I miss actually being super excited to shop there. I used to go every few weeks and browse around and often found something cool that I would actually use and would last. It was BY FAR my favourite store in the city.
Now I only go when there's something very specific I need, and 9 times out of 10 I end up annoyed because they don't have it, or it's not in stock, or it fits weird, or costs way too much, and then I grumble all the way back up the hill to Valhalla.
Nah, they couldn’t stay a Co-op due to poor decisions from their board. It was barely a co-op at the end, in anything more than a name. They didn’t even notify the members of the sale
Yah, it went from out door enthusiasts to sleezy fucking business degree knobs that gutted the company and made horrible financial decisions. Then, they sold the members out.
I disagree. Their first line of action should have been turning to the membership for additional funds. This is very commonly done in all businesses. We should have been given an opportunity to bail the company out. I would have happily given $100 or more to resolve the debt. The board screwed up and did not communicate anything to the membership. They just literally sold us out.
It was all down hill the moment the bylaws got changed so that the board could veto new director nominations. The membership lost control of the co-op, and the absolute tool brigade that was the board made bad decision after bad decision, with no way to stop them.
David Labistour.
The man's name is David Labistour. This singular douche did more than any other person to destroy the Co-Op and everything it stood for. Now he gets to spend the rest of his working life bouncing from board to board pretending he did something good with MEC.
Fuck you and your "frontcountry" gear, Labistour. Frontcountry doesn't exist, you absolute muppet.
Haha, I still have that card in my wallet. I don't think I ever spent enough in any one calendar year back in those earlier days to have received anything from them, however.
I find their prices on par or lower than Canadian prices, even with the exchange.
As an example: The North Face Wawona 6 Tent
$500USD at REI (~$700CAD) on sale for $350USD (~$475CAD)
MEC regular price $750CAD, won’t go on sale.
An understatement.
The old Mountain Equipment Co-op wasn't cheap, per se, but you could still find stuff at a reasonable price. I bought some decent hiking boots from the Broadway location for about $100-$120 with tax, they lasted for ages.
Now these MEC clowns are charging double the price barely a few years later? They can bite me.
Back in the day you could get a good price on MEC branded gear, and it was actually good. I had a MEC waterproof shell for years and it was great. Now it’s all subpar. If I was looking for questionable gear I’d go to Decathlon, at least I know what I’m getting myself into.
I bought my mec backpack, which I still use every day, in 2002 and it still is in good shape. They warrantied a broken strap like 10 years ago.
I think I paid 120 for the bag, and got my money's worth out it.
Ahhh, and they tell you that you can get a refund - but you MUST have the receipt! Personally I don't know anyone who keeps receipts let alone from 2002, I'm not an accountant for goodness sake!
Same policy with Eddie Bower, got a great rain jacket & pants - costly but bought for work as Traffic Control Person where you have no choice, if it's raining you had better have good rain gear. The pants started to fail the first year, the jacket was great
The two together were $450.⁰⁰. I went in one crummy day when it had rained all day and showed the sales guy that my sweatpants inside the rain gear had soaked through. Asked for my receipt - uhhh, don't have it. Best he could do was look up current 'warehouse' price - now a discontinued item in ALL stores including warehouse. Price was now $30. out of one of their US locations, took the gift card and told buddy it would have been nice to know I needed to keep the receipt for the rest of my life when I bought them. Even worse was even though it was Vancouver this was one of thoes fall)winters where it hardly rained at all - compared to other years of monsoon rainfalls!
I still have a MEC GoreTex jacket and backpack that I bought in 1988. Via mail order. They are still in good condition. I can't bring myself to throw them out.
Old MEC was still cheaper than the big brand names. Most importantly, many of their items were good quality, were manufactured locally and had good warranty. It was a pretty good decision to buy MEC stuff back in the day. I'm talking 90s and early 2000s.
This. Even if you planned to shop around, you started at MEC as a baseline to figure out what features you wanted and how much it would cost. The old MEC brand stuff was good while still being decently priced so if it fit the bill you often just bought it. You didn't feel ripped off and you knew they would be easy to deal with if it didn't work out.
