Balsam Hill

I purchased the large Microfiber Pet Sofa and it arrived within a week, which was
awesome!
I am extremely happy with this bed, it is well made and solid and doesn’t collapse under the weight of my even largest dog. All three of my dogs have taken turns sleeping in it.
That would include my Chihuahua, my Aussie mix and my 97lb Great Dane.
So thank you very much to my instagram friend who recommended this site for this bed, and
thanks for such prompt service. Now, if only the x-​large would come in, I know there
are a ton of Dane people who would love it.

Always wanted to get a nice artificial tree to replace my decades old v1.0 artificial Christmas tree. After reading all of the negative reviews of Balsam Hill on Unilocal about poor delivery, unhelpful customer service, and defective lights, I decided to try and «avoid» those problems by going directly to the Balsam Hill warehouse in Burlingame.
Located right off Hwy. 101 near SFO, There’s plenty of parking at the warehouse site. Apparently, the warehouse is open for direct sales to the public for a couple of months before Christmas and for a couple of weeks afterwards. Otherwise, it’s only open for warranty work.
Plenty of helpful sales reps to help you pick out the trees that are displayed on the warehouse floor. After Christmas, there’s a clearance sale and we picked out an artificial tree that looked pretty real and got about 30% off their normal pre-​Christmas price. Since we came to the warehouse, we didn’t have to worry about getting the tree delivered before Christmas. We just loaded the tree into the back seat of our car.
We didn’t have to worry about customer service or defective lights because … when you buy a clearance tree, there’s no warranty anyway. We got the old incandescent lights rather than the LED lights because if an LED light goes out, the entire section needs to be replaced. You can evidently replace a single incandescent bulb. However, LED lights do last longer.
Balsam Hill found a tree in the warehouse that matched the display tree we liked and it came in two nice, heavy duty bags. The lower ²⁄₃ of the tree is on wheels and neatly folds in half into the larger bag. We took it home and set it up pretty easily, and the lights worked, by golly! I’ll update this review next Christmas if the lights don’t work.
I didn’t give five stars because, boy are these artificial trees expensive, and because some of the expensive trees really didn’t look that real. They looked like larger versions of my original «Charlie Brown» fake tree.

I got a large Balsam Hill Xmas Trees wreath as a present and I love it! It came in a box nicely packaged and it looks very real and very well made with sturdy wire frames like it will last a lifetime! The various ornaments and subtle white lights are all nicely done so that the whole effect looks great over my fireplace!
Thank you Balsam Hill !!! Larry L.

Do yourself a favor. Sort the review here by newest first and read all the latest reviews. And then make your own decision.
Paid $ 500+ for a tree, and trusted them on the «ship on the same business day» promise on their website. Based on the website, ship within 1 day and will arrive in 2 days since we are in CA. No shipment whatsoever for more than a week. Called every day and got the same answer, FedEx messed things up and there is nothing they can do. Can’t cancel either, since their cancellation policy states that you can only cancel within 30 minutes after placing an order. And you will be charged for returns.
I am going to keep calling them everyday and I am sure they will keep giving me the same fake answer. I will try one more week and start seeking legal advice on how to start a class action lawsuit against them since there are obviously so many victims out there.

We ordered a wreath from Balsam Hill — the process was easy. The Wreath arrived in great condition and it looks really good. The box is also the perfect size for storing the wreath without taking up too much space, so we’ll be saving that.
The cranberries on the wreath look really impressive. I was surprised at the amount of diversity there was between the looks of each berry. Good stuff!

