Gymboree is a children's clothing store usually found in the mall that also has an online website catalog where you can often purchase items the local gymboree store may no longer have in stock, which is more convenient than driving from mall to mall to find what you are looking for.
I haven't had a problem with this company until today. I will never shop there again and hopefully others will be forewarned after reading my experience.
I was shopping online at www.gymboree.com and had placed a few items I was buying into my online 'shopping cart'. I continued shopping on their site for a few minutes before I was ready to checkout and pay for the items I had selected. (total time on their site was maybe 10 minutes because I knew what I wanted.) During checkout, I noticed that a jacket I selected wasn't showing up in my cart.
(the item was an infant girls jacket in a size 18-24 months that matched the rest of the pieces in the set).
I tried to add the jacket back to my cart again, but it showed that the size I wanted was no longer available. This was the very same size I just had in my cart and planned to purchase. I knew I didn't remove the item from my cart, so what happened to it and why couldn't I add it back to the cart?
I immediately grabbed the phone and called customer service before completing the remainder of my order thinking that maybe the rep could help but THAT was a total waste of time! The service rep for gymboree stated that the company has what they call a 'LIVE' online inventory and although I had selected the items in the size I needed, I had not completed the transaction and until I actually PAID for the items with my credit card, the transaction wasn't complete and therefore my entire cart was still available for sale in their 'live' inventory and anything I selected and placed in my cart was STILL able to be purchased by another customer (this is where the jacket disappeared to, it had been selected by another customer and was instantly transferred from my cart and into their cart as soon as they selected it and before I was even done with my gymboree.com shopping and realized the jacket was not in my cart, the other customer had PAID for the jacket and it was gone before I was given a chance to pay for it on my end, so it became theirs. The other customer had unknowingly stolen it right out of my cart while I continued to shop.
The rep told me that they can't 'hold' items for anyone and I replied that I didn't ask or EXPECT them to HOLD anything for me, I simply placed them in my cart with the intention of purchasing them and didn't expect them to be removed by anyone other than myself. The items were in MY online cart on THEIR website and my intentions were to purchase the items I placed in my cart and I wasn't given a fair chance to complete my order before someone else took the item from my cart.
I don't notice any warnings on their site to let their customers know that in order to successfully purchase what they want or successfully purchase anything for that matter on gymboree.com, they need to rush through their shopping, make lightning fast selections and purchase those items immediately or else another shopper could possibly steal items from their cart.
Maybe this post will warn shoppers about gymboree.com and the way they operate their website purchases. What kind of company website doesn't want their customers to browse and keep adding items to their cart and end up spending more?
I could understand if I had logged off their site or left the items in my cart for several hours or something equally logical, but I was only on the website long enough to select my items and ATTEMPT to complete the purchase; but during that brief period of time, my items were purchased by another customer.
This is totally unacceptable!
I chose my items and placed them in the cart for one reason, because I wanted to buy them!!! I buy items online all the time and have never encountered such a ridiculous policy as gymboree.com and their live inventory policy". I still can't believe this happened. If you don't want to be ripped off, don't shop at www.gymboree.com
They are obviously lacking in what it takes to make good customer relations and are so eager to make a fast buck that they are willing to sell items to one customer right out of other customers shopping carts. They end up losing loyal customers with their shady customer relations practice!!
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