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7 reviews for West Coast Duty Free Ltd
7 reviews in English
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Review from Henry B.
Vancouver, BC
This duty free shop is located at the South bound Pacific /truck crossing. It can be used to shortened your border crossing wait times during long weekends if you know how to "use the system". Even though you still have to wait before being let back into the queue, you still save yourself time. Once you enter the Duty free shop, there's no turning back unless you want to puncture your tires on the one way metal spikes. People waiting in the queue can use the washroom and walk back to their cars with no hassle.
The shop has a good variety of hard liquor and local BC wines. They also have a decent amount of perfumes/colognes and health and beauty products. There is also a huge collection of souvenirs and chocolates. If you want to be a cheapskate, you can just buy a bottle of water or bag of ketchup potato chips. Just give them your license plate number and it'll print on your receipt which you will need to show the parking attendant to prove that you bought something.
On a busy weekend, you can easily save yourself a good half to one hour by buying something at the Duty free if you know how to use all the tricks of this short cut. -
Review from Reena M.
12/31/2010 7 Check-ins Here
I love this duty free store because they have all sorts of fun things. It's really easy to kill an hour in this store just checking out the make up collection, perfume displays, Roger & Gallet soaps and lotions, chocolates to get for the additional 3 hour wait you will have to get to the border guard. I suppose if you need to get a souvenir or something for someone you're visiting down south, then this would be a good place to get it.
They also have a bathroom for that 4 hour border wait.
But don't bring the car into the parking lot unless you plan to buy something because otherwise they won't let you out.Listed in: Going South... of Vancouver
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Review from Ian W.
11/1/2008 1 photo
This 24 hour duty free store is located along Hwy 15 southbound before the US Border. Once you enter the premises (tire spike entrance), you cannot U-Turn back north and must go through US Customs. Before you go inside the store, REMEMBER YOUR LICENSE PLATE NUMBER.
The West Coast Duty Free Shop offers a good line of products such as liquor, jewellry, watches, Swiss Army knives, sunglasses, fragrances, cosmetics, apparel, snacks, candy, food, souvenirs, books, gifts, and more. This store stocks merchandise for the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympics including shirts, glasses, mugs, plush toys, postcards & other items.
I stopped here on my way back to the US and got some of my favourite Maple Cream Cookies, Maple Syrup, and some cool Olympic postcards. Some good deals here!
Plenty of parking and restrooms on site.
Just tell the cashier your LICENSE PLATE NUMBER, which goes on the receipt. Upon driving off the parking lot, there may be a staff member checking receipts upon exit towards southbound only. -
Review from Karen Y.
4/28/2009
Would you like to be held in your car for 2-3 hours and not allowed into the customs queue because you made the fatal mistake of entering the West Coast Duty Free Ltd store.
If you do have 2-3 hours free to sit in a make shift car park outside the West Coast Duty Free store then you can watch other frustrated drivers and completely inept staff trying to handle the situation.
Please remember not to talk to the staff about warning future customers about the delays and the infuriating wait because you will get dumb answers like ... "we only tell people about the wait if they ask" and my favourite " well you decided to shop here"
This was a truly awful experience which my twitter and facebook followers read on Sunday 26th April. I would never go back to this place ever again on principle. Remember everyone can make mistakes it is how you handle the customers and the situation that define you as a brilliant service provider.
All the rest of the information on the store is below :
Is the shop good - It is average to good.
Is there a great selection in the shop - Yes it is not the best but it is not bad.
Is there tons of trickets and trash as well as alcohol, perfume etc - Yes
Are the rest rooms clean - No but that is not their busy either I suppose....
Are there staff polite, proactive and deliver great customer service - Hell NO!!!
You need to quote your license plate to purchase the goods. -
Review from Kaaren D.
12/3/2008
I loved this store. Not only can you find some great souvenirs, when you drive out of the parking lot, you get closer to the front of the customs line.
Found a wonderful teapot, a wool scarf for Sis, Ice Wine Cream cookies to take home to Mom, some Ice Wine Truffles, and discounted perfume.
Remember your license plate when you go into the store, as you will need it to make your purchases, and yes, you have to show your receipt as you exit the parking lot. -
Review from Chandler H.
