I want to tell you a story about the a real purchase from Sumo Lounge from a person, who actually paid for the bean bag himself. (Unlike many bloggers, mostly in the gaming space, who use to receive a promotional sample from the company, to be featured later in the blog. You can find a plenty of such posts all over the Internet.)Well, the Sumo Lounge sells bean bags. I think they're in the middle of the price ladder. There are definitely much more expensive ones on the market, but there are a lot of much cheaper ones as well.
I wanted one for myself, so after a quick lookaround and research, I decided to get the Sumo's one. Originally, I was thinking about Omni, but I'm not tolerant to the type of cover. So I ended up with SumoSac Couple.
The first thing I want you to know — the girl on the image is freaking extremely miniature. For a guy like me (about 6 ft and 200 lbs of fat & meat :), the "chair" is fine, okay, but that's it. I wouldn't dive into it, and I can't actually laid down, as there is always something is missing or dropping out. The price ($230!! though I got it for a little bit cheaper) is making the purchase pretty expensive. Come on, there are leather chairs with back and leg rests for $99 at Macy's Furniture outlets.
But you're crazy about bean bags, aren't you? I've got a small kid at home, who (I knew for sure) would be happy about having something he can jump on, be dropped into or just go crazy with. :)
It was easy to place an order, however, it was the only easy thing.
It took them almost a week to actually ship an order. More then that, I wasn't given anything, but the notice that the order was shipped. I tried to get a tracking number for the whole next week (it happen to be at the same time during my move from Southern to Northern California, and I wanted to be more informed about the status of the shipment).
They never answered to any of my email, so decided to pick up the phone and give them a call. After a few tries, I was able to reach someone. The lady on the phone wasn't very happy to discuss the details of my order (it looks like she never had an access to the information at all), but she told me that they're working exclusively with FedEx, the shipment should be delivered shortly and the "boss" will get back to me later. To my question "How later?" I've got a pretty straight answer "I don't know, whenever she'll have a time for it, within a week or so". Nice.
Within a week or so the shipment came. With UPS. At this moment, you can refer to many of other posts, they're pretty truthful about the look and feel of package. With the exception, that I didn't like fillings. I would prefer something more beanbag'ish, but this is just a question of preferences. I found paper with instructions to be a little bit confusing, but unpacking the bean bag is not a rocket science, right?
Now, I found the color to be of the different shade and absolutely with no logos. More then that, it's takes a lot of static, and you've got to be tolerant to the thing, which keeps you "electrified" all the time. ;) While keeping static is not a huge deal (well, I don't think they can do much with that), the brandless cover and color of it did really disappoint me. I saw a plenty of regular (under $100'ish) beanbags with pretty much the same cover.
So I gave them a call. I happen to talk to the same lady, who immediately asked me if I'm going to return the shipment. Well, you know, after you've unpacked all that, the idea of sending everything back is scaring. It grows in size very fast. You're responsible for the shipping costs and she told me that I might have to pay some restocking fee. I thought, that's a question only a bout a color, so why wouldn't they send me a right cover now, and I'll send this one back. The lady seemed to be confused, as she had only two options: leave or return. She told me that she needs to talk to the mysterious boss again. Again, I asked her, when the boss will be able to talk to me, as I'm not going to unpack everything. She told me I should her back within a few days (wtf?).
Well, it's almost two months after my last conversation with them. They do not return calls and I had no chance to catch the lady during next few calls I made (the answering machine all the time). (Of course, I have unpacked everything a while ago already.)
Am I going to fight back? Well, yes and no. But I have not many options anyway. You do though. Shop better and think twice now. Hope it helps. ;)