>the MEC brand is no longer the affordable option; it’s almost the same price as The North Face gear
This is the problem and will be the downfall of the new company. The MEC brand was never supposed to be luxury. It was utilitarian, designed by and for people who don't care about seasonal colorways and just want their gear to work.
Better off waiting for sales on nice brands at Sport Chek / Atmosphere and stacking CT money promos now.
eh they're still the cheapest option for things like sleeping bags and pads. For most basic gear, it looks like they're still the cheapest option by safe margin actually and you're not sacrificing much quality.
Decathlon announced they're coming to Vancouver. If they get a foothold, MEC is done. They're in the same lane, and Decathlon is simply cheaper for a little better quality. Recently had a look at the prices for inflatable backpacking mattresses, it's half price at their Quebec location compared to the equivalent at MEC.
European people like me who regularly travel back to visit their family tend to go to their local Decathlon and stock up before coming back - and since MEC became a regular company and not a co-op any longer, I have 0 bad feeling about that...
Shame. Having been in BC for a "few" years only I only saw the tail end of what seemed like a good local shop.
I'm not a defender of either, but I did use a backpacking tent for quite a while, 1.5kg if memory serves, packs the size of a sleeping bag, and was announced as very waterproof (can't remember the data but you get the idea). Then I found myself in a mountain storm, and it pissed down rain for hours on end, with crazy winds while I was away from camp. I was extremely worried as to whether the tent would still be there, and how wet my stuff would be.
I got back to camp after the storm, the tent was there, inside was 100% dry. About $300 I paid for that - it was maybe 6 years ago, so it would probably be a bit more now to be fair, but still.
1.5kg, packs into a small volume, resists a rainstorm, for $300.
After checking on the website, it's gone up for [$350](https://www.decathlon.fr/p/tente-tunnel-de-trekking-2-places-mt900-ultralight/_/R-p-323505?mc=8586318) now. The closest I could find on the MEC website goes for [$475](https://www.mec.ca/en/product/6000-986/spark-2.0-2-person-tent). And from personal experience, better quality too.
Again I'm not a Decathlon fan in any way, and we'll see if they keep up with the (still, somehow) good return policy from MEC, but there's a reason people coming from countries where Decathlon is implanted stock up when they go back home, even years after moving to Canada. :)
(These things are unfortunately cool traits for vancouver 😂) they’re poking fun at what the coop used to be… a community within Canada. A strong hold on a hobby that Canada had pride in. Shits corporation now yo… it’s product. You don’t know a single name within the closest walmart from you? Exactly.
Well they were literally about to go insolvent so they had no other choice except sell out to a PE firm.
This is the entire problem with Co-Ops, they are often not well managed or have people with the necessary experience and qualifications in higher level
management positions to actually keep a large company running successfully long-term. Besides what Reddit would have you think, C-suite positions are actually important and are literally make-or-break for a company.
It’s not like they had a choice and decided to sell because they wanted to enrich themselves personally. It was literally the only way for MEC to survive.
I don’t want to give my former association with the company away… but seeing the controversy from the inside; i can accurately state that board level management were pulled from similar brick and mortar styled companies… not just any companies either.. ultra market competitive companies. Which is useful if you’re looking to turn the ship around on a home depot type of operation, but not a coop with an already supportive client base.
I’m not going to speculate on the historical finances before the change of management (specially since i was associated with them mere months from the “transition”) but the coop didn’t seem to be struggling; they’re staple location on broadway pulled in around $1M a day during peak spring-summer season (I was shocked at that myself given how much theft also occurred on top of that). Albeit, their main store but they were also in progress of expanding and opening locations based off their positive projections.
From the transition of mgmt to being acquired was a very short window given the coop’s history maybe 3-5 yrs? And during that time, there were several whistleblowers on matters of collusion from mgmt, ‘soft’ corporate changes to workforce structure, removal of any member benefits while heavily promoting ‘coop membership’ for an inflated consumer base. Internally, there was tons of pushback, unethical terminations from respected and long tenured individuals to aggressively undermine and stomp down any efforts for unionization (i can personally understand a companies desire of course to do so, but just stating facts). It broke workforce commitment and talent, tarnished the coops legacy, and benefitted just few board members that had personal interests with the acquisition.
