Anybody ever use directbuy.com?

[67pete300]

We have just bought a new house and need some furniture, a tv, and I need cabinets for the garage. I had heard that you can save alot of money with directbuy.com if you are doing a remodel or other big project.

I know there is a local warehouse so I went to the website to check it out. Once there it was just full of testimonials and propaganda without any real details or information how it works. To get in (no indication of what memberships cost) you have to sign up for a 1.5 hour appointment at one of their inconvenient times. Big warnings about being on time and not bringing your children under 12.

It's sounding like some timeshare pitch or something and I am a bit wary of the whole deal. Anybody have any experience with this place?

Thanks.

 

[stanford1621]

membership is $5000, and prices are no different than ebay they want you to bring your spouse and as soon as you get to the appointment you will be lead into a room with whoever else signed up and you will watch a video after the video they will let the salesmen into the room to start conversations with everyone, as soon as you start talking to a salesman another will come up and start talking to you wife and try to split you up.

Until one of you sign a contract if you don't sign a contract you can't go to the showroom your lead out of a side door.

It is not a scam if your gonna spend alot of money remodeling a house but it is not for the average person.

 

[Phatsub]

The dollar figures they talk about in their commercials are rediculous. I can't see why anybody would use them.

 

[jayoldschool]

My friend's parent's joined when they bought a condo. They remodeled the entire kitchen so they said it was worth it. The membership cost is a few thousand. That is not a misprint.

 

[rsanter]

they claim you get deep discounts off the price of things...off what price you have to ask...list price?

do a search on the net about the complaints they have gotten and that will tell the story
they make their money on shipping and handeling fees that are far higher than they should be.

I think you are better off shopping around and doing a little negociating. I also like the deal from a friend of a friend discount.

bob

 

[thammel]

Don't waste your time. They're a hard pitch and don't want you to leave without paying the 5000 to join. I did leave and they were basically pissed at us. It just doesn't make sense other than the real way they make money is on the suckers who pay the $5000 to join. I kept asking questions like, why not charge a 1% fee over wholesale to us - then they could make more money. They never had a decent rational answer to any of my questions. I suggest you google direct buy and you'll find lots of forums of people who were sorry they joined. It just does not make sense. Why wouldn't they charge $500 or a smlaler feee to join, and then if the sales volume were really there (that's the point - it's not!) they could charge a low % over wholesale and make more $. They problem is that with low volume, their incentive to get better and more variety of products is nil. Their incentive is SOLELY to get people to join and pay the non-refundable $5000.

Tom

 

[bochnak]

My buddy and his friends all split a membership. They furnished 3 homes and said it was worth the effort.

I don't have any first hand experience with it.

Get some people to sign up with you!

 

[67pete300]

Thanks for the feedback. I did as a few suggested and read some google threads. I won't be joining. I just hope I don't get hassled because of all the info I already gave them.

 

[sharpshooter]

I looked into this at one time when I was recently remodeling my home. I couldnt figure out why everything was so secretive. You cant find any info on their site other than testimonials, from their "happy customers" If its such a great value why keep a lid on it. It didnt add up to me so I didnt feel like it warranted me driving 2 hrs to the closest store to get pissed only to find out its some jack legged scam. Come to find out it was.

 

[TxDoc]

I kept asking questions like, why not charge a 1% fee over wholesale to us - then they could make more money. They never had a decent rational answer to any of my questions.
Tom

If you kept on and on with them, they may have paid you $5000 to leave! To them, Thammel=Not their ideal customer. After you went out the side door, you could walk back to the front door and start taking $50 from potentials to give them the lowdown.

 

[jimvannoy]

Do a search. I think they are a big scam outfit looking to hook you with the huge membership fee and then the prices are not much different than anywhere else.

 

[Stew4706]

67Pete,

My wife and I joined 3 years ago before we bought our current house and it is absolutely worth it if you are going to buy allot of stuff. We paid $4200 at the time and we saved more than that on kitchen cabinets. In general, you save the most on things like furnature, for example the sectional I am sitting on cost us $1800 delivered to our house and the cheapeast I found it for at the local stores was $4200. Now that is an extreme. What we found is that we ended buying up instead of actually saving real dollars for example Koholer stuff is discounted over 40% so instead of saving that we bought stuff that was 40% more expensive.

