Academy Sports + Outdoors

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CLOSED NOW - Opens at 9:00am

The new location in West Mobile has already proven to be an absolute failure at customer service. In the last three and half weeks I've purchased well over $200 in merchandise from this location and I rarely ask employees for help. Tonight I went to purchase some pants they had out on a display in the middle of an aisle since they opened 11-3-12 and I saw just last Wednesday 11-20-12. I hunted down two employees (there were four at the gun counter talking to each other) and inquired. They seemed perplexed and had no idea about these pants and told me they had never seen them before. The pants are tactical pants made by 5.11 and were on a 6'x3' display rack in the middle of their department for more than three weeks. I told them I would ask someone else in the store if they knew what I was talking about hoping that would motivate one of the four to ask a manager (or anyone) to help locate these pants. They simply said "okay" and sent me on my way to find out myself....they were far too busy conversing amongst each other.

I went to the clothing department and located a female employee who wasnt unpleasant but seemed more interested in finding the correct rack for the athletic shirt she was putting up. She literally made me chase her and ask about these pants while she never made eye contact and turned her back to me. If Loss Prevention/Security was watching via video camera they were probably laughing...I looked like a kid chasing his mom at a department store begging for a toy. She said she would ask someone about these pants and disappeared. I went looking around to try and find these pants. I was on a mission.

The lady returned and told me, "I just spoke to my manager and he said they put those back up in the back and won't be putting them back out until after Christmas. They aren't selling them anymore. I'm sorry." I was thoroughly confused.

I found the manager who treated me exactly as the other employees: a pest that he reluctantly had to deal with. He was on the phone in the clothing department. He looked at me as I followed him around and stood there waiting until he hung up the phone. He turned to walk off as he seemed to want no interaction with a customer until I said, "Excuse me sir..." and inquired about the pants I wanted to buy so badly. He said, "We pulled those at Thanksgiving and put them up. We won't be selling them until January. You can still order them online though."

I politely said, "No thanks, I will order them from someone else online" while the manager was already turning to walk away before I could finish my sentence. Clearly they didn't want to sell me these pants. Why would I want to purchase something online from someone who didn't want to sell a product they had on hand?

Hope this educates others interested in shopping at Academy Sports. And if you do shop there, I hope you have a great experience. Unfortunately, I don't see that being the case though.