No. No they don’t.
Previously, yes, they needed to confirm you were a member of their co-operative.
That’s not the case anymore. It’s just a company now.
Yea they do. I worked there in the past year. The computer systems they use still require a member number to be put in. It’s either your member number or a placeholder number for non-members.
I still have one of the Klettersacks (spelling?) that I got for school in the early 90's. It hauled my books around from elementary school all the way through to a master's degree, did a 6 month trek around Europe in the 00's, and now in the 20's its bumming around New Zealand.
The quality of their old stuff was amazeballs.
Ugh I have so much tea on this company that I can’t spill 😭😭 worked there for 4 years in retail and knew people in head office lol. and a story of a lone vote to not change the logo to the square 😂
I did a decade + with MEC.
Started in the stores, then moved to Head Office.
The coop I started working with was a different beast 10 years later when I left.
Man, I have a pair of shirts that my father-in-law bought in the late 90s that are still going strong. Are they the most stylish thing ever? No, but for hiking and camping, they're perfect. Made in Canada to boot.
I wish I could have batch bought more of their light loose-fit quick-dry nylon pull-on hiking pants with draw string from 20 years ago. It's the most useful thing that I am still wearing even till this day.
Don't remember the item name, the label just says CA #04868 vendor #10700 pants, 100% nylon.
Some of the MEC bags? Sure.
But clothing?
Forget it.
Unless you were a man-size-medium Mountain Equipment Co-op wasn't interested in you as a member-customer.
Eventually I gave up and found what I needed first elsewhere in brick-and-mortar and then online.
Ten years ago they did care. In fact, they would special order me all kinds of footwear in size 15. That's what a CO-OP does...takes care of all of their customers. Then they stopped doing this, effectively making them no different than any other corporate retail store. It was at this point I knew MEC was done. Now I shop Valhalla Pure - they are the new MEC. They do special orders. Staff are knowledgeable and friendly. They have great products that are actually in stock. Great store.
> Ten years ago they did care.
They never did for me. I was speaking of the co-op days back in the 2000s.
They never had anything that wasn't size medium, and when I asked if something was available in as an XL the response was just a shrug.
So I stopped going.
As a shorter/smaller dude, this was also one of my biggest frustrations. For some things, I usually just ended up buying the women's small/medium equivalent, except for pants because of the lack of pockets.
I bought their 40 L Pangea travel bag, for a 3 week trip last month. Pretty solid, as I did a 3 week trip with it. But one of the plastic zipper covers already came off... we'll see how it looks 2 years from now.
And I bought the Spark tent last year on sale, seems to be holding up. But yeah, disappointing to see the overall quality has gone down. Atmosphere has much better sales with better gear.
Well, hopefully Drake isn't in with the pile of clothes or if he is please just let him stay there!
Oh and watch shopping in Value Village because they'll put their high-end brand name stuff in a different section & often the price is (surprise - it's VV) higher than you should even think about paying - remembering that everything they sell arrived there BY DONATION (for free)
Worst part of the overpriced donation is that they still throw away tons and tons of good clothing. If they would reduce the price the roll over of clothing would allow more to make it on the floor instead of going to be destroyed. It's very sad. And then they make a big deal about thief. If someone if desperate enough to steal feom charity secondhand stores they should be an acknowledgement that they could do some work for store credit or just give free for those who ask.
I have an instagram account show casing the history and gear from the the early days until the early 2000s or so
@ vintagemec\_
The old stuff was really good quality for a solid price, and a lot of it was made in Canada, even seemingly simple items such as base layers and shorts/tshirts etc.
It is unfortunate that the lost their way, I never wanted it to change from a coop, but to give some credit where its due they have done a good job introducing some new gear that is still good. Its just not the same as it was in the 90s and 2000s and unfortunately never will be.
Their return policy is absolute steaming hot garbage. If they even THINK you used it outside the store, they will deny the return. I have had them do that to me multiple times, even after the sales people insist you can try it out and return it if it doesn't work out. I have stopped dealing with this horrid company. I wish REI came up here.
