Buy Buy Baby review: process to order online then pick up in store...? "fail" ( 1 comment)

I had a major misunderstanding about how the process to buy online and pick up in the BuyBuyBaby store works.

We have the first grandkid being born soon in South Carolina. We live in Kentucky, Maryland, and California. The opportunity to pick up all these gifts in Lexington KY by the kind sister (me) was going to save everybody shipping costs, and especially would save anybody flying the hassle of bringing large wrapped gifts on the plane. We all went separately to the BuyBuyBaby website, selected our gifts off the registry, typed in all the details of our individual credit card numbers (including expiration and security code). Additionally we were careful to provide our individual email addresses because of the lovely advertised 20% deduction. It was a little disconcerting that the discount didn't appear on the web site "check out", but, a human reassured us this would be taken off at a later step, when I was actually in the store. Everybody selected "Pickup in the store located at Lexington KY" (2321 Sir Barton Way, Lexington 40509)

I drove to BuyBuyBaby in Lexington today 11/27/2019, and told the clerk I was here to pickup three separate orders. She asked our three last names (Luton, Luton, and Yeager) and quickly found the correct boxes. So far, so good. But then the misunderstandings started. I expected the clerk would look at the emails on my phone, input the discount, and charge reduced amounts to all three cards stored in the computer. And I would walk out with the products and three receipts. But no, she wanted me to produce a credit card, any credit card, and pay for all the purchases. What? What? I asked if she could complete the three transactions using the three credit cards that we'd carefully typed into the web site. No, not possible, she said, adding, "I don't know why we asked for all that information; we don't use it."

A line had formed behind me by this time. If I had had my brother's credit card I could have used it for his purchase, but, his was in San Mateo. If I'd had my dad's credit card I could have used it for his purchase, but he was in Nicholasville. I was a little rattled because things weren't going like I thought they would. In all the confusion I did not notice none of the purchases had the 20% discount. I noticed it after I drove 45 minutes to my house. Sigh - this is not a good process -- it was a fiasco.

But I am going to give it the old college try, call customer support after Thanksgiving, and see if she can work it out over the phone without me needing to come in (that would be 1hr 30 min round trip for me). I don't feel very optimistic.