sports direct(ly) refuse to be consumer nice

[FindAReasonToSmile]

"We do our best to ensure all of our customers enjoy a happy shopping experience", is what it says on the Sports Direct website. Today I had a very less than happy shopping experience when going back to branch to ask for a replacement for a rucksack that had torn after just 9 months use.
"It's over 6-months old" and "I can see it's been used", said the manager who came down to examine the torn rucksack my teenager used for school. Of course it has been used. I didn't buy it to sit in a cupboard. But not able to stay together for even 9 months is too much to expect? Really? Entire babies are built in that.
"Can I get this in writing?", I asked. To be fair this manager did just that, even giving a phone number (head office?) when I said I would be going to BBC 3 counties about this. It took another request for him to add his own name too but he did.
What really gets me is, if Sports Direct think 6 months is the life expectancy of such products then why not make that clear at the point of sale. Tell me directly and openly, before I buy, that the £14.99 I am about to pay for the rucksack reduced from £29.99, is only expected to last up to 6 months. If I still choose to buy it and it fails even at 6 months the fair enough. But why choose to tell me this is really a £30 rucksack bargain, reduced by 50% to just £15, and then, when it fails, refuse to honour the quality they implied they sold me?
I'm taking this to JVS on BBC 3 counties radio. The monetary value on my individual item is not much but, spread across other such customers, the total injustice is probably huge.

;But why choose to tell me this is really a £30 rucksack bargain, reduced by 50% to just £15, and then, when it fails, refuse to honour the quality they implied they sold me?'

Lol

'spread across other such customers, the total injustice is probably huge.'

Ok.

A £29.99 rucksack 'reduced to £14.99' from SD is not ACTUALLY a £29.99 rucksack. It is a marketing tactic. It is a £14.99 rucksack.

9 months use is good going for a £14.99 rucksack.

If you worked in a school you would know how bags are treated. They are flung around, left on the floor, kicked about.
They are not treated nicely Even a genuine £29.99 rucksack would struggle to survive

You must have a drawer full of receipts in case you have to return any 'faulty' items.

I bet you're fun at parties.

Come back OP! Or are you holding to get through to BBC3?

I take sports direct prices with a pinch of salt. I bet no one in the history of the world has ever paid £30 for that rucksack, it's a £15 rucksack.
Same with mountain warehouse permanent "sales"
However I do hate SD policy of never refunding and only offering an exchange.

You're going to embarrass yourself even more than you have taking this any further OP. Don't.

Go to any major supermarket and buy him a 20p bag for life, then when that breaks after a couple of weeks you can get it replaced each time free of charge! Problem sorted!

All you people expecting teenagers to treat stuff rubbish, I despair. The teenagers in my family and with asd had the same back packs for years. They do last even cheaper ones, some things are just pure crap nowadays but if your kids ruin the average rucksack is 6 or 9 months then that is either a poor quality item or you need to teach them to take care of there items .

My daughters last rucksack lasted 7 years and was binned a few months that ago, it was half price from sports direct bought before I started to boycott them.

You need to put this down to experience op, and write off the £15. Sports Direct is well known for selling poor value goods with unlikely reductions and misleading labelling. Unfortunately you didn't know that 9 months ago, but you do now.

DDs rucksack is in its second year and doing well with almost no wear. .Its Superdry cost £20 in end of season sale but was originally about £40. Every day it goes to school so heavy I can barely lift it. In the holidays it gets used as a day bag.

Next time OP look for something good quality in the summer sales.. something that really is worth the original retail price

And dont go to the media. You'll end up on the Angry People in Local Newspapers group on Facebook with hundreds of people poking fun at you and your compo face

@hoxtonbabe. Yes totally empty box, not a crumb was left. It was an off the shelf birthday cake. Customer wanted full refund and another cake to make upfor it. My friend was shocked. Manager refused to refund..customer leftsaying would complain further. Anyway made the staff day and gone down as a funny story.

I'd be interested to know what 'brand' of backpack it was that the OP bought that had an RRP of £30 and was reduced to £15.

If it was Nike/Adidas, I probably would expect the quality to be better and to last longer than nine months. But if it's one of the many brands Mike Ashley owns (Slazenger, Everest, Firetrap, Lonsdale and the like) it probably will fall apart as the quality is shocking. Especially with continuous use.