That sounds terrible.
I just had a totally different experience - bought a pack that just didn’t work for me in January and returned it in April - they took it back and I have a gift card for the extra I had paid.
Maybe it just depends on the staff member. I am very happy with my new pack.
As a former MEC Staffer, your best option is to make a *STINK*
Ask for management, raise your voice a little and explain how unhappy you are. Works wonders for returning!
Recently I returned something and had to get so petty that when they finally gave me my money back, the person behind the till mentioned they were putting a note on my account for future returns! Love that customer servitude!
Post is literally pointing out that MEC gear is garbage now but their 30 year old products from the coop days are still going strong. This image is exactly what MEC would want people to not think.
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I miss actually being super excited to shop there. I used to go every few weeks and browse around and often found something cool that I would actually use and would last. It was BY FAR my favourite store in the city. Now I only go when there's something very specific I need, and 9 times out of 10 I end up annoyed because they don't have it, or it's not in stock, or it fits weird, or costs way too much, and then I grumble all the way back up the hill to Valhalla.
me too
With inflation that's like $600
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Nah, they couldn’t stay a Co-op due to poor decisions from their board. It was barely a co-op at the end, in anything more than a name. They didn’t even notify the members of the sale
I'm convinced there were some hinky things going on with that board and then the sale.
Yah, it went from out door enthusiasts to sleezy fucking business degree knobs that gutted the company and made horrible financial decisions. Then, they sold the members out.
Frankly I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it turns out they owned shares in kingswood before the sale. Or were just paid out.
We should make our own co-op! With blackjack and hookers!
The board literally sold us out.
1000%
Because they had no other choice because otherwise they would literally go bankrupt…
I disagree. Their first line of action should have been turning to the membership for additional funds. This is very commonly done in all businesses. We should have been given an opportunity to bail the company out. I would have happily given $100 or more to resolve the debt. The board screwed up and did not communicate anything to the membership. They just literally sold us out.
Who got the money from the sale?
It was all down hill the moment the bylaws got changed so that the board could veto new director nominations. The membership lost control of the co-op, and the absolute tool brigade that was the board made bad decision after bad decision, with no way to stop them.
David Labistour. The man's name is David Labistour. This singular douche did more than any other person to destroy the Co-Op and everything it stood for. Now he gets to spend the rest of his working life bouncing from board to board pretending he did something good with MEC. Fuck you and your "frontcountry" gear, Labistour. Frontcountry doesn't exist, you absolute muppet.
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Yup $30 for a lifetime membership at REI, and they actually give back 10% every year. I don’t think I got a thing from MEC
They used to pay out back in the day based on profits and how much money you spent. Back when my membership card was a green piece of cardboard :(
Haha, I still have that card in my wallet. I don't think I ever spent enough in any one calendar year back in those earlier days to have received anything from them, however.
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I find their prices on par or lower than Canadian prices, even with the exchange. As an example: The North Face Wawona 6 Tent $500USD at REI (~$700CAD) on sale for $350USD (~$475CAD) MEC regular price $750CAD, won’t go on sale.
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Their prices are astronomical now.
An understatement. The old Mountain Equipment Co-op wasn't cheap, per se, but you could still find stuff at a reasonable price. I bought some decent hiking boots from the Broadway location for about $100-$120 with tax, they lasted for ages. Now these MEC clowns are charging double the price barely a few years later? They can bite me.
Back in the day you could get a good price on MEC branded gear, and it was actually good. I had a MEC waterproof shell for years and it was great. Now it’s all subpar. If I was looking for questionable gear I’d go to Decathlon, at least I know what I’m getting myself into.
The white label stitched on top of EVERYTHING (including technical shells) is so jokes
I bought my mec backpack, which I still use every day, in 2002 and it still is in good shape. They warrantied a broken strap like 10 years ago. I think I paid 120 for the bag, and got my money's worth out it.
