The Container Store

Not a huge fan of the Container Store for some reason. And this location does not feel big enough for all of the product. Also, the lines were wrapped around the store. Ridiculous. They could have had more cashiers jump on a register.

Physically going to the Container Store (CS) is a hike from our house, so we designed planned and had our master closet shipped all done over the telephone. When contacting the CS originally the wait time on hold was long, but I figured it was a fluke since there was a sale going on and I did call on a Saturday morning. The closet shipped via UPS; the driver was not happy at all and informed me that he does not know why they have UPS deliver as they are not «furniture movers»; told him he would have to take that up with UPS and the Container Store as it was not an option for me on how the packages were shipped. The packages (all 11 of them) were heavy and extremely damaged; thank God the contents were fine. My husband installed the closet (easy installation), but we discovered the lids to the 10 drawers were too big. I contacted the CS Customer Service line this morning and was on hold over 20 minutes (no exaggeration) before someone picked up the phone to actually assist with our problem. After being placed on hold 2 additional times, I was told that we were shipped the wrong drawers, as well as, the wrong drawer rails. I told them I was fine with the drawers as they are already installed, but just wanted replacement lids. Since the drawers I received are smaller, I asked about a credit to the cost of the closet. I also informed them that I would drive up to Oak Brook from our home in Tinley Park to exchange the lids. She told me that the lids could be returned there, but they would ship me express the right lids. However, she would have to look into the credit portion. She left a message on my phone that totally contradicted what she had told me earlier, and now I was to go to the Oak Brook Store to exchange the drawers, rails and lids. WHAT? All I want are the right lids for the 10 drawers and the credit for the wrong items being shipped and already installed. So once again I am sitting on hold 34 minutes trying to find out exactly what is going on with what should be a very easy fix! OK… they just answered the phone, and I am on hold once again because no one can tell me the credit I should be receiving! I am not going to the store not knowing what is expected, and them telling me they know nothing about it! Why is this ok? So it is 11:52 a.m. and I initiated this call at 11:04 a.m. — still on hold! It is now 11:55 a.m. and now I am told that I was sent the correct drawers and rails the only thing incorrect are the lids. Isn’t that now contradicting what I was told this morning??? I am done, whatever. I’m just going to go get the correct lids and be done with it, and eat the additional costs I was charged for being shipped the wrong items. IF ANYONE ASKS ME IF IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO USE THE CONTAINER STORE FOR ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES ANY TYPE OF DESIGN OR INSTALLATION — DON’T DO IT! OR MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE CORRECT THINGS IN YOUR HOT LITTLE HANDS, BECAUSE YOU WILL BE ON HOLD HELL WITH THE CONTAINER STORE CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT, LIED TO, AND THEN CHARGED MORE THAN YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN FOR THE ITEMS YOU ARE SHIPPED INCORRECTLY. Can you tell I’m mad and frustrated?

Quick and fast customer service — great suggestions w/​r to organizing closet space.
Additionally, my help @ the register (Joanna) also made my shopping experience as well — she was helpful and got me (and all others) out the door quickly :)
Thanks!

This place is a miracle worker when trying to get your life organized. We’ve been coming here a lot lately for items for our home office and the people here are really helpful. They have excellent items to get your home and office in order. If you live in a small space the container store is a must.

They have a really great service where you can go into the store and completely design your closet! Then they have the supplies delivered and installers come to your home to install the closet.
We apparently got ours at a very busy time and we did have to wait a few weeks for the closet to be installed. But overall it was a great experience!

Moved in my new condo and had empty closets. Not even a rod to hold a hanger. What’s a non handy guy like myself to do?
Luckily, my GF was referred here from multiple coworkers. I took the closet measurements and we were on our way. Showed up on a Saturday afternoon during the 30% Elfa sale. Within 15 minutes we were working with Ren who listened to what we needed. We wanted something fairly basic.
20 minutes later we returned and he had the closets outlined. $ 500 for material and $ 180 for the install. Sold.
Parts got dropped off on Wednesday and closets were installed in 2 – 3 hours on Friday. High quality material and labor. Would recommend.

Liked Heather so much I married her and we have a kid together. Thanks Container Store

***This Container Store is located among many other retailers (several of them upscale) in Lincoln Park (just north of Downtown Chicago); there are a lot of great and not too expensive items here to keep you organized and help you travel; with Christmas coming, this is also a good store for stocking stuffers***
I think the parking lot attached to this Container Store is free.