Electronics are hit amd miss because the margin is not that big so when we bought our plasma I bought it at Best Buy when they were giving 18 months same as cash. They also have watches, luggage, generators all the major appliance brands and also generally offer discounts on garage doors, siding and similar stuff from local merchants.

They will likely give you a hard sell and that is a big turn off but at the end of it all it is worth it if you are buying enough big ticket stuff, if you are furnishing one room don't waste your money. You also need to be disiplined in buying, for example if you shop far enough in advanced it is a great place to get birthday and Christmas gifts.

The down side is that the showrooms are filled with catalogs so you have to look at the actual item elsewhere. They also make their money on accepting material on your behalf and they charge around 8% for that because they uncrate everything, inspect it and box it back up for you. The other challenge is if you buy something and you decide you just don't like it - not that there is anything wrong with it but you just don't like it returns are a hassle. Now if there is something wrong with it that is a different story.

I am happy to talk to you about it, let me know.

 

[RobRace10]

I have a friend who joined and he feels it was a complete ripoff. The items that he has checked are old models and not current product. Items you can buy elsewhere for the same. His advice "DON"T DO IT!"

 

[carguy123]

A friend, who did join, and I compared prices item by item of things needed to build our houses. I won hands down by shopping around and I didn't pay $5,000!

Plus they steered him wrong on a number of items. It was so funny in that most of the stuff they lied about was easily checked by going to the product's web page.

Before we did the price comparo and prior to even considering going to one of their "meetings" I went into one of their stores nearby. They didn't want to talk to me and tried to get me to leave.

They wouldn't give me even one price on any product they sold so that I could compare. They told me to bring a price of something I wanted to buy to their "meeting" and they'd show me how much money I could save.

 

[Brickout]

My wife and I have been members for 7 or so years now. Back then I think it was $3000 for the initial membership cost. Then after the first 2 years it's around $100 a year to stay a member.

We've totally made our money back and more. I remodeled my basement, bought a fireplace, new carpet, new bedroom set. We've even used it to help out family and friends.

I'm happy I'm a member.

 

[rwhite692]

Total scam artists. These guys have a ton of BBB complaints registered against them.

 

[ddawg16]

Anyone that has a 'memebership' fee is most likley a rip off.....about the only exception is Costco and Sams.....

 

[HHStang]

It's a scam and waste of money. I'd be surprised if they were still in business a year or two from now.

 

[Stew4706]

Some of you guys crack me up!! You have absolutely no first hand knowledge yet you will condemn Direct Buy as a scam. I am a member and I agree they have numb-nuts working at some of their showrooms and they hard cell but if you want to save money, are willing to do the research and buy enough you will save money. Here are a few examples of what I saved this year:

Samsonite suit cases - saved $60 over JC Penny's 40% off sale
Tile for bathroom - saved $150 at the store that I would have bought the tile from anyway as DB has a wholesale agreement with them
Kohler Bathtub - saved $300 over Home Depot
Vanity, sinks, and Mirror - saved $800 over local bath shop
Kohler toilet - saved $60 over Home Depot
Kohler Faucets - saved $125 over Home Depot
Kohler bathtub valve, trim, shower head - saved $225 over Home Depot

 

[Novadiecast]

I have some FIRST HAND EXPRIENCE with Direct buy. Let me explain. I was a window manufactures rep for several years. I sold a Direct Buy customer the windows through Direct Buy. Here was the catch. Direct buy dealt with the "closest dealer". The "dealer" marked up the windows his normal margins(which were very high in my opinion), Then Direct Buy would mark it up a little and charge a "precessing fee".

In the end if this Customer had shopped around he could have saved more than 5K on this deal alone. So in my opinion it is a Rip.

Now there is a guy down the street from me that Loves the place. So what do ya do?????

 

[insane1]

The way I look at it; You want me to pay to shop at your store..??.. You can that shove it up your *** and I dont care what the store is.

 

[chevelless1]

people with alot of money love the Direct Buy....they think they get deals....

