Vancouver Special

Home decorating, accessories, furniture, art this place is a treasure trove of cool designs. Always something new to disco.

This is one of my absolute favorite stores in vancouver. I recently purchased bath wares for my new home and we discussed new couches as well. The staff are fun and knowledgeable. I love their collections of design savvy items.

I've enjoyed supporting this local business over the years; however the most recent experience interacting with the owner has put us off from ever shopping here again. We contacted them about a bench that required placing a "special order". The owner let us know that they have it in stock and we could pick it up. We drove from the north shore that weekend specifically for it and it turned out to be a different color than the one we had inquired. The owner apologized but had an attitude so it didn't seem sincere. Understandably it's a tough time for all so we didn't make a big deal out of it. The next weekend we drove over again to pick it up, the color was right this time, except we noticed that the price had gone up by $75. The owner, again had an attitude, first claimed that she has no idea why the price has changed. Then she tried to brush it off by saying it's because there's a price difference in color - except that's a lie, both colors are listed at the same price on their website. She then claimed prices on their website change all the time depending on the shipping container fee, and there is no price adjustment history that she can reference. By this time, it was clear to us that the owner would not own up to her mistake and honor the price that was listed when we had intended to purchase if they hadn't brought the wrong color. Her final response was to say don't buy it if the price is too high for you. Sure businesses are free to change their prices, but the fact that it changed within a week makes it feel like a scam. I don't know how many people have had a similar experience, but this is certainly the last time we'll be buying anything from here again.

As other people have posted, there are customer service problems. Some people have natural customer service skills, others do not. I came in just before noon today-I had not realized that they did not open until noon. They were polite enough in terms of allowing me to look in the store, but when I asked a simple question re: where something in the store was located, I was reminded that "we are not open yet". I waited until after they were officially open to ask anything again-none of the 3 employees working at the time took any initiative to offer help. There seems to be an odd attitude towards customer service. I love their stock, but left irritated and would be reluctant to shop their again.

As stated by other reviewers, the customer service here is poor, and it looks like they don’t pay attention to their online reviews as they are doing little to rectify problems. I was told via email that the store would price match some items from a 14 item order with another store (~10% difference), and was given instructions on how to prepare the price match. After taking the time to prepare an email with links for the items showing the competitors prices, I received another email stating that they won’t be price matching, and the previous employee was wrong to offer me that. I expressed my dissatisfaction politely, and received a snarky reply.

Really cute store with friendly staff and a nice selection of housewares.

Well curated collection of some interesting pieces. Good selection of books too. Also one of the few places that carry Midori paper.

Vancouver Special is currently requiring customers to wear masks and hand sanitize upon entering the store, which is the correct thing to do. In addition, they are forcing guests to wear single use plastic gloves after hand sanitizing. I asked the owner if I could not wear the single use plastic gloves because it is wasteful and detrimental to the environment; particularly our oceans. The owner said no and that I must wear gloves. I told her I would not touch anything and she insisted I still wear the plastic gloves. I expressed a sadness for the environment and the owner said that I was sad. I left the store.