The Bay

So being middle aged one would think I like to shop at the Bay. I used to till recently. Seems the last sale they had on you had to «own» their Credit card to get an extra20% off. Well I am not getting ANOTHER credit card.
I know they own HomeOutfitters and their policy is 20% off for regular customers, an extra 5% for credit card holders. — wonderful. — an incentive to go there and buy. What’s the incentive for people to shop at The Bay?

I went there and shopped on the family and friends event day. I was supposed to received extra 20% off on some of the stuffs I bought when I used my HBC credit card, but the receipt only showed 10% off so I asked the cashier and she tried to explain n tell me I was wrong! Then I went home and bought the same items on the HBC website which proved that I was totally correct!!! and she was completely Wrong!!!
So I ended up need to go to the bay again to return the items!!!
Seriously the system in HBC is a bit outdated, cashiers manually put in how many % off to the computer, so the sale is always depends on the knowledge of the cashiers, if they are wrong then wrong!!!
and even when airmiles rewards points are needed to add to a customer’s account, most of the time they hand write it on a book…

I don’t hate the Bay, I just don’t make a point to shop here very often. However if I do find myself wandering through, it isn’t a terrible experience.
I do have one major issue with the Bay: it seems like every time I get to the counter to buy something, it ends up being cheaper than the posted price. I know this pet peeve might seem a little counter-​intuitive and you’re all probably thinking «but Laurel! You got a discount! Isn’t that awesome??» Yes, it is kind of nice but at the same time it does two things that I don’t like:
1) It makes me feel ripped off whenever I do end up paying full price here
2) It means there are items in the store I’ve put back on the shelf for being too expensive that were actually on sale. I shouldn’t feel the need to price-​check everything I pick up at the Bay.
That being said, the Bay does have a surprisingly good kitchenware section and their clothing department has also greatly improved over time. While its target audience is clearly older women, they still have a decent selection of more youthful attire. Their shoe department is also a great place to find brands that can be found elsewhere in the mall at lower prices (i.e. Coach and Nine West).

I wandered into this Bay location desperately looking for some Olympic swag to send to my sister in Chicago.
Unfortunately, they were sold out (surprise, surprise), but since I was here already, I figured I’d take a look around.
While the service was super friendly (which is actually a first for me in The Bay), the store itself felt completely disarray. In the shoe section for example, there were mismatched pairs kinda thrown around everywhere. I felt so overwhelmed that I didn’t even want to have a look around.
I ended up leaving the store a little frustrated because I couldn’t find anything I was looking for.
Props to the good service, but no props to everything else.

Today my mother, my cousin and I checked out sales at The Bay in the Southcentre. There were many and it seemed like a cyclone had hit many of the departments because a lot of the sales merchandise were on the floor or scattered on the tables.
It was also very confusing, what were the sale prices? Was it 50% of the sales price, original price, not so original price?
It was also very difficult to find someone around to assist us. We are however very patient and determined shoppers, we kept our finds with us until we could find somebody and when we did they were always so eager to help us.
Tons of sales today, so there was a line up at most of the tills, and cashiers were always being interrupted by customers asking where all the sales attendants were. The cashier confided in me saying that all employees hired were attending to customers at tills and that because of the shortage of staff it was hard to keep up with store maintenance and customer service.
Does The Bay need to hire more people? I have had problems at other Bay Stores I assume because of this, trying to find an attendant is hard but when I do find one they have always given me excellent customer service.
The Bay has been around for years, my family has shopped here for decades, we continue to be diehard fans, and although service can be sparse at these times they do make up for it in product, great sales when they do have them and super selection. And when I have encountered staff they have been consistently down to earth and especially helpful.