Right Start

Geetu is amazing and all the store staff has been incredibly helpful. Yesterday we went in for a car seat safety check and learned that the car seat we purchased just wouldn’t work in our car. Geetu spent two full hours carrying different car seats back and forth to our car and testing different installation options, even though they were in the middle of receiving their stock shipment. We had decided to register here after coming in to test strollers over the past few months and saw how helpful the staff is. As a bonus, most of the prices are the same as on Amazon, but you get a $ 50 gift card every time you spend $ 500 on your regIstry, plus there are other great deals occasionally (like $ 50 gift cards when you spent $ 250 over Black Friday weekend). We are so happy we registered here and so grateful to Geetu and the rest of the staff.

I have been shopping at Right Start since I became pregnant in 2012. I actually purchased her first outfit here :) Three years later and I still make weekly visits as my daughter goes to school nearby. I am always greeted by the same smiling faces when I enter and they are always very helpful in answering any questions that I might have. Thanks!

There is no customer service at this store. We have gone here for the past year or so while we were expecting and now with our seven month old. Often times my wife would go in the middle of the day with no one else in the store and still gets bad service. We will no longer use this store even though we live right around the corner. Sad really.

Our son turns 2 years old next month and our second is due in August. We have purchased all our major gear from before our first was born through some new gear for baby #2. The staff is so helpful, even to the point of helping us install and text several different car seat models to see what fit best in our car to answering all our questions. They get busy on weekends, but it’s so worth the wait, due to their knowledge, experience and personal attention. They also carry a great selection of every day needs, books and toys, so we often find ourselves stopping by. My son loves it and never wants to leave!

The person that attended to me, Daisy, was really helpful and she went out of her way to help us with our many questions regarding the uppababy and even when the car seat was out of stock and I called back to order it again, she was super patient and helpful ! She took the trouble to help explain the different options and made it a really pleasant experience !

Staff here is amazing. Geetu was incredible. She was very patient and listened well to our car seat needs. She took three demo models to our car and helped us test many different configurations of car seat including our existing ones. She is super knowledgable and showed us many tips for optimal installation of our existing seats as well as the new ones. Just a few weeks earlier, we had spent $ 100 on a car seat consultant to help us with our existing seats. Geetu graciously provided all of that information the consultant had, and all without any sales pressure. It was clear she just wanted to help us figure out what would work best for our family. The store deserves our patronage several times over just for her work alone.

Had to write a review after receiving amazing customer service from their representative Patti A!
We got some cute gifts there but not really age appropriate so went to exchange and had the remaining amount put onto a gift card
Going online and thinking that I made an order with it, I threw away the gift card and waited. When nothing arrived, I went back to find that I must not have completed the transaction and thought I had lost the gift card value.
After contacting Right Start about the issue, not only did Patti trace my transaction to the SF store and find the the card # for me to use, she was amazing, pleasant, and kind throughout the entire process.
I truly felt that she cared about my circumstance and worked quickly to resolve it!
Quality customer service does it for me every time!
Will definitely rave about the store to all my new mommy friends :)

VERY Helpful staff…
I attempted to put in a new car seat for the Wee Chyle, and did a horrible job. My wife went to Right Start and they helped us put in the car seat. It was no easy feat, and they stayed after closing to help. They let the Wee Chyle play in their super lux playpen while they did it, too.
They are incredibly helpful in finding the right products for each individual. They saved us a ton of money by helping us find a stroller that was better for our situation (second floor ap’t) than the one we’d had our eye one.
Super friendly and super professional. :)

The worst company to deal with. Posting prices on products that they do not have in stockand then using the excuse that it was damaged in the warehouse. Charges a premium for shipping.

It’s so ridiculously hit and miss here with customer service. I’ve come here a little pregnant, super duper pregnant & with my baby and I’m totally ignored. I have been the only person in the store and all three employees ignored me. I’ve encountered some discrepancies with the staff too (one person telling me something is out of stock, another person telling me they have it).
If you can get what you need at DayOne, there’s no reason to bother with this place.

Great customer service. good price points and plenty of useful items. We stopped in here to buy a gift for a 1 year old’s birthday party.
Used the Unilocal coupon to get a discount on my item. Staff was very knowledgeable and there was a wide selection of things to choose from.

This is my new favorite baby store! The salesperson was so nice and helpful, we didn’t end up buying anything today but she was still really nice and showed us how everything worked. They had a good selection– not an overwhelming amount of baby stuff, just the necessities and some nice extras. She made it very easy for us to compare and decide what we wanted and were looking for. Two thumbs up!

