DIRECT BUY

If you are planning to build a house, remodel a house or purchase a lot of furniture, a Direct Buy membership probably makes financial sense. I would estimate that you have to make purchases valued at 4 or 5 times your membership fee so that the purchase savings offset the initial cost of membership. Direct Buy has over 700 manufacturers participating in their program. This includes over 200 furniture manufacturers and many of the big flooring, plumbing and lighting manufacturers. They also carry several high end kitchen cabinet manufacturers whose quality would surpass the typical hardware store brands. The biggest area of savings are on high end furniture and kitchen cabinets. Appliances and TV sets offer marginal savings. Irene Alliotta does a wonderful job of running their showroom. Irene and her staff are very helpful. They also have several interior decorators on their staff who can assist those needing decorating advice. Robert in he warehouse helps you inspect the merchandise deliveries and helps you load the merchandise into your vehicle. Delivery and warranty problems do occur and the Direct Buy is very helpful in resolving these issues. Overall, our experience with Direct Buy North has been very good and a Direct buy membership is recommended if you are planning to spend $50,000 or more on merchandise. I do agree with the other reviewer that their initial sales tactics are aggressive and they force you to pay the membership fee at the time of the initial visit or lose the opportunity to join later. I think people should be given the opportunity to join when they are ready.

We decided to look into joining Direct Buy since we were in the process of planning our addition and kitchen and bath remodeling. We were also in the process of trying to determine the total amount of financing we needed to fund this project. So, as responsible consumers, we went to a Direct Buy presentation. They told us we had to buy a membership then and there, and that a we would not be eligible for a membership once we walked out the door. Frankly, with the amount of work we had planned, we would have considered it, but we weren't in a financial position to take advantage of it at that particular time. The membership was around $10,000, but we would have saved more than that through our planned purchases. I would not advise anyone to go there simply because of these sales tactics. These ''take it now or else'' opportunities reek of high pressure sales tactics. If we could go back to join, we would, but now we are not eligible. For that, they get a flunking grade.