 

[rwhite692]

Some of you guys crack me up!! You have absolutely no first hand knowledge yet you will condemn Direct Buy as a scam. I am a member and I agree they have numb-nuts working at some of their showrooms and they hard cell but if you want to save money, are willing to do the research and buy enough you will save money. Here are a few examples of what I saved this year:

Samsonite suit cases - saved $60 over JC Penny's 40% off sale
Tile for bathroom - saved $150 at the store that I would have bought the tile from anyway as DB has a wholesale agreement with them
Kohler Bathtub - saved $300 over Home Depot
Vanity, sinks, and Mirror - saved $800 over local bath shop
Kohler toilet - saved $60 over Home Depot
Kohler Faucets - saved $125 over Home Depot
Kohler bathtub valve, trim, shower head - saved $225 over Home Depot

So how much did you need to spend on membership to this exclusive club to "save" that ~ $1,700?

 

[Stew4706]

So how much did you need to spend on membership to this exclusive club to "save" that ~ $1,700?

That was just this year. Over the last 3 years while remodeling the house and buying furniture we saved about $23,000. When we signed up the fee was $4100 and we saved that on the kitchen and dining room cabinets.

 

[rburke65]

My dad use to say, "there's no free lunch", and "If it sounds too good to be true, ...."

 

[stanford1621]

Some of you guys crack me up!! You have absolutely no first hand knowledge yet you will condemn Direct Buy as a scam. I am a member and I agree they have numb-nuts working at some of their showrooms and they hard cell but if you want to save money, are willing to do the research and buy enough you will save money. Here are a few examples of what I saved this year:

Samsonite suit cases - saved $60 over JC Penny's 40% off sale
Tile for bathroom - saved $150 at the store that I would have bought the tile from anyway as DB has a wholesale agreement with them
Kohler Bathtub - saved $300 over Home Depot
Vanity, sinks, and Mirror - saved $800 over local bath shop
Kohler toilet - saved $60 over Home Depot
Kohler Faucets - saved $125 over Home Depot
Kohler bathtub valve, trim, shower head - saved $225 over Home Depot

Your proving my point, your comparing direct buy prices to the most expensive retail prices out there if you shop around you can find the same prices as direct buy at other places online.

from your list you just remodeled 2 bathrooms and bought luggage and only saved $1780 you are still a long way from breaking even on the $5000 membership

 

[dcjredline]

Your proving my point, your comparing direct buy prices to the most expensive retail prices out there if you shop around you can find the same prices as direct buy at other places online.

from your list you just remodeled 2 bathrooms and bought luggage and only saved $1780 you are still a long way from breaking even on the $5000 membership

LOL! You dont read everything do you? He said that was just this year. BUT I do agree that it is NOT for anyone but the wealthy. I cant imagine making up for a $5k fee with products in my house.

 

[slicktoptt]

The local paper did an investigation and found out that you only get the one shot to join. If you decline, your name is loaded into a database they maintain and you can not join at a later time.
They (DB) said that they do this to protect their relationship with the manufacturers. They would not give any pricing information for you to compare and make an informed decision.

I had a woman tell me about all her savings and rattle off items. I went and found every one at a lower cost.

 

[ZRX61]

Some of you guys crack me up!! You have absolutely no first hand knowledge yet you will condemn Direct Buy as a scam. I am a member and I agree they have numb-nuts working at some of their showrooms and they hard cell but if you want to save money, are willing to do the research and buy enough you will save money. Here are a few examples of what I saved this year:

Samsonite suit cases - saved $60 over JC Penny's 40% off sale
Tile for bathroom - saved $150 at the store that I would have bought the tile from anyway as DB has a wholesale agreement with them
Kohler Bathtub - saved $300 over Home Depot
Vanity, sinks, and Mirror - saved $800 over local bath shop
Kohler toilet - saved $60 over Home Depot
Kohler Faucets - saved $125 over Home Depot
Kohler bathtub valve, trim, shower head - saved $225 over Home Depot

Home Depot prices are what mugs pay. big contractors dont buy their stuff from HD..

 

[oldgoat]

I know a guy that is a builder and on one home the guy was wanting to us direct buy. He told the guy to tell him what he was wanting to get and he would get him prices and they could compare. In almost every case his prices were better than direct buy and in fact he claims that some of the stuff you could go to local discount retailers and come up with close bids.

 

[Rob Hughes]

I have a customer who just built a 16 bedroom 16 bathroom "house" he spent the $5K to join and after extensive comparison shopping he felt it was money well spent.....for the average "Joe", it might be a better idea to glom off a buddy with a membership.