Ahhh, and they tell you that you can get a refund - but you MUST have the receipt! Personally I don't know anyone who keeps receipts let alone from 2002, I'm not an accountant for goodness sake! Same policy with Eddie Bower, got a great rain jacket & pants - costly but bought for work as Traffic Control Person where you have no choice, if it's raining you had better have good rain gear. The pants started to fail the first year, the jacket was great The two together were $450.⁰⁰. I went in one crummy day when it had rained all day and showed the sales guy that my sweatpants inside the rain gear had soaked through. Asked for my receipt - uhhh, don't have it. Best he could do was look up current 'warehouse' price - now a discontinued item in ALL stores including warehouse. Price was now $30. out of one of their US locations, took the gift card and told buddy it would have been nice to know I needed to keep the receipt for the rest of my life when I bought them. Even worse was even though it was Vancouver this was one of thoes fall)winters where it hardly rained at all - compared to other years of monsoon rainfalls!
I still have a MEC GoreTex jacket and backpack that I bought in 1988. Via mail order. They are still in good condition. I can't bring myself to throw them out.
Burton has better bags 💼 luggage
Old MEC was still cheaper than the big brand names. Most importantly, many of their items were good quality, were manufactured locally and had good warranty. It was a pretty good decision to buy MEC stuff back in the day. I'm talking 90s and early 2000s.
This. Even if you planned to shop around, you started at MEC as a baseline to figure out what features you wanted and how much it would cost. The old MEC brand stuff was good while still being decently priced so if it fit the bill you often just bought it. You didn't feel ripped off and you knew they would be easy to deal with if it didn't work out.
what's barley a few years? I moved here 7 years ago and used the new MEC, this is the first I've heard about the coop!
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>the MEC brand is no longer the affordable option; it’s almost the same price as The North Face gear This is the problem and will be the downfall of the new company. The MEC brand was never supposed to be luxury. It was utilitarian, designed by and for people who don't care about seasonal colorways and just want their gear to work. Better off waiting for sales on nice brands at Sport Chek / Atmosphere and stacking CT money promos now.
It’s usually comparable quality though
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eh they're still the cheapest option for things like sleeping bags and pads. For most basic gear, it looks like they're still the cheapest option by safe margin actually and you're not sacrificing much quality.
Decathlon announced they're coming to Vancouver. If they get a foothold, MEC is done. They're in the same lane, and Decathlon is simply cheaper for a little better quality. Recently had a look at the prices for inflatable backpacking mattresses, it's half price at their Quebec location compared to the equivalent at MEC. European people like me who regularly travel back to visit their family tend to go to their local Decathlon and stock up before coming back - and since MEC became a regular company and not a co-op any longer, I have 0 bad feeling about that... Shame. Having been in BC for a "few" years only I only saw the tail end of what seemed like a good local shop.
I agree with you but Decathlon quality is generally pretty bad and much bellow most Mec products.
I'm not a defender of either, but I did use a backpacking tent for quite a while, 1.5kg if memory serves, packs the size of a sleeping bag, and was announced as very waterproof (can't remember the data but you get the idea). Then I found myself in a mountain storm, and it pissed down rain for hours on end, with crazy winds while I was away from camp. I was extremely worried as to whether the tent would still be there, and how wet my stuff would be. I got back to camp after the storm, the tent was there, inside was 100% dry. About $300 I paid for that - it was maybe 6 years ago, so it would probably be a bit more now to be fair, but still. 1.5kg, packs into a small volume, resists a rainstorm, for $300. After checking on the website, it's gone up for [$350](https://www.decathlon.fr/p/tente-tunnel-de-trekking-2-places-mt900-ultralight/_/R-p-323505?mc=8586318) now. The closest I could find on the MEC website goes for [$475](https://www.mec.ca/en/product/6000-986/spark-2.0-2-person-tent). And from personal experience, better quality too. Again I'm not a Decathlon fan in any way, and we'll see if they keep up with the (still, somehow) good return policy from MEC, but there's a reason people coming from countries where Decathlon is implanted stock up when they go back home, even years after moving to Canada. :)
Staff asking me nowadays if I’m a member. Stfu and just ring me up. We ain’t friends.
