05/13/09

Just another Walmart with Philosophy as Marketing

by thelowdown

This place is no bettern than Walmart. REI= Retarded Egotistical Idiots. Just another big box retailer trying to squeeze margins via volume & hidding behind Philosophy.

Unknowledgeable & Unhelp Staff who seem to be unmotivated because they make nothing and have been car camping or to a rock gym a few times a year.

Lack of Technical Gear. Just heaps of junk. Probably better to brave the other gaper climbing/skiing/outdoor stores around the area.

Remember folks:

Act like the salespeople are gods and they just might tell you where the cash register is so you can support their wages.

Also, once you're a member, you are better than everyone else (including other members).

• Pros: Arrogant & Clueless sales people, Heaps of Junk on Sale
• Cons: Just Read on or Just Experience 4 Yourself

02/28/09

Junk Show- Arrogant & Incompetent Ski Repair & Tech shop workers- do not take your skis there

by Yeah1234

Purchased skis & bindings at REI online & picked up at the Denver Flagship Store. Decided to get them mounted there. Big mistake. Ski shop rep wrote down wrong information regarding mounting specs we gave him, and Ski Tech mounted skis in the wrong location (not as specified) and ruined the new skis. No apologies and big headache.

In general, the store is a junk show. Arrogant representatives who show little knowledge on their products and who do not seem to have people skills. Big box store with nothing to offer except for car camping accessories.

Go to Bass Pro shop instead, besides they sell guns, without the Colorado transplant "holy than thou" attitude.

• Pros: Clean bathrooms
• Cons: Lack of Customer Service, Value, Parking, Inexperience Sales & Service Staff, and Variety in Products (only entry-mid level products)

11/22/07

a denver necessity

by denver204

I strongly suspect that god invented REI so that we could get the advice we need to stay alive on real rock.

Rock shoes, Aliens and harnesses excepted, you can buy almost all the climbing gear you want online nowadays without taking much of a risk. And sports stores being notoriously unreliable about stocking or even identifying gear (I've heard a sales clerk in Cincinnati call webbing "rope," and another tell me that his store didn't sell cordolette when there were at least five spools of it hanging right behind him), why bother driving to the store? I usually pay the shipping deal with it.

At REI, a few things happened that don't happen online:

We ogled an historic landmark. The Denver REI is in a restored Tramway building. It's really neat.

We also got to touch things before we bought them. Pretend to place the gear. Snap the gates on the biners. I could have tried shoes out on an indoor wall if I had wanted.

Most crucially (and coolly!), we talked to sales clerks who CLIMBED. Themselves. They didn't have a brother who once tried it or aspirations to learn or whatever; every clerk I spoke to climbed regularly on gear! So they could discuss the relative merits of passive versus active trad gear, the disadvantages of water knots in cordolette versus its advantages in webbing, and the having-fun-versus-pushing-it philosophies out there in the remote world of climbers. I was amazed.

REI sells camping, biking and kayaking gear, and lots of other outdoor stuff. I didn't ask about much outside the climbing & camping gear, but the workers are there because they love the outdoors (and they get a discount) so I'm guessing they are as knowlegable about other outdoor activities. If you spend any time in nature and you have the opportunity to visit an REI, stop in.