@intparent what advice do you have for someone who will most likely be flying to their college? I don’t know whether to start buying stuff now or wait
It depends. 
Some people like to shop at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and then pick up what they ordered at a B, B, and Beyond near their campus. That isn’t what we did, though. My youngest goes to college in California, and we live in the Midwest. So we did the following:
- We flew Southwest Airlines to start with. 2 bags checked free. So if you fly with a parent, you can take 2 bags, your parent can take one for you, then they have their own bag.
- We also shipped her bedding and towels ahead of time. The school emailed her school mailbox number and address to her about halfway through the summer, and we shipped them so they would arrive about a week before we got there.
You can just plan to go to a Target near your campus when you get there, but things can be kind of picked over by the time you get there.
Just noticed there are some clearance sales at BB&B now.
Jazzeli, the difference is that BBB has an organized system, which isfinely tuned forthis purpose. They also have a large percentage of the things you need. DD went to school in Boston, and we live in CA. We shipped nothing for move-in. We didn’t rent a car, or pay for parking. 80% BBB took an hour. the rest of the items we got at Target or Costco, but they are picked over and crowded.
Hi everyone, I have a question about the BBB order-ahead and pick it up when you get there service…son will be attending a college 1/2 hour west of Boston so we will fly there, check 2 bags each of mostly his clothes, then I will want to do the BBB just ‘pick it up’ local service. My question is - how far ahead is it reasonable to do this service, and what’s the risk of having the picked-over-shelves problem with this service closer to the pick-up date? I don’t want to preorder a bunch of stuff he will definitely need, arrive at the local BBB, only to be told they were out of stock when they went to put it aside?
If it’s in-stock when you do your ordering, you should have no problems. On the off chance that an item shows as in-stock, and is not when they go to pick it, they will contact you. If you wait to the last minute to do your ordering, yes, you will likely be disappointed that many needed items are sold out.
@BestSonEver – I asked this question at our local BB&B. The workers there said that we can only order it if it is in stock at the “pick-up” store at the time of the order. If not, they said we would have to try again another day… that things are pulled off the shelves when they send in the order. I guess that means that if they let you order it, it will be there for you to pick-up. This will be our first time trying this, so I’m not sure if it works the way they explained it or not. It would be a mess if we ordered things, then they weren’t there for pick-up…
Thanks for your reply, @Mamabear16. My luck in ordering things has never been great so I plan to do several things: 1) contact the pick-up BBB location and get as much reassurance as I can, in writing, that my order will not go through unless the item(s) are in stock and successfully put aside for me 2) I’m making a little notebook of BBB locations, also other stores that would carry what I will need to get such as mattress topper and pillows, so that I can go to alternatives if necessary and 3) I plan to ship some stuff to son’s housing office to arrive shortly before his move-in date, boxes festooned with neon green tape for quick locating by busy mail office staff.