No, they haven’t closed. Not yet. But once upon a time they were one of my most favorite stores EVAR, and it has been sad to watch them slide into irrelevance. And now, they have made a decision which makes them, in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, dead to me.

Back in 1998/1999, Mike (now-ex husband) and I moved to Southern California, leaving virtually all of our furniture behind as a gift to a friend who really needed it, and started over again. Virtually everything we bought was from Restoration Hardware (henceforth referred to as RH). We spent about $15K there; they had the good stuff, serious solid wood Craftsman style furniture.

It wasn’t just the furniture that caught our eye; you could get that from other places (and truth be told, most of them were less expensive than RH). What really drew us in was all the interesting accessories and knick-nacks. The kitchen gadgets from a bygone time. The stocking stuffers at Christmastime. It was an awesome place to browse and I almost never left the store without a sack full of new treasures I hadn’t even known existed before I walked in. And the entire eclectic collection was tied together by these little sign cards that described each and every item. One person wrote every single one of them, which ensured that they had a consistent style and voice, and they were wonderful. Perfectly descriptive, not too long or too short, and sometimes very witty.

It was a satisfying place to shop in other ways too. They had excellent employees and the service was top notch. I don’t know what their return policy actually was in those days, but they always took care of us no matter what the situation.

After we moved to New Hampshire we had only one RH, in Boston, so we didn’t go there as often. Slowly we began to see things change… the sign cards disappeared, and one year they put all the kitchen stuff on clearance and the entire department disappeared. After a while the store took on the look of a place that was in desperation mode; they kept rearranging and trying (or so it seemed) to hide the fact that their inventory was shrinking.

After we moved to Portland in 2005 I once again (for the third time now, if anyone’s counting) went to RH and replaced every bit of bathroom hardware in the house, spending hundreds of dollars in the process. I noticed with some sadness that the quality of the pieces was not what it used to be; they are still chrome-plated solid brass but the construction and packaging were much sloppier this time around. I went to the store a few times after that but was underwhelmed; even the selection of toys at Christmas failed to interest me.

Ok, finally we get to the point: This past January (2009) I ordered a hand-held showerhead, matching the rest of the bathroom hardware, from their website. I was planning to remodel the master bathroom and that was one of the main pieces. But life intervened, and now here we are in September and I still haven’t touched the bathroom, nor do I plan to any time soon. So I decided to return this unused (and fairly expensive) piece of hardware.

I went to their website and noted, to my dismay, the 90 day return policy. Oops. But I also noted that if you bring in a return without a receipt, you can get store credit. To my way of thinking, returning a resaleable item for store credit, no matter how long it has been, is a good deal for the store; they get to keep my money *and* sell it again. So I sent them an email explaining the situation and asking if I could send back the showerhead for store credit. I received the following response:

“Thank you for contacting Restoration Hardware. We do apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, due to the length of time you have had your item we are unable to honor any exchanges or return on your order# 689199. We do apologize for this inconvenience.”

Um, ok. Far be it from me to tell them how to run their business, but this makes *no* sense to me. Particularly since if it was an item I could have purchased in their store, all I would have had to do was take it in and say I lost the receipt, and I would have gotten store credit, no questions asked. They do still sell the item in question, btw, and since I bought it on sale they could resell it for *more* than I paid for it.

Ten years ago I probably would have engaged Vanessa, the “E-Mail Customer Service Specialist”, who probably works for a service and could not care in the least about RH’s customers, in a debate about the stupidity of this policy and tried to get an exception. But I’m tired of tilting at windmills, and I hope that by putting this out where Google will find it I might actually do some good, whether that is getting management to change their attitude or at least warn off some customers who might also find this to be a very poor business policy.

If anyone from RH happens to be reading this… I did some Googling to make sure I was correct in my sense that the company is not doing well. Yikes. Looks like things are pretty dismal. May I suggest that you find that guy who used to write the sign cards, and maybe the rest of the management team from that era, and bring them back? They knew how to merchandise a store that people like me, who still have some disposable income, wanted to shop in. The folks you have in there now don’t have a *clue*.

Apparently his name is Stephen Gordon. Here’s an article about him:

http://www.answers.com/topic/restoration-hardware-inc

He knew what he was doing. And there’s still a need for a store like RH used to be.

The article even talks about the sign cards. *sigh*