Beautiful Bedding

Linens N Things – A zombie brand filled with problems

I was surprised when I first learned that Linens N Things was going bankrupt in 2008. The company had a huge presence around the United States and Canada, with 571 stores and over 7,000 employees. They drove huge sales numbers with revenue at 2.7 billion dollars in 2005. The employees seemed fairly nice in the store and while I never really was a fan, I didn’t expect the company to collapse.

Yet as I write this in 2012, Linens n Things is back in the market selling bedding sets, but in a very different way. After the company went bankrupt, they relaunched an online-only bedding store that carried much of the same product line as the stores had, just without a physical presence. When I had first heard of this idea, I was excited. The internet is the store of tomorrow and by removing the costly presence of a physical location, companies can save a lot of money and sell their products for less.

We thought this was the end, if only it was.

However, Linens N Things has proven to be a bit of a mixed bag, and seems more like a zombie than a revived company. At first, I let the complaints pass as I figured there were some growing pains as the company relaunched and had to find a way to operate without their heavy store presence. We are now several years out from that point, and if the complaints I’ve read online are true, the company only seems to have gotten worse in these dealings.

So what exactly is the problem with the company? The best way to describe it is that its as if they removed all human presence when they removed their store locations. From what I’ve heard, they have little to no customer service now, and so, people who receive the wrong orders are faced with an uphill battle as they try and find someone they can talk to in order to resolve the issues. It’s difficult to return these items, and it often seems like you’re just rolling the dice when you go to their site to make a purchase.

The complications with Linens N Things abound. Reading comments on the store, it seems like the company is constantly mixing up orders. People will purchase three or four items and only receive one, yet the company web site will say that everything had shipped. Others will return items and never get credit. Perhaps related to this, one person mentioned that the shipping label they received from the company had an address but no city or state so they had no idea where the item would eventually end up.

A good clue to me that the company has a lot of problems came from their Twitter feed. There, they said that you would have to place an order by January 30 if you wanted to get it by Valentines Day. That’s two weeks in advance. When your entire business is conducted online, there’s no way you can require a two week delivery time for items to be sent to customers. What’s going on there?

Overall, I’m really sad to see the state of things and hope I’ve just been misled. Has anyone made any purchases from the new version of Linens N Things? What was your experience like? Would you consider them a worthwhile bedding option still, or are they a company to be avoided? I’ve yet to try a purchase myself, but the things I’ve read give me shivers.