Direct Buy?Anyone Use
 

Intrested in becoming amember of the DIRECT BUY, is anyone a memeber or had dealings with them. Is it worth the membership dues for the return?

Thanks for the help.

i was going to put up this exact same thread about a week ago. i am looking at some kitchen cabnetry an saw their commercial and wondered if anyone had any experiance with them.

We are in the early stages of house building and went to the Direct Buy location tonight and went thru the sales pitch and saw some great deals to be had but at the end came down to pay and start up fee of $5100.00 for the first three years and 250 for the last 7 years. Bit of a shocker but when building a house what isn't. Told them I would have to consult with my builder in the morning to see what I could sub out. They have given me a one day grace period which they DONT DO....... :rolleyes:

Just dont know, you know what they say NO FREE LUNCH

wow . . .they wanted $5100.00 just to get in the door?

It's like having a Costco membership for groceries. Great if you have lots of mouths to feed. For me not worth it for the one or two items per year I might buy there and if thats food 99.9% goes to waste...... For their dues you are basicaly paying the merchadise mark up before buying anything!!!!

I build houses and have made exceptions and let customers supply some fixtures . Every time there has been a (pina)problem .
Parts missing , broken or whatever . If my Plumber opens a box and something is wrong I don't even hear about it .
Do that with Direct Buy and " What are we going to do now "?
Not my problem you send it back . And who is going to pay the plumber to come back when the part does arrive . What about warranty ? Listen after building a couple hundred houses don't you think a builder knows the best value on supplies . Now if your building your own house and assume all what can happen go for it . But imo if you hired a builder let him/her build your house .
Good luck . Paul

Local TV news did a report on Direct Buy and how much it costs to join. Their recommendation is to not join. The "avearage" consumer won't earn enough in savings to make it worh while.

If you really want to join, add up what you want to purchase through them plus shipping, price the same itrems on the outside and see how long it takes in savings to pay back the 5100.00 enry fee plus the 250.00 a year membership.
If the items purchased are priced at 75-80% off retail, which I doubt, then you may have a chance.

Thanks for all the comments, Did a search and learned alot last night , SCAM SCAM SCAM !!!!!!!! This is along the lines of timeshare selling but worse. At least in time share you get something. On every other web-site they had major proplems and possible Class-action law suit towards Direct Buy, they even change the name a few years ago from ACC to avoid such bad publicty. That is why we did not sign up , I am not easliy convinced into things like this. I have to be shown and proven.
To anyone that might be thinking of going to a Direct Buy location , DON"T WAIST YOUR TIME!!!!! :mad:

Even with places like Costco and so on you can ussually find as good or better deals at other places with out the fees. I am sure that you can do ok with the place if you are building a house yourself, if they have exactly what you want it may be worth it. If you are making compromises on the quality or style then there is just no way it is worth it IMO

Jon

The "buy now or you won't get this price" is a high pressure tactic that usually means run.

THAT TURNED ME OFF RIGHT AWAY. Don't try to charge me $5100 and act like your doing me a favor. My neighbor did it and their cabinets cost them double what it would have normally.

They wanted $3650.00 to join 2 years ago here. I was building a new home and I happened to be invited to one of there sales pitches. When you go their bring some prices of the things you want with you and compare to there pricing. Don't be surprised if the company you want is not listed there. They don't want you to compare prices after you leave thats why they tell you that you have to join the day you are there or not at all. I priced a chandelier that I knew the price on from my local light fixture store of $3400.00 compared to there price of $3285.00. Not that big of savings IMO. I know they have some bigger discounts on furniture over your local retailer but if you call some of those furniture distributors in South Carolina there about the same price. Unless you plan on spending a lot of $ their I wouldn't recommend them.

It would throw up a HUGE red flag to me if I were being pressured to throw down 5k at the first meeting on a "one time offer"....WTF is the hurry..?? If DB is that great it would sell itself, without the "5 alarm fire" to get you signed up.

The other thing I would ponder is can these guys really undercut Lowes, Home Depot, etc? I seriously doubt it in the long run....those (2) alone probably do 1000 times the revenue of direct buy. Yeah they mark it, but their margins are not that much in most products, especially if you can get a 15% contractor's discount on everything....which I did when I self contracted my own home. There are other deals they'll give as well...and you can play them against each other. :drink: They are both dying for business, especially now.:drink:

Run !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!