I love love love Container Store.
I can spend 2 hours here just walking up and down the aisles. Getting ideas for my house and before I know it… my cart is full.
I appreciate that this store is always clean and organized. The staff are always super friendly and helpful.

Come on Elfa
Poor old Seher D.
Was stressed from all the unpacking
She moved a few miles in Chicago
Blood pressure rose
It was so messy, who’d blame me
Now I’m grown
So grown
Now I must say more than ever, Come on Elfa
Toora loora toora loo rye aye
Goodbye to all that college furniture
Come on Elfa, you’re wiping me clean
At this moment, no more money
With you in my closet, my thoughts I confess
Worth every penny
Ah come on Elfa
Come on Elfa
Guys, Elfa is my new lover. She is beautiful, customizable, mature, and frisky in that closet, albeit pricey. But I promise you guys, the night I met her, my life changed. She has many personalities, some cold as steel, others as pure as white metal. She’s a beauty.
The Container Store is like heaven. Oh but wait, there’s a cover. HOLY SHIT. It’s so expensive. Although the store is great, be ready to empty your pockets when you go. But the thing is, you’ll fall in love with something. And then you’ll be like it’s worth it. And it is. I promise. But double check their prices for some general items (i.e., trash cans, hampers, dish racks, etc.) and compare with competitors and Amazon. The Container Store has extremely high quality items that last, but for a price.

Going to the Container Store lives up to the hype for all guys as being purgatory on the weekend during my trip today after being harassed by the parking lot attendant. I parked within 60 feet of the store entrance and took my girlfriends bags to the car while she went around the corner to Sephora. After finishing dropping stuff off in my car the parking lot attendant tracks me down and asks to see my receipt. I had no problem walking back to my car to show him, but he wouldn’t walk with me (obviously too much work). I would think someone who’s job it is to watch the happenings in a parking lot would notice me take my girlfriend’s bags right in front of him and walk them to the car (I guess he was off duty or something during that time). What an annoyance. The company who runs the parking lot security at this location clearly doesn’t understand anything about customer service.
I brought this up to a manager in the store who told me that there was nothing she could do, that they didn’t work with the company that manages the parking lot. Clearly someone at the Container store does. It’s amazing that there’s is no ability to leave feedback for an experience at a big chain like this. What a joke.
Instead of shopping at a store with a cramped parking lot with attendants who harass you, try home depot right down the street when you need to organize your closet. At least there the parking is easy.

Ordered our stuff online and went to pick it up at the store. Super convenient! Browsed around a little as well… I still think this store is overpriced on most items and you can find them cheaper on Amazon or other place.

The staff here is always helpful, and they know the merchandise. Their recommendations are top notch, in terms of both quality and functionality, plus they really listen yo the customer.
Check out is very organized and efficient, even when lines are long they get the job done without lolly-​gagging around!
Merchandise is very well organized. There is a huge variety of items, including shipping and gift wrapping essentials.
Free parking and help loading your vehicle if needed.
Designers are available to work with you for the Elfa organization systems and can customize your design, with drawings and notes to sod in DIY installation. For an additional charge, installation is available.
A bit more expensive for some items, but I find the quality of the items offered here is much higher than those found elsewhere.
I highly recommend The Container Store on North Avenue.

Good location in the city with a sizable parking lot. The loading zone in front of the door is super helpful and the staff are friendly and will help you load/​unload. In general, container store is expensive and once you’re in there you’ll start to look at this and that and come up with things you probably don’t even need. I planned ahead before my trip and the shoe boxes I wanted were on sale for 25% off! I was told that never happens so I bought cases of them just to be sure I didn’t miss the deal. LOL. Well when I finally went home and organized my closet and determined my REAL need I realized I overestimated by a ton and ultimately didn’t like the look/​feel of the clear boxes. The good news was that returns are a breeze and I had no issue sending them all back. My only advice with CS is to plan, plan and re-​plan before you commit to expensive boxes or organizational items that you may not even need.

I recently moved to the north side of the city and have way too much stuff for my small apartment. I went to the container store looking for pantry storage for all my kitchen appliances and dry goods. What I appreciated most was that the customer service people let me browse and look around rather than bombarding me with sales pitches. When I was ready to make a decision they were there to help me choose between a few similar items.
Chris was attentive but didn’t try and sell something I didn’t want or didn’t need. He listened to my concerns about the space and the pieces I was choosing between. He also helped explain the return policy, how to assemble the piece, and all my other random questions.
He was very helpful and very concise. He made the process easy and enjoyable. I will definitely return to this location if I need anything else in the future and I love the piece I purchased!

