Saturday, January 03, 2009

L. L. Bean Shout Out


Just so you know, I positively love L.L.Bean. I don't shop there very often, but I never regret when I do. Here's why.

When Peace was a baby fifteen years ago, I decided a backpack (before there was such a thing as a diaper backpack) would be our diaper bag. We refused bottles altogether, and so we didn't have to worry about milk spills, and I liked all the handy pockets of this type of bag. I ordered a top of the line L.L. Bean navy backpack embroidered with his name across the top.

When Peace started high school last semester, he chose to carry that well worn but useful backpack instead of our family laying out $89 for the Northface or Underarmor brand name totes. It worked fine until the end of the semester when the zipper gave way as Peace tried to fit in an additional textbook probably too much in a hurry.

When I told Peace we could turn it in for a brand new one, and he laughed. "How can you exchange a fifteen year old backpack for something new? No one will do that."

Oh, yes they will. It's an L.L. Bean policy to exchange for 100% customer satisfaction. If only every company would stand by their products like that.

Today, a perfect, sturdy, new, navy, embroidered super deluxe book bag arrived on our front porch a few weeks after printing a free mailing label and dropping it at UPS for return. It practically glistened when Peace ripped it out of the fresh package, and this one's got a place for a cell phone on the straps- an invention which was distributed much later to the masses than before our original backpack. Peace is back in the textbook carrying business with flair.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am also a HUGE L.L. Bean fan. I just received my new leather backpack from them a couple of days ago--my Christmas gift to myself--to replace the many-years-old, well-worn (and torn up)one. I wonder, would they have replaced it free, too? And tomorrow I launch my own fifteen-year-old to his new North Carolina boarding school, all his clothing packed into his own L.L. Bean duffel. Sniff sniff.

truevyne said...

Dear A Little Tea,
Yes, I know they would replace it for free!
Sniff, sniff on the son, but it's hopefully just what your fam needs.