Monday, September 10, 2012

A Review of Blinds.com

The little house we bought this year is on a very small lot in the city. We're really happy here, and it's plenty of space for us, but we're on a busy street and on top of a lot of neighbors. We have no less than 4 houses and a block of condominiums that can all look into our windows. I've never really been a fan of blinds (I prefer to be able to see outside) but when you're staring into your neighbors kitchen (from our bedroom no less!) instead of over some pretty foliage, blinds become kind of essential.

We looked at a few different options for blinds. First, we called Costco thinking they'd be inexpensive, but quickly found that wasn't the case. Next, we had someone from 3 Day Blinds come by, measure, and give us a quote. We needed 5 small blinds for the bedrooms, and one huge blind for the living room. The quote came to over $1500! That simply wasn't in our budget.

Finally, I started searching online. I was a little nervous about this - what if I measured wrong? Custom blinds didn't seem very returnable. But when I saw Blinds.com return policy (if it doesn't fit - even if it's your fault - they'll redo the blinds at no cost to you) I decided it was a safe choice.

Because of baby's impending arrival we went with cordless blinds in the bedrooms. The style we went with was the Bali DiamondCell 3/8" Daybreak Double Cell blinds. The cordless lift system added $35 a blind, but when I first started looking (before I got nervous of ordering online!) there was a free upgrade available on the cordless option. They seem to have rotating discounts going on a lot, so keep that in mind. We couldn't get cordless for the living room because the blind was too wide, but we did want to get a Bottom-Up/Top-Down lift style so that we could lower the blind from the top and see a little bit of the trees outside without seeing the sidewalk and busy street below. This added $27 to the cost of that blind.

When we purchased, we went with Bali because they were offering a 15% discount. Since ordering I've also consistently gotten discount e-mails, so be sure to look for coupon codes online along with the deals you see listed on the site. Our total order (no tax, no shipping!) came to $812.45 - half the price of our lowest quote!

The blinds are quality, look great installed, and are just what we need. Of course we had to measure ourselves, which took all of a few minutes, and then my husband had to install them, which was easy peasy (and not just because he's good at that kind of thing - I could have done it) but the savings more than made up for the tiny bit of extra work. We ordered on May 3rd, they shipped on May 10th, and arrived on May 15th, ahead of their predicted schedule.

Now onto the interesting part, and the reason I REALLY recommend Blinds.com. When I first placed our order, I couldn't get my credit card to go through. It seemed like the site was having some kind of issue. I tried to put it through a couple of times, and then gave up and went to sleep. In the morning I double checked that I hadn't received a confirmation e-mail, and tried again. The order went through, and I had a confirmation e-mail within seconds. When the blinds shipped a week later I received two tracking numbers. I didn't give it a second thought - I figured the 6 blinds we'd ordered were coming in 2 different packages - until 12 blinds arrived at our house. I checked the credit card statement, and lo and behold, we'd been charged twice.

I called Blinds.com, almost immediately got a live person, and she immediately saw the issue, apologized for their mistake (never trying to put it on me, even though I probably should have called after trying to run my card multiple times) and went about solving it. The best part? Their solution when a blind needs to be returned or remade is not to have you mail the blinds back to them. They have you find a reputable charity in your area, donate the blinds, and e-mail them a copy of the donation receipt. Then they refund you in full! I have a friend who works for Habitat for Humanity, so I chose to donate them there. She wrote up a receipt for the full value of the blinds, and within a couple of days of e-mailing that to Blinds.com I had a refund on my credit card statement.

How cool is that?!

Not only am I happy with my blinds and happy with the deal I got, I feel like I worked with a company with a conscience - and unparalleled customer service. Since I'm not earning any referral or paycheck for posting this review, you can trust that I only took the time to write it because I was blown away with my experience with them.

And now the neighbors don't see me naked in the morning!

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