Weekend Recap and a Beef.

Fri April 6: 8.5 mi BIKE ride. Yep, I said bike. The last time I rode my bike was January 7th.  I was so happy to be reunited with my bike, I didn’t even care that I got grease from my chain all over my arm while loading my bike into my car.

Sat April 7: Unplanned 2.5 mi hike at Griffith Park.  Griffith Park is the one with the Hollywood sign, except we didn’t go on that side of the mountain.  We did see our first coyote though.  No picture because I was somewhat surprised to see it peeing, and by the time I got my phone out it had moved on.  But we did see this view of the LA skyline:

Sun April 8: 10.15 mi run in the morning, avg pace: 9:43 + 3 mi hike at Haskell Canyon in the afternoon. Awkward self-portrait to serve as proof I was actually there.

  

Now for My Beef.

Since there are vegetarian readers, I opted not to go with a fleshy depiction of beef.

I know on Friday I posted about liking my new TOMS, and while I like the shoes themselves, I have a beef with their customer service.  I placed my original TOMS order at the end of February. I got them both in my usual size and both styles were big, so I exchanged them for a half size smaller. Some companies will cover return shipping, especially if you are exchanging (not just returning), but with TOMS, you are fully responsible for getting your package back to them*. 

They advertise needing 10 business days to process returns, and they weren’t kidding.

• On March 5th they received my return (I had a tracking number).
• On March 7th they emailed me to confirm receipt of my return. 
• On the 19th, they emailed me again to confirm which items I was exchanging for (same styles, 1/2 size smaller).
• New shoes shipped on the 20th (11 business days after receiving my return).

While TOMS does good things, they are still a for-profit company. I’d cut them some slack if they were non-profit and had more limited resources. I think the timeline of this really bugged me, too, because the returns/exchange warehouse is 14 miles from my house. I can drive there. I feel like I could have shown up, knocked on the door and picked out my own shoes.

*still responsible for return shipping even when there is some serious inconsistency in their sizing.  The old grey pair is a size 6; the tan pair is the new size 5.5.  I never bothered to take a picture of the tan size 6s because they were so ridiculously large I just packed them back up to return them.

    

To completely contrast the Slow-As-Molasses TOMS exchange, enter a very recent experience with Running Warehouse.

• Tuesday afternoon (4/3), I dropped off a pair of shorts I was returning to my local UPS store, using the prepaid return label RW gives you (return shipping at their expense).
• Thursday morning (4/5), I receive an email notifying me my return was received, confirming the new pair of shorts and the price difference. I responded, questioning whether I had store credit still (thought I did).
• 7 minutes later they responded, apologizing for the oversight with a new invoice reflecting the applied store credit .
• Thursday afternoon (4/5), I receive notification the package has been shipped; scheduled to arrive Friday.
• Late Friday (4/6) the package arrives (Note: RW has free 2 day shipping, but since I’m only 3 hours away it seems to arrive next day).

PS: RW did not pay me to say this.  But having ordered from many companies online, I can say RW has amazing customer service.  And being peeved with my slow TOMS exchange, I felt compelled to share that there are companies that handle exchange/return processing much better.

Moral of the Story?
I think this means I should only buy running clothes and shoes.  All the time.