****update****
Balsam did finally do right by this error. After posting a review on their Facebook site they reached out to me and I received the tree ~six days later in time for Xmas. It is a beautiful tree and worth the money. They also refunded me around $ 300 and kept following up until I got my tree – Which was great. I would order from them again because I like the product and hope they get their customer service program together upfront. Everyone makes errors – it’s about how you resolve them…
I ordered a Christmas tree on ¹¹⁄₂₁ with notice that it was in stock and would be delivered in 3 – 5 business days. 10 days later no tree, no email from Balsam Hill. I contacted their customer service dept. and was told it was on back order and it was unknown when it would be delivered and that I could NOT cancel the order and have my $ 1,934 refunded so I could buy a new tree somewhere else. The rep said they would talk to the «warehouse» the next morning and would call me back the next day. No call back occurred. I waited 2 days and contacted them. I was told I would not get my tree, they would cancel the order. I tried to negotiate getting the tree at that price after the holiday’s when it was back in stock (with a discount for my troubles). They would do nothing for me. This is Christmas time folks — I have a party tomorrow and NO tree. There is no margin for error in a holiday business. At least have a system when back-​ordered the customer is notified. Beyond terrible customer service. Amazon should drop them as a retailer if they cannot manage online orders effectively or at least do right by the customer.

The Grinch who Stole Christmas:
Balsam Hill is the banner brand of the e-​commerce Christmas empire owned by Thomas MacMartin Harman II. Harman’s other brands include Balsam Hill’s primary competitors ‘Tree Classics’, also ‘Treetopia’, ‘Triumph International Inc.’, ‘Creative Christmas LLC,’, ‘Heavenly Holidays, LLC’ and ‘Christmas Tree Market’. If you’re in the market for an e-​commerce Christmas Tree or holiday decorations, chances are you’re buying from a Harman company.
I bought one of Harman’s Chinese trees from his ‘Tree Classics’ company in November that had two sections with defective lights. I contacted Harman’s customer service the same day I received the tree and after an hour on hold was informed that they would need photographs to validate my claim. I took photos as requested and e-​mailed them back for review/​consideration as instructed. Three days after sending photos, no word from customer service with Christmas looming around the corner so I attempted to contact customer service to follow-​up. Another fifty minutes on hold with apologies that they are very busy. Let’s see; they sell poor quality Chinese merchandise for Cadillac prices and have insufficient staff to handle the call volume for customer service. (Does that sound like a company you want to send your money to?) Customer service repeated they would need photos to validate my claim. Well I did that three days ago the first time you asked. Sorry they’re very busy; they’ll review the photos and get back to me. With Christmas two weeks away, customer service advised they would replace one of the defective sections that I should receive a month later; after Christmas. Why after Christmas you ask? Because they want the opportunity to sell a tree to another sucker before they service the defective Chinese ‘merchandise’ they already monetized. What’s the story with the second defective section? Well they hadn’t read my original complaint to understand that two sections were impacted, so now they can go back and deliberate over replacement of the second defective section. Bottom line: I sent them $ 1,000 for a premium Christmas tree, received defective Chinese product, dreadful customer service that required over ten contacts and untold hours of my time, did not have a functional tree for Christmas and eventually received replacement sections for mid-​January.
Perhaps you might have better luck and score a non-​defective Chinese tree, but once you fall into the penalty box with their miserable customer service, I can guarantee you’ll regret the day you decided to buy an e-​commerce Christmas tree from Harman. It doesn’t matter which of Harman’s companies you buy a tree from; it’s all the same run-​around customer service. Do yourself a favor and do a web search of customer service from Harman’s Christmas empire companies.
Do your homework please and pay attention to the litany of horror stories people experience with the dreadful customer service and return policies of this company. If you’re unhappy with your defective Chinese tree, they will take it back before December 25^th less shipping and handling fees. Any idea what shipping and handling fees are for a Christmas tree?
Curious to note favorable reviews for Balsam Hill from reviewers who apparently join Unilocal specifically to leave their sole review for Balsam Hill. Coincidence you think? Please be sure to read the 269 «filtered» reviews that are principally 1-​star reviews!
By the way; the day after Christmas, Harman’s companies offer the same products for 65% off, and I can assure you they aren’t selling them at a loss. That will give you a good idea of the ‘value’ you’ll receive if you buy at regular price. My advice is to buy a tree from a local merchant that provides good customer service and full credit return policy.

