What impressed me so much is that there was NO profit//business advantage for LL Bean in sending back my items. To do that *and* include a pleasant little note---it really made my day. Although, maybe I should send LL Bean customer service a note back to let them know I commented on how nice they are to thousands of other consumers in an online forum :). Ann

In all honesty, I think Graber and Levelor are good solid companies. HD offers a lot of "options" and that makes them more expensive, along with their guarantee. My shop sells HD because of those options and also because they are not selling those in the Home Depot stores, and have finally decided to offer those to the smaller designer shops. That is good for me, I like all the options but for the DIY'ers they may be able to find what they need with Graber, and that's fine. The smaller decorating shops offer customer service, but not everyone needs it. So, that being said, I'm sure you would be happy with the Graber if the HD store can show you exactly what you need for your situation. If you still need more options, visit your local HD dealer or smaller home dec store (shameless plug for local shopping!).

I just went thru a mess with Bali and Graber both owned by Spring Window. They use cheapo Fedex whose Troutdale hub is a black hole for anything shipped. Endless threads on this on Reddit. Lowes staff is sick of the complaints regarding Fedex too but execs at Lowes still support these brands. I canceled the order since they could never get it to arrive in full. I waited over and over again for delivery based on Fedex lies. Just done. The Graber brand charges way more than the Bali brand but they use the same parts! The quality control is not great since Spring Window has them made in Mexico and shipped across the border and then uses Fedex zonal shipping which is the cheapest worst black hole shipping method. The beads get sucked into the clutches way too easily. On my testing blackout and solar shades I found the blackout had glue on it which made a tearing sound with closing them. I cleaned off the glue but the glue ruined the finish on the vinyl. They sent a replacement and realized they cut the first one wrong and was narrower! Dealing with Lowes escalation department is a joke and they bully consumers when those customers have had it with all the games. They requested that I either donate the only two blinds and want me to drive around and take care of that or they wanted me to cut them up and send a picture and then put in my garbage. I told them have Fedex come pick them up since they caused most of the problems with all this. I also had to say I will then submit a claim with my credit card if they won't give me a refund. Since they want to play hardball with all this. Lowes and Spring Window do not allow you to pick the shipper either. Also with zonal cheap delivery with Fedex neither Fedex or Spring window scan the packages but load them up on pallets and ship them to regional hubs and then they are scanned and then take the slowest method to the destination. I watched how the tracking stopped at three CA cities that were not far from each other before they headed north to Oregon. Talk about your pony express. Then thru all that they lose them. Won't do that gain and won't use any online retailer that uses Fedex. I don't mind if things take longer but I really do mind being lied to over and over. That was the worst of it. I don't like the fact that Lowes knows there is a problem with Fedex and still puts their customers thru that meat grinder shipper. I am kind of rethinking what to do with this but right now this past year with the pandemic and so many retailers lying and not being honest about availability etc I am just tabling anymore buying until things improve. Also Fedex lost the Amazon contract this past year. I know Fedex likes to say they dumped Amazon but in realty Amazon waited till they were able to deliver 50% of everything before they made their insulting offer to Fedex. The offer was so bad Fedex had to turn it down. So I get the frustration Amazon had with Fedex and made their point that way. But I see their stock dropping and top executives cashing out more stock which they tend to cash out when the stock is doing better. So it wouldn't surprise me if Fedex finally files bankruptcy since it has had financially problems for decades. If Fedex can't be valued more during a pandemic when folks are stuck with using shippers that says a lot about the lack of confidence investors have with this company overall. Fedex saves money subbing out workers and trucks and still they can't get things done right. Whereas UPS hires their own workers, owns their own trucks and pay benefits and the staff have a vested interest to getting things done. Plus they make sure the fleet is has regular maintenance done to keep the trucks in operation. I bet they have less stealing too.

I think it's a good tip to order the smallest size available to check colors and pattern before committing to the larger size. Then (hopefully) you only have to return a small one. That works well for a place with mass produced rugs like esale rugs because their designs are produced in lots of sizes. They do also sell better quality one of a kind rugs, so I guess I'd call customer service and see what they say about returning larger rugs, if needed. I think, years ago, I had to return a rug somewhere - if I remember correctly they wanted original packaging for a return, which was an impossible task to get it back into shrink wrapped plastic. So I just used heavy duty black garbage bags like you'd use for leaves and taped it on very well. They took it back (don't recall the store).