Hi all,
As I had difficulty finding info about the Buy Buy Baby in Canada, I thought this post might help others.
Deciding whether to bother reading this long post:
There are very few of these stores in Canada (though also online) but they told me that people can view the registry in-person from Bed Bath and Beyond stores and get items shipped there for free. While I went to the store in person, I ultimately ended up buying pretty much everything online (see Experience below for why).
Registry
Perks:
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when I signed up for the Bed Bath and Beyond coupons, I got a 20% off entire purchase (with restrictions) coupon that worked both online and in-store and expired in just over a month. I didn't get them at first and used the contact us e-mail function to follow-up.
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Registry gift (without the Pampers bag) with 20% off one item (with restrictions) that needs to be picked up in person at the store
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10% off registry completion discount (no restrictions!)
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coupon restrictions include pretty much every stroller brand imaginable, a couple of crib brands, and some other stuff (I believe the same as every other Bed Bath and Beyond coupon)
Putting stuff on registry:
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if you're in the store and you talk to the registry people, you can get a scanner and walk around the store scanning barcodes to add stuff to registry (I had an appointment but it doesn't seem like you need one to do this)
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you can add any items you find on their website to your registry online
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you can add Bed Bath and Beyond items (e.g. that rug for your living room) to your registry
Buying stuff off registry:
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afaik, all registry items can be ordered from any Bed Bath and Beyond store (not sure whether they only ship to Bed Bath and Beyond stores for free, or also to your house)
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at the Buy Buy Baby store, the registry people can do a combined purchase of online and in-store items (online items would be shipped to the address you specify)
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items available on the Canadian website can also be purchased online
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some oversized items cost an extra $10 for shipping (e.g. crib mattress)
Experience
Notes of caution:
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the in-store and online inventory are not always the same! This means, you can add stuff to the registry in-store but then not be able to purchase them online (but perhaps at a Bed Bath and Beyond store and get the items shipped there)
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The prices are also not always the same between online, in-store, and the registry printout that they can give you in-store! If you are in-store, they will happily do a price override for you. Most prices were the same, a few were more expensive or cheaper by a few dollars. The one item that was very different was the boppy nursing pillow with luxe whale cover that was $41.99 on the registry printout but $59.99 on the website (and cheaper than in store).
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if you use the 20% off entire purchase coupon, you need to buy whatever you want to be purchased online at the registry desk and apply the coupon there before the online checkout. The lady helping us didn't do that, so had to re-enter all the items manually by SKU since all the items were now marked as purchased off our registry.
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buying too many items (we tried to buy 45 things) is a heavy burden on the registry desk's online system and 3 hours later (we also walked around the store initially), after the lady re-entered 44 of our items (we couldn't figure out which one she missed), we weren't able to complete our purchase because it wouldn't load. They offered to split the purchase up (while applying the coupon) but by that time we were tired and hungry so we left and just bought the stuff online.
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to get it to count towards your registry, you have to add an item to care while viewing your registry. Adding to the cart from the product page does not work.
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a lot of items are on their website search are out of stock, which makes for a frustrating search experience. I believe the items are expected to come back in stock, but who can wait for that when you have a one-time use 20% off entire purchase coupon?
Tips:
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As long as they're also available online and you don't need to see it in-person, it is far more convenient to just ask the registry desk to order the items online than go pick them up one-by-one in store.
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the store is great for browsing stuff in-person if you're not sure what to get (we did change a couple of registry items while there) and to pick up some smaller items aren't available online.
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sign up for the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon in the month when you're picking up most items (20% is better than 10%)
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set an earlier date for your due date (I'm not sure when the registry completion discount coupon comes in but it would be worth applying it to the stroller and car seat)
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cribs in-store are custom-ordered (so can take 10-12 weeks to come I think) while you could just order online (different cribs that come in 10-12 days)
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strangely enough, some items that are not available online or in-store can be ordered via the registry desk if it's already on your registry. So if you want something that's online but out of stock, you might be able to get it by going to the store
In case you're wondering, we went with Buy Buy Baby as it was somewhere carrying the Uppababy stroller (I can't seem to talk myself out of buying this despite the $$$), and I liked the crib options better (I went down the rabbit hole of Greenhouses Gold Certified - low VOCs). The 20% off coupon meant we could purchase most of our items at once rather than search for sales. Also, Babies r us registry wasn't working the weekend I decided to develop our registry, and when it did start working, I found I had to re-log-in to the app every time I opened it.
Edit: wow, formatting is confusing on mobile (using boost).