Any Experience With Directbuy?

[Luremaker]

The buy in is quite substantial. A friend told me over $1000 but I can't remember exactly how much. I also heard that their products are quite high quality.
I am still mulling over the idea of joining when we build next year.

A friend of mine almost joined last year in Toronto. They wanted almost $4500 to join the "club", yes that was $4500, so he decided to do little checking. He quickly found out that the fee they wanted to join will vary between $1000 and $5500 depending on how large the "sucker" sticker on your forehead is. The membership fee varies from franchise to franchise and is negotiable. The big no no is they refuse to give you any details on what you will pay for merchandise before you join. It's all hard sell sales seminar. After what I heard from him I'd stay away.

 

[thatguy]

Our neighbors were building a house and mentioned they were going to join to get a lot of stuff for the house.. out of curiousity I did the google search and found maybe 1 or 2 ppl out of 100's that were actually happy and felt it was a good deal..

It appears that IF you are going to buy A LOT of stuff it possibly may be a good investment.

One of the kitchen cabinets the neighbors bought thru them was damaged and they had a lot of trouble getting a replacement cabinet. They also had to pay someone to install the cabinets.

One of the biggest turn offs is that a good deal of the stuff you are ordering out of a catalog, so you arent seeing anything beforehand.

good luck, but id save my money LOL

Brian

 

[Nissan197]

I know of a couple of people who joined and then complained enough and were able to get their money back. If I remember they paid around 4K to join. If you don't like shopping for the best price it might be okay, but if you know your prices and look for the best then do not join. You will be able to find your items cheaper else where.

 

[Tig]

$3500 does ring a bell. What turned me off was the commercials where people happily tell how they completed their bathroom for $20K. Unless the toilet is mounted on a new tractor it seems a bit expensive to me.
A friend of mine bought windows using his friends membership. He was happy and thinks he saved money. I did not check any details of what he got.

 

[bigshovel]

20 grand isn't all that much for a bathroom these days.

Brad

 

[Charlesaf3]

20k bathroom? depends whats in it. I could certainly do one for a lot less.

Fixtures are a small part in any case, its labor that costs.

I'm sure many of you know that you can get wholesale prices on house fixtures very easily - no need to join a scam outfit. If you are in the trade you are looking at 10-25% off usuaaly. And if you are doing a big enough projecy a lumberyard will usually give you trade prices

 

[Western]

" Unless the toilet is mounted on a new tractor it seems a bit expensive to me."

Tig, you may be on to somthing! Now just where to mount it..

 

[EddieWalker]

No personal experience with them myself, but just watching their commercials convinced me that they are not something that I want to get involved with. They mention the huge savings on their products, but as a contractor, I sort of have an idea of what those things cost, and the numbers they are using are on the extreme high end to compare the savings to.

Most of it is in custom cabinets built to order by a cabinet maker. If you are buying pre-built cabinets, then you can get the most expensive ones that the box stores for less then the ones they are advertising as being a great deal. In my opinion, the mid priced cabinets are very good at both Home Depot and Lowes. I've also had good results with the lower end cabinets.

When you figure out how much it costs to have custom cabinets built, then to have them finished with either stain or paint, you are in the big money for kitchens. You get a better finish with the box store brands, better hinges and they are always perfectly square. The price can be as much as 4 to five times as much for custom when compared to what I think is a better quality cabinet from the box stores.

Eddie

 

[dfeck]

My parents sat through the 2 hour sales pitch. I told them right off not to go because I thought it was a scam. Well, after wasting 2 hours of their time they dropped the sign-up fee on them at a whopping $4500. Needless to say my dad was p@ssed because he kept on asking them what the joining fee was upfront. They wouldn't tell him because they needed to go through their pitch first. The funny thing was they were only in the market for 2 recliner type chairs for the living room. Which he expressed to Direct Buy BEFORE he sat through the sales pitch.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Eddie - exactly on the comparisons. But you need to meet some better custom guys! They should blow big box top quality cabinets out of the water.

They also seem to use MSRP on a lot of furniture comparisons. I've NEVER seen a store sell furniture at MSRP - its a marketing joke