25w4d - Take a Lesson from Us

As mentioned in a previous post, our hunt for a stroller has been interesting. Since we wanted a non-neutral color/design, maybe it was our mistake in even looking at strollers before we knew the gender.

From the beginning of our search we found one that we absolutely loved, should our baby be a girl. It had pink in it, but not too much pink to look like a little girl's doll stroller. And then there was the more neutral purple and gray one. Definitely not as girlie, but we could have been happy with it.

Then big day came where we found of the gender. It's a Girl - yeah! Let the shopping begin! We returned to the store where we originally found the cute but not too frilly pink and brown stroller. It was gone! Aakk! Store clerk said it was discontinued, but the manufacturer's website might have more choices.

That's when we found Isabella. The super cute light purple and light gray travel system. I placed my order only to get a notification a few days later that my order could not be fulfilled. That is when I called the customer service department and thought we had reached the end of our hunt for a stroller as they were going to send one out to me.

Well, they did send one out to us, but it was broken in the box. :( What? Are you kidding me? The outside of the box didn't look like it had been through any more than any other box we get delivered, but the insides of the box told a different story. There were pieces of cardboard shoved in obviously not protecting anything. Had this item been returned? When we pulled the stroller out there were several small pieces laying on the bottom of the box. Sure enough, the mechanism that adjusts the handle height was broken.

I couldn't believe it. After all we had been through to get this stroller, and it came broken. I called customer service again and explained the condition of the item. They were going to send me a return label and once they had my return, they would process an exchange. A week later we finally had the return label and dropped it off so that it still went out that night.

A week later I hadn't heard anything about the status of my return, so I again called customer service. They had indeed received my return, but it hadn't been processed yet. One more week and I called again. Due to the low inventory of my item and the delay in processing my return, there were no more Isabella's in stock. They were issuing a credit for the item.

Somewhere along the way we went back to the store to take another look at that other purple and gray one that we sort of liked. That too was discontinued and no longer in the store. Sigh.

After running around a bit and looking at a few different travel systems at a few more stores, we found nothing. We did have a better idea of what we for sure didn't want. Once we got home, the online search continued. We found another that we really like and placed a pre-order. Apparently this one isn't coming out until early to mid-March. Considering today is already March 2nd, it shouldn't be long now. Fingers crossed all goes well with this order.

I'll wait to supply details on this new one until we have it in hand, all in one piece and thoroughly inspected.

So, the lesson to be learned here is if you see something you really like, BUY IT! It may be gone by the next time you get to the store.