I think it’s great when companies respond to reviews. What people need to know is that I do not want to attempt to try to find a box to ship my tree back to the company. I don’t want to lug it out to my car and stand in line at the post office and deal with the shipping costs. And most importantly, I do not want to deal with their customer service people. What I wanted was a good quality tree that wouldn’t have lights that burned out almost immediately. I love the tree and would recommend someone buying one, but NOT a pre-​lit one. I would recommend going to a local ‘box store’ that has customer service at your convenience.

I purchased a Christmas tree online and realized within 10 minutes that it was too wide. Obviously, this was my mistake, but I immediately emailed the company and explained that I wanted to cancel my order. I was told this was not possible within an hour. It was a Sunday and they could have easily stopped the shipment. I refused the package and was charged a $ 75 refusal fee. I was told that I could cancel my order within 30 minutes, but that I would have had to call or chat. I did call, but they were closed and I didn’t think of chatting. Regardless of whether this is allowed via their policy, they are a terrible company for customer service. I would never do business with them again!

I have been ordering from BH, (Balsam Hill) for years.
On ordering a 26″ wreath to match my existing wreath, (from a 2008 purchase), to my surprise it arrived in a very small box not as small as «Tiffany’s» but if one were to paint it blue and your beloved might get excited.
When opening the box the wreath only measured 16″ across.
I called BH customer service and told them of the issue, in-​turn they asked me to take photos and send them images of what certainly may of been an error in shipment or packaging.
Not hearing from them within several hours I returned the call to BH and had learned the earlier representive was not their and would call me tomorrow.
Ummm …no, since I had a new BH representive I explained our situation again and wanted to resolve this today.
It’s not a «GM» key or «Toyota» brake problem people.
It’s seems a 26″ wreath is only a 26″ wreath if you «fluff it up» (no comment on that statement) from the representative, in other words stretch it out like «Gumby» or visit your hairdresser from th 80’s or feed it a wreath enhancement pill you get 26″ of wreath Fluff !
Wrong in order to have a 26″ wreath you need to order a 36″ wreath.
I ordered the 36″ wreath to match my 26″ wreath at a additional cost which was fine the larger wreath costs more.
They also sent me a FedEx label so to return my previous purchase.
Satisfied with BH customer service although it certainly could of been handled on the first call.
Note «Size Matters» come on «BH“enough with the «BS» please let your consumer’s know what their getting.
Cheers– Satisfied

Purchased a tree in September, Opened it 2 weeks ago for Christmas. The tree has an electrical problem and doesn’t lit. Tried to contact C/​S for a return since its brand new and never opened — nothing helped. Wrote an email to the company and received a reply with some ridiculous suggestions such as «switch the bulbs». Called customer service again and was promised for a call back after they «investigate» what they can do… nothing…no one called. We end up with no lit tree this Christmas thew we payed over 300 for it. Today called the company once again and the only solution been offered is to assemble it again, make pictures and only then they can «start» the warranty process. Never again Balsam Hill!!! the worst service ever with less then willing to help attitude and a ruined our Christmas!!!

We bought 3 Luminara flameless battery-​powered candles and pre-​lit garland as small but important details to decorate our home for Christmas. Almost every person that has come over has been blown away by the candles… the color and movement of the «flame» is so realistic and is really a conversation piece.
The pre-​lit garland that is battery powered is a life-​saver since there is no need to hide wires and plugs. It is also very realistic as well. We have an old artificial tree that I’m hoping to upgrade to a Balsam Hill tree next year.

We purchased a 10 foot tree this year just before thanksgiving. The tree was already filled with lights and was very easy to setup. Given the size, it did take a while to fully fluff the tree but in the end the tree looks great.
It is 6′ wide at the base and does take up a decent amount of space in our living room, but we have a 30′ ceiling so the tree really fits nicely and is the central piece of our holiday decorations. It is setup next to our staircase and looks great from above and at eye level.
I have four children and of course during the excitement of setting up the tree they kept messing with the lights and caused a section to stop working. My husband used the included tools to swap out a fuse and change out a broken bulb and everything has been working great since.
The trees are a bit more expensive than the ones I saw at Home Depot and Walmart but they are significantly higher quality. we purchased ours on sale and feel like we got a tree that will last is for a number of years.
It has really set the tone this Christmas season.

