Sporting Life Reviews 201

Google located this clothier seeking a product I normally buy directly from the American manufacturer. A new seasonal line of shirts; my size sold out fast and I was casting about, hoping to locate one in an 'Adventure' clothing store in Canada
Luckily, the shop was right here in Ontario and the garment itself was on 'pre-black-friday SALE'. Canada Post's currently on strike, but I never normally use them unless absolutely necessary, and many businesses avoid them as well. Fed-Ex had the package in my hands in two businesses days and it doesn't get better than that! Sporting Life also offers free shipping ~ a win-win situation
Scathing reviews describe shipping/delivery delays, damaged packaging containing dirty and/or wrong items, but obviously, I've experienced none of that
When expectations are realistic and you familiarize yourself with policies on returns, etc it's hard to understand the smoldering rage & bitter disappointment I see here. All these retailers now play a game of *flash* specials and gimmicky ☆pop-up☆ sales and that's something else that seems to infuriate shoppers, driving the review score even further down
Their website performed flawlessly and the order process painless & simple
Company even has a policy for 'price matching' its own items ~ If you buy something and their price drops again, they'll adjust the invoice accordingly. Try asking competitors for that and see what happens
So, all in all, a very positive experience. I'd buy from these guys again, and with complete confidence

I returned my item and they confirmed that they received it, but wont return my money.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. If you need to do a return, follow their directions they give you and the 2 addresses for return cannot be delivered as it has over 100 stores at these locations. Try to contact customer service and no reply on both website and the business email. So what you purchase you are stuck with so will never spend another dollar with this company and you should not either.

Just bought my twins back to school shoes last week 4 pairs and they were delivered yesterday. Will be buying from them again.

I took my Diamond Back trail bike into the Calgary Market mall store for tune up and possible new part to be installed or repaired. The boy who was an apparent bike tech told me they didn't know where to order parts for this bike and couldn't work on it. I walked it next door in the mall to Sport chek where the tech had parts in store and could totally repair and tune up this bike. Don't trust gear techs and Sporting Life!! Low brow

Received a bike helmet completely broke.

They ship it like this with the box broken without checking

i had to ship it back and it's been 2 complete week and didnt received any news from my refund.

They didnt want to give me any rebate or nothing for their mistake.

And there is no phone number you can call. You HAVE to write a email and wait.

NEVER again

5* !!! I placed my online order and without using PayPal because it wasn't an option. Then i decided to look up reviews and became quite concerned i may have made a mistake in placing my order. I decided to wait it out. My shoes arrived yesterday, 4 days after ordering, well packaged and the correct size. I will definitely order through them again. Lorrie

I worked at SportingLife E commerce. Man. I cannot respect this company and all the things they stand for. Let me tell y'all, that the clothes you buy are all in bins, not even in their original packaging, surrounded by dust and it's always getting dirty cuz they're getting dropped or damaged otherwise. E commerce staff basically have to MANUALLY find the items and therefore you get a lot of cancellations because we just can't find that one obscure item. Sportinglife had a chance to really expand their E commerce business by having a solid warehouse management system and solid packing system. But no. This company is run by dumbasses who doesn't know better and seriously missed it chances and are now blaming the lower rank employees for it'd failing business. Trust me y'all, don't buy anything from here. It's dirty, dusty, worn by other people, damaged and always cleaned with good old' Lysol wipes. Yeah. Ever wonder why your items smell like Lysol? Cuz it is. If you order 5 items. Expect 3 to be found. I can't with this place. They treat their workers terribly and are always trying to do something shady with their workers pay.

I placed an order on June 14th and it never shipped.
After reaching out to them multiple times, they keep telling me to be patient and as soon as my order ships, they will email me and give me 20% on this order.
Today, June 24 th, order still not shipped and i ask them to cancel my order, they reply it's not possible because it's been processed.... i am never ordering from them again, avoid this company...

Ordered shoes during the Friends and Family event at 25% off.
Item was in stock, even few days after i ordered. Had to wait a week to receive a cancellation email saying the item is out of stock. Promo has ended, so can’t use the 25% anymore. Only offering a 10% off with brands exclusion - about a 100 brands which are the ones I usually buy.

Can’t reach customer support.

Why is there no staff working
Sporting life is now self serve

called in twice asking about a pair of shoes they said they had in stock. after driving 30 mins to the store I come to find out they dont actually have them and their in "transit'

1st race Sandown . What are you doing busiest day of the week and you can't get it right. Of to racing post. Better service. Usless site

Ordered two pairs of pants online, items were never shipped out due to being out of stock. Customer service stated that my bank account was never charged and money that they held were returned to my account, my bank states that money gone from my account and were never refunded. Lost $200 , never shopping here again 👎🏻

I bought two pair of running shoes. They only sent one pair. Never showed proof of delivery to the correct unit (I live in a condo there are more than one resident at the adress). They never issued a refund. I lost $200

Absolute worst.
Ordered a pair of shoes. They sent the wrong pair in the correct box. The pair I received were a much cheaper clearance pair. Nothing like the ones I ordered. Customer Service was useless. Claimed they needed to do an investigation into the error. Which ended up taking 2 weeks. Just to conclude what I told them—they made an error and sent the wrong shoes. Before they would refund my money I was told I’d have to ship the wrong ones back. Via fedex. Nearest FedEx drop off is an hour away from where I live so it ended up costing me 2 hours plus gas to get there. I have sent them back and have yet to see my money returned. And they are not answering my emails. Will not ever spend another cent here.
So disappointing. And now I’m out $200 by the time I took the time to drive and send them back. I’m left with nothing. I’m so mad and I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.

