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At a Glance
We recently increased our delivery charge from $79.99 to $99.99. At the same time, we are offering free delivery when you use our Yale store card.
With so many companies offering free delivery, including us, I wanted to see how we compare to Lowe's, Home Depot, Best Buy, and two of the largest online companies - AJ Madison and Appliance Connection.
Which appliance store offers the best services and deals?
The answer is: It's hard to know.
If you search most companies' delivery policies, you will find it hard to understand what delivery includes.
Short on time? Get our free Appliance Buying Guide
Your Main Appliance Delivery Problem
Unless the delivery policy is clearly stated, you will pay for what you would think is normal at the time of delivery.
Take delivering a refrigerator up a flight of stairs as an example. Your home, along with many others, might have multiple staircases.
Top-Floor Refrigerator Delivery with Yale Appliance 2018
I live in a Brownstone and have more than I care to climb.
Most stores' delivery policies, including Yale's delivery policy, will have additional charges for climbing stairs.
We charge after the third floor without an elevator because it takes time and usually three delivery people.
Many companies will charge $29.99 per staircase, which is $89.97 in fees to just the 3rd floor.
Two companies have problems with stairs. Home Depot will not deliver over the second floor.
Appliance Connection will not deliver your appliances with any type of stairs, according to their website.
In 2019, we published a Delivery Checklist. It's a worksheet for you to compare stores in your market.
You can download it for free by clicking here.
In this article, you will learn about all the major companies' hidden fees and how to avoid them.
You have the most leverage at the time of the sale and almost none at delivery.
Always try to negotiate delivery if you can at the time of sale.
You want your delivery to go like this even if it's on the 10th floor of a Brownstone or up a hill like this:
Let's take a routine refrigerator delivery and price out the various free deliveries from all the largest appliance vendors.
Appliance Delivery Time Frames
Time is the most important. How much you lose waiting for a delivery is often worth more than free delivery.
At this point, the minimum is 4 hours. Home Depot charges $20 for a 4-hour window.
Lowe's and Best Buy will automatically pop up at 4 hours on the checkout form.
AJ Madison and Appliance Connection don't publish a time. They are both based out of NY and don't have local trucking. Delivery coordination is much harder.
We offer a 30-minute delivery window and an app to track your delivery truck to your home.
Removal of Existing Appliances During Delivery
Every vendor charges about $30 for the removal of an old appliance when offered. Home Depot was the cheapest at $25.
That's per removal, so it's $120 to remove four appliances or a typical kitchen of appliances.
In many cases, removal does not include the box except Lowe's, Home Depot, and Best Buy.
Appliance Delivery and Installation
AJ Madison will charge $75 to hook up your refrigerator. It's included for Lowe's and hard to know for Best Buy.
Home Depot will charge you $17.24 for a kit. Appliance Connection does not offer the service.
Appliance Delivery and Door Removal
Many refrigerators are bigger than the door frames, so the doors must be removed and reinstalled in your kitchen.
What's the charge for this service? I didn't find a conclusive answer.
Many companies just say it's extra, like AJ Madison and Appliance Connection, without an idea of how much.
Lowe's, Home Depot, and Best Buy don't mention door removal in their policies yet have independent contractors doing your delivery.
In all cases, you should get any promises or agreements in writing before the time of delivery.
Is Appliance Delivery Ever Free?
The only free delivery, including door removal if needed, installation, and removal of your old appliance, are offered by Yale.
But there is one catch.
You must place the purchase on our Yale store card with 6-month financing. You also have discounted warranties, but free good delivery is part.
Why Use a Store Card?
You are wondering why so many companies push their store cards. In most cases, they want to push offers.
A few others, Yale included, simply are tired of paying credit card fees.
Rather than paying a credit card company, I would rather give a store card to you with free, professional delivery and some other benefits.
You are the customer.
Click here to apply for the all-new Yale card.
Key Takeaways
In a previous article, you learned what you should expect from a good appliance delivery.
Cheap or free delivery doesn't necessarily mean it's a good delivery experience.
Unfortunately, we have all been accustomed to Uber picking us up on time and Amazon delivering on time.
Appliance deliveries, behind installation and service issues, a huge problem in our industry.
Spend time researching each vendor on Google and Yelp.
Free is only better than spending money if the whole delivery is perfect along with your floors not being scratched and your house not destroyed.
Additional Resources
Get the free Yale Appliance Buying Guide. It has features, specs, and inside tips to all the brands like Sub-Zero, Thermador, Bosch, and Miele. It covers built-ins, counter depth, freestanding vs. slide-in, and much more (plus a ton of good product shots). Well over 800,000 people have read a Yale Guide.
Related Articles:
- What You Should Expect From an Appliance Delivery
- The Most Important Appliance Delivery Checklist
- Pro Appliance Tips for First-Time Remodelers
- How to Plan Your Kitchen Appliance Project
- Best Appliance Showrooms in the Boston Area
- Kitchen Appliance and Lighting Remodeling Mistakes You Should Never Make
WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST US?
A few review sites have placed this at the bottom of their articles. So here is our take: Our mission is to find reliable products for you to buy. Other review sites may say this as well.
However, we don’t love every product. Quite frankly, it costs us way too much money in repair costs to support less reliable brands.
In fact, we sell fewer brands than most appliance stores. Here is why:
We feel it is our responsibility to repair your appliances after you buy them.
We now have 30 service technicians, each averaging 8-10 calls a day Monday through Friday, plus another 110 on Saturday. That's over 30,000 service calls logged in one year.
The labor rates of fixing an appliance do not come close to the true cost in any product’s warranty period.
That is why no major retailer has a service department. It costs too much labor, money and time.
Our Blog is a bit different than most others you will read. We cannot write glowing reviews of unreliable products.
Hopefully, the bloggers and organizations who write such glowing product reviews for every brand consider servicing these products first. Only then they will understand the consequences of their marketing.
A Note About Pricing
Pricing on this blog is for reference only and may include time sensitive rebates. We make every attempt to provide accurate pricing at time of publishing. Please call the stores for most accurate price.