Ordered a 7.5 foot unlit narrow Fraser Fir on sale for $ 379. I ordered it on a Monday past the 12:00 pm deadline so expected it would ship on Tuesday. Never got a shipping confirmation but was able to look online at my order to see that it had been shipped. I expected it would take over a week to ship to me – imagine my surprise on Friday when the FedEx truck arrived with a large box from Balsam Hill. It would have been nice to have a tracking number but can’t complain about the speed at which it got here.
Set up was amazingly easy and I had the tree assembled in minutes. You MUST fluff the tree to get it to look like a real tree. I spent probably over an hour fluffing up the branches but it was worth the effort. The gloves they include make it a lot easier on your hands (plus they included two different sizes of gloves).
It looks like a real Fraser fir sitting in my dining room without the effort of having to venture out in the cold to our local tree farm and dealing with post-​holiday needle drop. Given how the price of real trees is going up, this will have paid for itself in 4 years.
The trees are more expensive than what you buy from the big box retailers but it looks very lifelike and is worth the extra money. I bought the unlit version as light strings ALWAYS go out and it’s easier to buy individual replacement strings than having to deal with the prelit trees.
Very happy with my Balsam Hill tree. I would advise anyone who’s thinking about one of their trees to go with an unlit tree if you don’t want to deal with lighting issues — go buy your own lights, then you can have whatever color you wish and change the lights as you please.

I bought the 7.5 ft Ocala Spruce pine with clear light on a post-​Christmas sale early in January 3 years ago. Very expensive tree, but on sale it seemed reasonable, and would ‘pay for itself’ in 4 – 5 years vs. buying real trees each year. When i first set it up and ‘fluffed’ it, i was really impressed how real it looked. Best artificial tree I’d ever seen! That first year, i just plugged it in and all lights worked. Was so pleased.
Fast forward to 2^nd year. After setting up, fluffing and plugging in, one entire section of lights was dead. I spent 2 hours checking fuses, pulling and replugging every single light — still no lights. I ended up spending another hour cutting out the defective strand and replacing with a Home-​Depot strand of lights.
3^rd year — this tree is a piece of crap. While it looks nice (the foliage), the lights are horribly unreliable. This time, 2 different strands of lights are ‘half out’ and nothing i do can make them come back on — fuses, light replacements, etc. I may have to cut out all of the cheap (Chinese i assume) lights and just string my home depot lights each year as usual.
Quality from this company is abysmal — save your money and buy somewhere else. For a high-​end vendor, they should be embarrassed with their poor quality product.

When you pay a premium price you expect a premium product and premium customer service. What’s the point otherwise? You get neither of those things from Balsam Hill. Looking at their Facebook page I see there are more posts by irate customers than Balsam is capable of deleting.
Good luck reaching them on the phone for anything but Sales. I was on hold for 31 minutes, then the hold music stopped, it rang once, and immediately disconnected. This apparently is not uncommon. Also note, their entire customer service department is outsourced overseas.
The lights on my wreath don’t work and after waiting a WEEK for a response from customer service (again, at these prices it should be a 24 hour turnaround tops), their response was «send us 2 to 3 photos showing the problem». What? And from what I’ve read from a hundred other complaints, they expect the customer to pay the return shipping when THEY shipped a damaged product.

Bought a lovely 6.5 ft Slim Red Spruce with lights online on sale for $ 329. Splurge!
Got it in the mail the other day and immediately started setting it up.
You can really tell this is a high quality artificial tree just by looking at the branches. The bf was really impressed. It came with gloves, a tree stand, and a storage bag.
Just know that you really really need to take your time to fluff up the branches so you don’t have any gaps.
Putting it together took less than 5 mins, fluffing it up took a while, but it’s a must or else you won’t be happy with how it looks right out of the box.