Sadly, Sporting Life has become a pale shadow of its former self. For decades, it was the only place in the city that I would trust for a proper ski boot fitting and informed advice on other sports equipment. I was less impressed this year but I’ve never questioned the small price premium I’ve paid for proper service, and I’ve probably broken even given some of great sales I’ve taken advantage of there as well.

Unfortunately, I will never be able to trust them to sell me premium equipment again.

I defray my ski boot extravagance by buying some of the many high-end but under-used skis floating around our market that can be picked-up reasonably a year or two out of date and I maintain a small list of skis that I’d like to buy if they come available. I was delighted when I spotted a Sporting Life online “Deal of the Day” on a 2023 model of a ski that I wanted that claimed to be 61% off MSRP. Given that current gear is typically ticketed at 20% off MSRP and sales to 40% off are common, 61% did not strike me as “too good to be true” for old stock, particularly in this year’s soft market. The price was about what I would expect to pay for a pair of demo skis in near-mint condition. Naturally, I ordered them (in-store pickup was unavailable)

When the skis arrived, I instantly recognized them as a significantly older version. The manufacturing data confirmed that they were manufactured in January 2020 for the 2021/2022 model season. While year over year differences for many skis is often only a matter of the top-sheet artwork, I happen to know that this model had been redesigned in the intervening years. The presence of anti-dampening devices glued to the top-sheet – a gimmick that the manufacturer had abandoned several years ago - was a dead giveaway too.

The shipping slip for the bindings, which arrived separately, correctly identified them as 2021 models, even though 2023 was clearly indicated on the purchase agreement.

*** I must state at this point that Sporting Life accepted the return and refunded my money without any hassle ***

I’m nevertheless alarmed and appalled by the entire affair. I’m a little obsessive about ski equipment and was able to spot the problem immediately. I also live close enough to a Sporting Life store that I was not out-of-pocket shipping the skis back. [I made this point in one email with Customer Support and was told that I would not have had to pay for return shipping. This is inconsistent with the return policy stated on their web site].

Although casual skiers rarely wear a ski out, skis absolutely have a useful lifespan primarily because manufacturers will not indemnify bindings beyond a certain age and certified technicians of the caliber that we all hope Sporting Life still employs will not service a ski with an out-of-date binding. I’ve experienced enough recalls and “bad plastic” binding failures myself that I don’t view this as purely a money grab. To me, it means that the older skis/bindings were materially less valuable to an average consumer than those advertised.

Before writing this TrustPilot review, I wanted to give Sporting Life the opportunity to explain what had happened and assure me that they would be correcting the problem. I hardly expected them to contact anyone else who might have fallen victim to what I still want to assume was an inadvertent bait-and-switch but, IMO, the company’s original founders might have. Unfortunately, what I got in response was some cock-and-bull story about system problems, including a remark that, to me, suggested they noticed the problem immediately and shipped me the wrong skis anyway.

The manager I spoke to at their flagship store reminded me that I could return the skis but didn't seem to be particularly concerned or apologetic about the problem.

In their last message to me, the Customer Service representative stated “[Our buying team] have now informed me that we had bought the skis for the 2023 season, however they are a prior season’s ski and binding”. I get that mistakes happen, but getting this admission (with the accompanying lukewarm apology about the experience being "below [Sporting Life's] standards" that accompanied it) should not have required me to persist through multiple emails.

I would like to believe that this was the result of an honest mistake and not intentional consumer fraud. The fact that they are currently (Feb 2024) advertising the 2019 version of the ski for 92% of what their nearest competitor (another high-end, bricks-and-mortar sporting goods store in Toronto) is advertising the 2023/2024 model for is a bit of a head scratcher for me.

Regardless of whether it is malfeasance or incompetence, it is clear to me that Sporting Life can no longer be trusted to provide the fair value, service or advise that I’m willing to pay for.

I ordered a down jacket on line a week ago and it was cancelled by Sporting Life after 3 days. They said there was an issue with my credit card so they could not complete the sales. They lied. I called my credit card company and they confirmed the payment went through but Sporting Life reserved the payment after an hour.
I contacted Sporting Life by email (the only way you can contact them) and they asked me to order it online again which I did yesterday. Then, they refunded my money and had my order cancelled again. What a joke!!!!
I just order it the third time and let's see if they really want my business.

I bought a pair of skis on sale for 400, originally 700. I have spent a fair amount on these skis and was rather excited to get them. I ordered them in early January, and it has been nothing but trouble since. After weeks of waiting, they still have not shipped. After going back and forth with customer service, they finally investigated and told me they "lost the skis" in the processing stage.

Despite there being multiple skis in stock in multiple stores, they refuse to send over a different set and choose to continue to look for these "lost skis" to no avail. It is clearly a company error and an absolute joke for a shipment team to lose equipment in your own store and spend weeks searching for it. You'd think someone would have the common sense to take accountability and send out another ski set after their team messed up.

Due to their ridiculous policies and customer service rules, they will not cancel the order, nor will they refund despite it being entirely their team's fault.

I would not recommend buying from here at all. The shipment team might "lose" your purchase and fail to give you your money back in the process.

Despite the reviews here, my product was delivered in 5 days, exactly how it appeared on the website. The correct size and colour as ordered.