I have heaps of backpacks, I have a Superdry one which was £22.99 and lasted about six years and a Vans one that is about four years now. I've just bought a leather satchel which was expensive and will last me many years at work and a North Face backpack for £39 in a sale online. I imagine the North Face one to be exceptionally durable and last me on many a walk and hike.

You get what you pay for OP, and £15 doesn't get you a decent quality backpack these days.

I wouldn't complain about using a bag at school for 9 months. My sons last one was in use for over 5 years and it cost about £20 though. At 9 months I would have thought it was poorly looked after at school, it's not like it tore in the first few weeks.

I also have to add Sports Direct’s Karrimor range rucksacks are awful. The zip on my one broke within weeks.

I think they grossly inflate the original price so that the discounted price looks great.

YABU for all the reasons above. However I’m impressed you managed to make a thread that has everyone on the side of sports direct, one of the most universally slated shops I’ve known.

I think 9 months for a school bag is not that bad tbh, I have to replace start of every school year. Does depend on who is using the bag though. 10yr old boys can be rough with their bags and they get thrown and kicked about sometimes, 5 yr old girls less so so I would expect it to last a bit longer. Once they’re at secondary it depends if they’re stuffed with heavy books and coats regularly as we’ve had bags with holes or handles coming away after few months use and they’re not cheap bags.

SD have minimal customer service, it is what it is. Buyer beware unfortunately.

I bought a ‘quality’ pair of trainers from SD, after a short while of (genuinely) light and careful use they split.

I took them back, it was very busy, stood in a long queue for 30 minutes, got to the front and assistant said ‘exchanges are upstairs’. Not a sign anywhere to tell me this before queuing, so I politely mentioned it might be helpful to have a sign indicating this visible on entering the store. She replied, and I quote exactly, “don’t moan at me, this is such a shit place to work”. 😂

Had to speak to the manager about the trainers, he was reluctant at first so I was politely persistent and they did exchange. As they should’ve.

Depending what brand it was, I actually agree that 9 months is not a long while for a bag to last if it’s not being treated harshly. My son has had some bags for, e.g., rugby kit that have lasted years. In consumer law goods are supposed to be ‘durable’, but obviously this is a grey area.

‘Good’ retailers will usually refund or exchange in such circumstances and we probably take this for granted, though I ended up being on the side of M&S after waiting a very long while in the customer service queue behind a woman who was insistent on a refund for her skinny jeans that went baggy after wearing a few times because she didn’t want to have to wash them to reshape them. She didn’t get her refund 😄

I used to work for SD as a teen, and I can guarantee you an item was never sold at the RRP as its just a marketing ploy. There was a documentary on this ages ago which detailed this.
You paid 15 quid for a rucksack and it lasted 9 months, I'd say that's good going.
Please dont take this to the radio, I can assure you they wont care. I feel sorry for that poor manager

Are you actually serious OP?

I once took a dead plant back to a shop and they refunded me. I think I did it for a laugh but they actually took it back. It was a huge tall yukka or similar. I’m useless with plants and it had died after a few weeks and was just sticks. It was years ago but it’s a bit of our family history now. Your sports bag will become one of those family stories too. Especially if you can get it on the radio.

I used to get Cath Kitson bags at about £50 a pop and they only lasted a year.

My Kipling one is 2 years old, looking slightly tatty now but still usable.

Unfortunately in this disposable consumerist society things aren't built to last and will become landfill at a frenetic pace. I sympathise with you OP. Sports Direct are terrible at costumer service. Unfortunately I think you will need to shell out more for a longer lasting bag - maybe with a guarantee - and buy from a retailer with better customer service.

Come on op, get a grip, it was £15 and has lasted nine months.

My kids are in junior school and their official school bags are more than that and generally don't last much longer. They drag the bloody things around.

As others have said, Sports Direct RRP prices are just nonsense to be ignored. I once made the mistake of adding a pair of gloves to an online order that were reduced from £10 to £1. When they arrived, they were so poor quality that I wouldn't have paid 50p for them. Lesson learned.

On school bags though, my year 11 is still using the same school bag I bought for him just before he started year 7. I paid about £45 for it in a Go Outdoors sale. I've always found them the best place for school bags. A proper rucksack is also much better for their backs, when you consider the weight that most of them have to carry around every day.

Wow. YABVU and going into Sports Direct and acting as you did will have made you into a joke for them.

School bags are hard every day usage, and teenagers do not have any care for them, so of course it’s not going to last that long. I think you’ve done well to get as long as you have.