My understanding from other reading I've done on the matter is that "No", design stores will not be able to sell through the internet. This is how I learned of their new policy - from a design store website saying they could not sell them anymore over the internet after the cut-off date. The H-D CEO acknowledges in the article that they anticipate sales initially dropping off due to this, but feels that keeping the brand "exclusive" will eventually increase sales, surpassing their current sales mark. I think they are making a huge mistake. Just like I am not going to drive 600 miles round trip to buy an exclusive item at IKEA, I don't think H-D window treatments are all that different that customers won't find a more friendly alternative. (Some IKEA items are not available to be shipped and must be picked up at the store. No thanks. I'll just go to Lowes or shop from an online retailer and get something just as good at a similar price.) While this new arrangement will help design stores, since a certain percentage of buyers will be driven to their store thus increasing their sales, overall Hunter-Douglas will lose out, I think.

budget blinds sells knock off hunter douglas blinds which hunter douglas owns. they send a person out that measures and installs for 99 dollars. the warranty includes 5 years, maybe 7 but offers a lifetime free replacement no questions asked for EACH blind. my guy showed me hanging options that saved me tons of money! example, using one blind over 3 windows in an area it looked fine to do! also, a side stack is "upgrade" for many patio doors. with his version of HD, it is less to side stack. i compared to On line, 3 day, costco of graber...this warranty is good and better than others. the product reflects and allows patented styles of HD. like luminette. i have a limits on colors it seems. so this line is enlightened style. Yelp reviews are awesome for budget blinds. basically, I am getting luminette and silhouette knock off blinds that tax installed 5200.00. This at the drapery store that sells hunter douglas is about 9800 with tax. my decorator told me that this drapery store was 30 less than j penny for her clients. My bottom line truth is that budget blinds offers a value that includes a person, a warranty and look for half the cost and is slightly less or more than doing the online measure yourself. hope this helps. lord knows i did the work to figure this out. fyi, 3 day has a bit pushy style but they seem to have a rollershade option that prices out well if you like their valance which to many looks better than cassette valance.

A designer I hired in California suggested Smith & Noble. The in-home designer, Carolyn Shea, met with us and we knocked out custom shades and drapes of all types for a variety of windows, including an over-sized 8 ft tall 5 ft wide bathroom window, in less than a hour with the handy dandy design book. This particular designer knew how to guide all the specs and my other designer could 'yea' or 'nay' and help guide me. Very efficient. The order was over 10K and everything worked out: the products were well made, the install guy was polite, clean and efficient. Everyone showed up on time. The address listed on the invoice was Corona, CA. Unsure if that was a manufacturing center or a warehouse. Locally in Texas I twice contacted a Smith & Noble rep listed for my area (she is in Bastrop) and she never responded. For a current project in a different zip code, I'm taking one more chance on Smith & Noble. But if you are in Bay area, try Carolyn Shea. Everything was perfect and it was a huge variety of types of treatments ordered. Thanks to Jennifer Ott, who was the designer, found here on Houzz, that turned me on to her.

Just to update this thread - we ended up with the Lutron Caseta shades and we are thrilled with the end result. We don't have a comparison point with Hunter Douglas and I think you can't go wrong. But for every reason we chose Lutron - the sleekness and quiet motor - we couldn't be happier. We did hard wire the windows and during construction two of the wires were cut so that was a problem. In hindsight I might have waited to order the shades after I knew we had electricity to every window confirmed. It would have been a bit incovenient but we could have ordered the battery operated shades for those windows then. Instead we had to repurchase battery operated shades for those windows after purchasing the hard wire shade. So an expensive situation. Hope this helps!