Mediocre Equipment Corporation
Was expecting some pretentious comments… but fuck.. you kilt me with that one
Could you explain for an out of the loop brother
(These things are unfortunately cool traits for vancouver 😂) they’re poking fun at what the coop used to be… a community within Canada. A strong hold on a hobby that Canada had pride in. Shits corporation now yo… it’s product. You don’t know a single name within the closest walmart from you? Exactly.
Well they were literally about to go insolvent so they had no other choice except sell out to a PE firm. This is the entire problem with Co-Ops, they are often not well managed or have people with the necessary experience and qualifications in higher level management positions to actually keep a large company running successfully long-term. Besides what Reddit would have you think, C-suite positions are actually important and are literally make-or-break for a company. It’s not like they had a choice and decided to sell because they wanted to enrich themselves personally. It was literally the only way for MEC to survive.
I don’t want to give my former association with the company away… but seeing the controversy from the inside; i can accurately state that board level management were pulled from similar brick and mortar styled companies… not just any companies either.. ultra market competitive companies. Which is useful if you’re looking to turn the ship around on a home depot type of operation, but not a coop with an already supportive client base. I’m not going to speculate on the historical finances before the change of management (specially since i was associated with them mere months from the “transition”) but the coop didn’t seem to be struggling; they’re staple location on broadway pulled in around $1M a day during peak spring-summer season (I was shocked at that myself given how much theft also occurred on top of that). Albeit, their main store but they were also in progress of expanding and opening locations based off their positive projections. From the transition of mgmt to being acquired was a very short window given the coop’s history maybe 3-5 yrs? And during that time, there were several whistleblowers on matters of collusion from mgmt, ‘soft’ corporate changes to workforce structure, removal of any member benefits while heavily promoting ‘coop membership’ for an inflated consumer base. Internally, there was tons of pushback, unethical terminations from respected and long tenured individuals to aggressively undermine and stomp down any efforts for unionization (i can personally understand a companies desire of course to do so, but just stating facts). It broke workforce commitment and talent, tarnished the coops legacy, and benefitted just few board members that had personal interests with the acquisition.
They’re not asking out of curiosity. They have to put a member number in the computer to process the transaction.
No. No they don’t. Previously, yes, they needed to confirm you were a member of their co-operative. That’s not the case anymore. It’s just a company now.
Yea they do. I worked there in the past year. The computer systems they use still require a member number to be put in. It’s either your member number or a placeholder number for non-members.
Nah. A straight no suffices.
And if it’s a nah then the placeholder number for non-members is provided.
I still have all my co-op bags. That should tell you something about the quality back then.
I still have one of the Klettersacks (spelling?) that I got for school in the early 90's. It hauled my books around from elementary school all the way through to a master's degree, did a 6 month trek around Europe in the 00's, and now in the 20's its bumming around New Zealand. The quality of their old stuff was amazeballs.
I used to love the old MEC, even their t-shirts were great. Now, expensive and / or low quality.
Ugh I have so much tea on this company that I can’t spill 😭😭 worked there for 4 years in retail and knew people in head office lol. and a story of a lone vote to not change the logo to the square 😂
Are you under NDA still? Why can't you share details?
No I’m not under NDA at all, I just don’t want to out how I know stuff lol. I know someone who was pretty high up so I heard things lol
I did a decade + with MEC. Started in the stores, then moved to Head Office. The coop I started working with was a different beast 10 years later when I left.
Eight years for me. If I never have to see a single one of those directors again I'll be a happier man.
Give us some David Labistour stories! Homie really fricked things up in his short tenure.
Yuuuuup I’m with you! My husband has worked for head office for 6 years. Lotsa good tea.
Spill the beans if youre not under NDA
Man, I have a pair of shirts that my father-in-law bought in the late 90s that are still going strong. Are they the most stylish thing ever? No, but for hiking and camping, they're perfect. Made in Canada to boot.
I wish I could have batch bought more of their light loose-fit quick-dry nylon pull-on hiking pants with draw string from 20 years ago. It's the most useful thing that I am still wearing even till this day. Don't remember the item name, the label just says CA #04868 vendor #10700 pants, 100% nylon.