My new favorite store! Everything is so organized and pretty :)
The staff was extremely helpful and accommodating. I asked one of the workers where I can find small plastic drawers. He was in the middle of looking up stuff for other customers but told me he’d help me directly after he was done. I was in sort of a rush so I told him I would just take the item I had in my hands. He agreed and went upon his business. He spotted me walking by a few minutes later and informed me I should check the bath section. The fact that he took a few seconds to continue to help me was great!

I recently purchased the ELFA closet system.
I had designed the set up that I wanted at home based on my closet size and so when I came in I had the dimensions that I needed and provided that to one of the sales associates.
She quickly (literally 5 minutes) put together two different schematics for the options I had with the space available. She printed them out and presented them to me for selection. They were the same in price but one provided a little bit more hanging space.
For about $ 440 I got all the pieces to put the closet together myself including all the little things that I would never have picked out on my own like decorative touches and end pieces.
They offer installation but it’s 10% of total cost OR a minimum of $ 180.
I did have to wait about an hour for them to cut all the pieces to size but once I got home I had it all set up within an hour. Once you get the main bar secured at the top it’s similar to legos.
I could not be more pleased with my new closet and the service and products from the container store.

I loves me some Container Store, but this location desperately needs to address the problem of the lengthy line to check out. Worse than any DMV or post office. I’ve tried going on weekday mornings, weekday evenings, weekend afternoons — always the same long, slow, winding line of 10 – 20 customers. And frankly all my fellow Waiters look wildly annoyed, so I’m surprised there aren’t more people complaining about this issue on the Unilocal page; maybe I go to the store more often than most and realize that it isn’t a case of «I went at a busy time.» The store can be deserted, but that line never changes. Always plenty of employees running around, chit-​chatting, seemingly not doing much — could we maybe train some of them to man the silent registers and help speed the line along?
And the «order it online, come pick it up» attempt to solve their problem is nuts to me. If I’m ordering it online, why don’t I just order something comparable from Amazon and have it delivered for free? And tax-​free at that? It seems like as a brick-​and-​mortar retailer The Container Store should WANT me to come in and browse and spend money. Instead I walk in the door, look at the line, get angry, and leave. I can live with the inflated financial cost of their plastic bins, just not the investment in time to buy the damn thing.
Who’s with me?! It’s time for Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Container Store. Of course, it’s hard to get in to protest because the line to check out sometimes blocks the north door…

The concept is fantastic.
The price is astronomical.
The necessity is questionable.

First things first, the container store is NOT the cheapest place to go for organizational items. If you are purely a price-​based shopper you can do much better going to Target, Home Depot, or ikea. (I’ve also found that going through Uline in Waukegan is EXCELLENT if you need to buy a bulk quantity of containers for organizing. I’ve found their jars to be perfect for organizing my pantry and at $ 2.00/item for a 32 ounce size they are MUCH cheaper than anything I’ve seen elsewhere, but I digress.) If you don’t mind paying a bit of a price premium for selection, this store is the way to go.
First and foremost, they are pretty exhaustive as far as storage and organizing goes. If you want something, there is a good chance they have it. That alone is wonderful because it doesn’t mean multiple stops. The brands they carry are also fantastic quality and if something is not up to snuff they ALWAYS take it back. Their exchange policy seems pretty customer-​friendly, which is great.
But the best part for me, is the service. They balance that fine line here of being proactive and helpful, but without pushing. Recently I was looking for a solution to organize my purses. I had NO idea that I wanted, only that I didn’t want them lying around. The associate was invaluable. Originally we were in the closet section, but after asking me questions about the storage space I was working with, he pointed out something in the Elfa section for kitchens that he thought would be a better fit. He was right. Additionally, when I mentioned I was a putz with tools, he offered to put it together for me free of charge. He even had it assembled for me while I was shopping so by the time I checked out it was all ready to go. And another equally friendly associate helped me get it to my car.
Bottom line is could I have gotten the stuff cheaper elsewhere, possibly. But the quality of Elfa and so many of their products is great and the service so helpful I don’t want to.