Updated - 12/1/2009
Went through again today. Absolutely no wait on the way out this time...
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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9/27/2009
If you're okay with waiting a while to exit the parking lot (40 mins for us), this is a great place… Read more »
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Review from Zurich H.
4/27/2009
If you Value Your Time, DON'T SHOP HERE!!!
So you are on your way back to your home in America after a great time visiting our friends to the north. You are heading south on HWY 99 and the digital billboard above the road informs you that there is a 2 hour wait at the Peace Arch Crossing and a 45 minute wait at the truck crossing. The decision becomes clear, the 5 minute detour over to the truck crossing not only will save 1 hour and 45 minutes of wait time, you get to visit the West Coast Tax & Duty Free Shop ("WCDF").
This is our story.
As we rolled into the WCDF parking lot entrance, my girlfriend and I noticed that the grumpy old man that usually sits in the guard shack, just out of site in his fluorescent vest was sitting there today, apparently watching TV. After parking and visiting the bathrooms, we went into the store and picked-out a bottle of Jagermeister and a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. After checking out, we walked out to our car and followed the signs to exit the parking lot, that is where our perception of this store changed dramatically.
Now, it is important to realize that anyone shopping at WCDF must cross the border into the US through a controlled exit point, this prevents you from re-entering Canada with duty free goods. This also means that you cannot exit the WCDF's parking lot without their employee's permission. Upon pulling into the line to exit the parking lot, we noticed that there were in excess of 100 cars trying to do the same, what a disaster. We pulled into the line and turned the car off.
After sitting in the duty free holding pen for 1 1/2 hours and not moving, I started to get restless and decided to get my receipt out and call the store and find out if they were informing potential customers at the entrance as to the wait they could expect when exiting the parking lot? The nice lady told me that there was a gentlemen at the entrance but she wasn't sure if he was letting people know. With that news, I decided to walk over to the front gate to find out. Sure enough, the employee who would be providing this customer service was still sitting in his shack, doing nothing. I couldn't believe it. I knocked on the door and asked the gentleman if he knew that there was a 2 hour wait to get out of the parking lot? He replied that he didn't think that it was that long. With that, I showed the date and time stamp on my receipt from the store and asked the gentleman if he would mind stopping customers prior to their entering the parking lot and warning them of the wait to exit.
The grumpy old man replied that he would if they stopped at the guard shack and asked him. I replied that no one driving in would know that he was in the shack unless the really made an effort to look. He told me that was the idea.
Needless to say, this infuriated me, how could a company treat its customers this way? Let people enter their store, not tell them of the wait to exit and then once they had their goods and were captive, line them up for a 2 plus hour wait to exit the parking lot.
Now, after waiting more than 2 1/2 hour, I was informed by a WCDF employee that it was time to start my car. As we drove-up to the same employee a couple of minutes later, I rolled down my window and called out to the WCDF employee. I asked the employee if he would request that the employee at the entrance to the WCDF parking lot be more proactive in letting people know of the 2 plus hour wait. The employee's response was "there isn't a 2 hour wait, why would we do that..." Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. I replied, "because it is good customer service to let people know that they potentially have a tremendous wait to get out of your parking lot and it should be their choice as to whether or not that is how they want to spend their time." The WCDF employee replied that "wouldn't be in the best interest of the store." I replied, saying "that attitude isn't a very good customer service attitude", at which the WCDF employee replied, with "hey mister, it is your prerogative to feel that way if you choose". Wow.
I started to ask myself, why do we go to the Duty Free? The only realistic answer that I could come up with was the perception of savings. Naturally, since I had so much time on my hands waiting to leave the duty free, I thought that I would get my laptop out and do a little research. After logging into the internet, I headed to the Washington State Liquor Boards ("WSLB") website to find out how much money we were saving and how much our time was really worth. Here's the scoop:
Bailey's Irish Cream - Price at WSLB: $30.00/Liter, Price at WCDF: $20.00/Liter
Jagermeister - Price at WSLB: $30.26/Liter, Price at WCDF: $25.00/Liter
We just spent 5 man hours waiting in the WCDF's parking lot to save $15.00. Bottom line: WCDF feels that our time is worth $3.00 per hour. I strongly disagree, we won't be back!