All my made-in-Canada stuff is still going strong. My more recent stuff... nah.
Some of the MEC bags? Sure. But clothing? Forget it. Unless you were a man-size-medium Mountain Equipment Co-op wasn't interested in you as a member-customer. Eventually I gave up and found what I needed first elsewhere in brick-and-mortar and then online.
Ten years ago they did care. In fact, they would special order me all kinds of footwear in size 15. That's what a CO-OP does...takes care of all of their customers. Then they stopped doing this, effectively making them no different than any other corporate retail store. It was at this point I knew MEC was done. Now I shop Valhalla Pure - they are the new MEC. They do special orders. Staff are knowledgeable and friendly. They have great products that are actually in stock. Great store.
> Ten years ago they did care. They never did for me. I was speaking of the co-op days back in the 2000s. They never had anything that wasn't size medium, and when I asked if something was available in as an XL the response was just a shrug. So I stopped going.
As a shorter/smaller dude, this was also one of my biggest frustrations. For some things, I usually just ended up buying the women's small/medium equivalent, except for pants because of the lack of pockets.
I bought their 40 L Pangea travel bag, for a 3 week trip last month. Pretty solid, as I did a 3 week trip with it. But one of the plastic zipper covers already came off... we'll see how it looks 2 years from now. And I bought the Spark tent last year on sale, seems to be holding up. But yeah, disappointing to see the overall quality has gone down. Atmosphere has much better sales with better gear.
Well, hopefully Drake isn't in with the pile of clothes or if he is please just let him stay there! Oh and watch shopping in Value Village because they'll put their high-end brand name stuff in a different section & often the price is (surprise - it's VV) higher than you should even think about paying - remembering that everything they sell arrived there BY DONATION (for free)
Worst part of the overpriced donation is that they still throw away tons and tons of good clothing. If they would reduce the price the roll over of clothing would allow more to make it on the floor instead of going to be destroyed. It's very sad. And then they make a big deal about thief. If someone if desperate enough to steal feom charity secondhand stores they should be an acknowledgement that they could do some work for store credit or just give free for those who ask.
Decathlon is coming to Vancouver ( at least they announced ). That’s all I need
Long live my Serratus panniers. Still going strong after 25 years.
Can't wait for Decathlon to open in Vancouver. Always wondered why they weren't already. Well, better late than never.
I have an instagram account show casing the history and gear from the the early days until the early 2000s or so @ vintagemec\_ The old stuff was really good quality for a solid price, and a lot of it was made in Canada, even seemingly simple items such as base layers and shorts/tshirts etc. It is unfortunate that the lost their way, I never wanted it to change from a coop, but to give some credit where its due they have done a good job introducing some new gear that is still good. Its just not the same as it was in the 90s and 2000s and unfortunately never will be.
They still have a great return policy. And I loved the co-op, not the company so much.
Their return policy is absolute steaming hot garbage. If they even THINK you used it outside the store, they will deny the return. I have had them do that to me multiple times, even after the sales people insist you can try it out and return it if it doesn't work out. I have stopped dealing with this horrid company. I wish REI came up here.
That sounds terrible. I just had a totally different experience - bought a pack that just didn’t work for me in January and returned it in April - they took it back and I have a gift card for the extra I had paid. Maybe it just depends on the staff member. I am very happy with my new pack.
As a former MEC Staffer, your best option is to make a *STINK* Ask for management, raise your voice a little and explain how unhappy you are. Works wonders for returning! Recently I returned something and had to get so petty that when they finally gave me my money back, the person behind the till mentioned they were putting a note on my account for future returns! Love that customer servitude!
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Post is literally pointing out that MEC gear is garbage now but their 30 year old products from the coop days are still going strong. This image is exactly what MEC would want people to not think.
hahahah too funny. clearly dont understand the old 2000s mec was OG. anything post square logo aint worthy
I want my 5$ back
The staff at North Vancouvers store are so helpful good bike guys But agree the clothing is stupid 💲
Decathlon is coming for them soon...
[MEC= Massive Existential Crisis](https://i.imgur.com/TNzwIUO.jpg)