800 for an entire room of furniture. We did have to wait for it to be delivered and pay extra for it, but it was nowhere near the 1600 the store charged. If you are going to be buying a lot of furniture in the near future and you want to spend time researching the products that you buy, then DirectBuy will serve you well. If you think you are just going to go in and BAM buy something quickly, this is not the deal for you. We will continue to keep shopping at direct buy because we have the time, but some people don't. Good luck.

S. S.

My husband and I joined a few years back...we've saved a lot. If you're looking for bigger ticket items...what you'll find is you can spend the same amount as shopping a store similar to a Wicks furniture and get custom furniture...we recently purchased a boy's bedroom set for approx. $900.00 thru Direct Buy that in a normal store would have cost us approx. $3000.00 If you have a few purchases to make you'll recup your membership fee quickly. We have even saved over $100.00 on a bathroom storage mirror...we have found it to be a great place to buy furniture and household items. We also built a new home...it has been great. I think we've saved around $10K so far. On items we never thought we'd buy when we joined. It's come in really handy.

If you join the one in Gurnee please mention that D. Gibson recommended it to you.

My husband and I joined Direct Buy after we bought our house and found it to be worthless. We found it very hard and time consuming to find things in the books and most items in the books were cheaper but they were always very high end or they were discontinued models.

When we were redoing our kitchen we tried to buy our cabintets from there but the process took forever because they only had one kitchen guy and the software he had was no better then what we could have bought at the store. He was also very unavailable and took weeks to make changes we finally gave up and went to Home Depot and were very satisfied.

To be fair I did talk to people when I was there who loved it but form me I say save your money.

Chris S

A Little about me:

Mother of a wonderful 3 year old boy

We also looked into it several years ago and decided not to join. If you are truly looking to refurnish an entire house, it may be worth it, but that wasn't the case for us. When we were considering it, they had an information session you could go to to ask questions, look over what they have available, etc. Maybe something like that would help you decide if it makes sense for your situation.