We bought a tree last week and it is AWESOME!
I was a little nervous about buying it because of all the bad reviews, but I think most of these people are just not fluffing out the tree when they get it. It is so awesome from top to bottom, they even give you little gloves to fluff and big heavy duty bags to store it in.
The had it to my doorstep in 3 days, even though I selected the slow shipping.
We spent $ 549 on our 9 foot tree and felt it was a great deal. We went with the unlit one because apparently everyones break and then you have to relight anyway.
Thanks Balsam Hill! You rock!

Can’t express how disappointed I am with this tree (Vermont White Spruce Narrow).
The branches don’t lie down horizontal as they do in the pictures from the website, and as they should obviously do. Some come out fairly parallel to the floor and others drop down even further so they’re into the branch below it. This leaves a large gap that just can’t be filled with any amount of creative fluffing of the branches. The lowest section (section 1) drops down into the floor (just a couple inches from the floor) instead of straight out. The pics online and even the pics here on Unilocal from another customer look how they should look.
Customer service is unwilling to acknowledge there is a big difference between what I’m showing them in pics of the tree they sent me and the pic of the Vermont White Spruce Narrow on their website.
The only plus is that the needles feel really good. But if the branches don’t stick out correctly, the tree is useless. I’ll have to find a different tree for the office now (previously planned to get it from Balsam Hill).
I was so excited to get a Balsam Hill tree this year too.
BTW, I wrote nearly this exact review on Balsam’s website for the particular tree and it has yet to be published. Seems like shady selective review publishing.
UPDATE (11/​19/​2014): I’m leaving the above review just in case others have the same horrible initial impression with the tree. To update, I have to say that a couple hours of creative fluffing of the branches and the branches branches made a HUGE difference. I’m now happy with the tree. They were right. I was wrong. hahaha. Balsam does need to do a much better job showing how the tree/​branches look right out of the box and how to fluff them up. A full video. The pics someone posted from this website made a big difference in convincing me to give it a try. Thanks to whomever posted those. I’ll post mine soon too. Hopefully this review helps others.

.0096% (less than one-​hundredth percent)
That is the number of one-​star reviews I have given over my many years of being Unilocal!Elite. That means that of my 520 reviews, I have only given one star five times. Congratulations Balsam Hill on being one of five awful businesses to earn a single, dingy star from me.
I hope others will read this review to save themselves tears, stress, agony, despair, increased blood pressure and the feeling of being ripped off.
I can see across various sites on the internet that there are so many awful reviews of this place. I am really surprised that no one has filed a class action lawsuit yet. I am also amazed that they are endorsed by the BBB. I now really question the processes of BBB’s endorsement. And I know Balsam Hill has been featured on many prominent talk shows which is misleading since the trees and customer service are hugely disappointing.
I pride myself on honest reviews so here is my honest assessment. Here is how it breaks down:
Tree (excluding lights): Four stars, it looks pretty darn good.
Tree Lights: Zero stars, they arrived broken so the extra $ 150 I spent to have a pre-​lit tree actually cost me even more since I had to spend my own money on new lights. BH still hasn’t sent me new lights like they said they would. Also, it was very time consuming having to cut the lights off my tree, much less putting the new lights on.
Customer Service: Awful. You can’t get through the phone lines, if you try sending an email you get an error message. Online chat is the best option. BH has probably resorted this to avoid the verbal abuse they take on a daily basis. In desperation I also tried calling the store. To their credit they did call me back and explained that they phone lines are busy because it’s the busy season — uhhh, no kidding, staff for the holidays if you are selling holiday products. When I finally got someone on the phone they said they would expedite some lights to me but its been a week and no lights. Be sure to check out the accompanying picture of my Balsam Hill tree.
I guess I would equate Balsam Hill to the modern day Grinch who Stole Christmas. I feel really sad for all of the people out there whose trees were also a huge disappointment and who have struggled to get through to customer service.