Direct Buy, that snazzy 'insider prices' club, is it any good?

May 29, 2005 9:54 PM

These Direct Buy guys, I see their ads now and again, and am wondering if it's worth it to look into it?

My SO and I are childless (atm), live in an apartment, the most I can see us using it for is to buy a few piece of furniture. Anyone have any experience with them?

And as long as there is no NDA, what's the deal? I assume there is some sort of yearly membership fee or something? Anyone have any experience with Direct Buy in Canada specifically? Appreciate any feedback :)

posted by eurasian to shopping (5 comments total)

Be sure to search for "United Consumers Club", as that's Direct Buy's former name. Reportedly, they changed their name to distance themselves from their fraud record...

There is always a membership fee... often $3000 or more. A roommate brought home a set of catalogs once from them and was trying to get us to join. You'd have to buy an awful lot of stuff from their vendors to come out ahead.
posted by ulotrichous at 10:51 PM on May 29, 2005

I have no experience with Direct Buy, but I do have experience with the afore-mentioned United Consumers Club...

My wife and I joined United Consumers Club in 1993, soon after buying our first house.

My wife is damn smart, and usually avoids stuff like this, but for some reason she bought into the phone sales pitch. (They got our number from some registry of recently-completed real estate transactions.) And, for some reason, I went along for the ride.

At the "club" (actually just a space in an industrial park), we were packed into a conference room with other prospective clients. There we were given a presentation on how much money UCC could save us. I was wary and skeptical, but my wife was keen on it, and rather than rock the boat I agreed to fork over the $1000 for the sign-up fee.

We paid $75/year thereafter.

When we wanted to make a major purchase, and when we remembered that we were UCC members, we'd make the 35-minute drive to the industrial park. In a comfortable room containing a wall full of manufacturers' catalogs, we'd browse for the items we wanted. When we were finished, we'd take the information to the front desk where the folks would type up our order. Six to eight weeks later we'd get a phone call to come pick up our stuff.

Pros: We always got what we ordered for the price listed and in a timely manner. We still have our bed and our table, and my wife loves them. They're her dream furniture. (Dream furniture? Did I just write that?) It was convenient to be able to pick through the catalogs, looking for exactly what we wanted.

Cons: There's no way in hell we ever saved enough money to make up for the $1000 + $75/yr that we spent on membership fees. The reality is, we could have saved just as much, and avoided membership fees, if we'd decided what we wanted, and then watched the newspaper ads for sales at local furniture stores. Though UCC had scores of furniture books, their selection of everything else was limited. For stuff like home electronics, where there's lots of competition and very little markup at the retail level, you really don't save a whole lot of money. I ordered my stereo system through UCC, and while it's nice, I only saved a few percent over retail.

Eventually, my yearly complaint about the membership dues sunk in, and my wife agreed that we'd leave the "club". I chalk it up as yet another silly mistake we made in our early twenties. In summary: I didn't feel like UCC was a scam, just a very poor deal.
posted by jdroth at 5:54 AM on May 30, 2005

This article DirectBuy in the Minneapolis Star Tribune gives a lot of detail - it all fits with ulotrichous says. Bottom line seems to be you have to buy A LOT to make it worth while.
posted by judybxxx at 5:59 AM on May 30, 2005

Excellent feedback! Thanks MeFis!
posted by eurasian at 10:19 AM on May 30, 2005

NortonDC and I just saw parts of an infomercial for these guys while we were packing up my apartment. Someone on the commercial claimed that they saved over seventy thousand dollars on cabinets.

I don't understand how that's possible. Who spends seventy thousand dollars on cabinets to start with?
posted by onlyconnect at 1:39 PM on May 30, 2005