HORRIBLE service. I could see if you’re busy with a full store of customers but if I am the only customer and I just spent $ 200 bucks– the very LEAST you can do is bag my items instead of putting all the stuff back in the basket for me to put in the bag that is literally right next to the basket?! Ridiculous hoity toity snob.

Right Start has literally been there for our family from day one! My daughter is now 2 and we have found Right Start to be such a wonderful resource for all of our daughter’s essentials. We live in the neighborhood and as a new mom I also found it to be such a warm and friendly place to pop into on a regular basis to say hi and pick up anything I might need that day. Both Geetu and Lisa couldn’t be more helpful and are as nice as can be! We have known Geetu the longest and she was especially helpful in those early months when our daughter was first born and everything can be a bit (or a lot) overwhelming. She has always been so helpful in navigating through all of the products to find what works best for me. Lisa was extremely helpful and went above and beyond my expectations one day when we took our daughter on her first cross country flight during the holidays. We landed and out of all things our car seat was lost! The airline wanted to give us an infant car seat to «just get us home» not even caring or understanding that our daughter was almost 2 and clearly would not fit in an infant car seat and there was no way I would ever «just wing it»!! In my frustration and confusion on our options I called Right Start from the airport and Lisa gave me the information I needed on what to look for in a car seat, etc. This not only solved our problem but calmed my nerves. That was huge!
I could go on and on about the great service because these are just a couple of examples. Thank you Right Start for being our neighborhood resource and friend!

My (very expensive) Medela Freestyle breast pump broke after only a week of use so — in an act of desperation — I rented a hospital grade pump from Newborn Connections. The staffer there did not include the kit that should have gone with the rental and they were closed for a long holiday weekend. There I was stuck at home with two useless (and very expensive) breast pumps that I couldn’t use. So I drove around the city like a mad woman trying to track down the parts I needed — Target, Babies R Us, Sprout, Giggle — no one carried them.
Enter Right Start. I forget about this little gem that’s tucked away in Presidio Heights. They have a great selection of baby things and the prices are pretty reasonable too. I talked to Geetu and explained my dilemma. I was *this close* to dropping another several hundred dollars on a (third!) brand new breast pump when she pointed out that she thought she could help me piece together all the kit parts I needed to operate my hospital pump. She was a nice calm balance to my sleep deprived, frustrated self.
I walked out with all the parts I needed in less than ten minutes and under twenty bucks. Yay Right Start and thank you Geetu! I will definitely be back for the customer service alone…

I used Unilocal to try to locate a decent place to purchase a congratulatory gift for a close friend of mine, who gave birth 5 weeks prematurely. Let me preface this that I, myself, do not have ANY children nor have been around many women with infants other than a cousin and a co-​worker. While I think that children are cute, I don’t spend a lot of time around them and have NO IDEA what to give as gifts. My friend hadn’t really prepared a registry anywhere for premie gifts, understandably, and we hadn’t even had taken a birth preparedness class together (I was to be her birthing partner) nor held her baby shower.
Ok, I understand that a lack of preparedness on our parts does not translate into an emergency on the store’s part. Yet, what I still can’t really get over is that someone approached me to ask me if I needed any help, which I did. I explained to her the situation and her response was, «we don’t sell many things for premies». Oh… ok.
Well, in general, what do babies need? Or, what other store might you recommend? Or, wouldn’t you try to spend some time showing me what MIGHT be helpful?
I did buy things out of desperation and luckily, my friend was happy. Yet, warning… single girls or guys, without babies or experience with babies stay clear. Go somewhere else that will answer questions or provide you with solutions to unspoken questions.
Customer service = F A I L = no repeat buyer
I wasn’t pleased. Yet, I see that there are actual parents reviewing that are. So, you choose. I am just giving my honest opinion and wasn’t pleased.

This is one of those shopping experiences that started off as a 5-​star, but ended up being a 3-​minus. I was on assignment to buy a newborn gift for my employer’s IT guy’s firstborn. Because Right Start was in a tony neighborhood, I assumed it would cater to a local clientele, and carry merchandise reflecting my boss’ aesthetic. I was right, and the salesperson helped me pick out a «just right» gift. She offered to gift wrap the items, which I didn’t mind paying extra for. Offering to enclose a gift receipt was icing on the cake. 5-​stars all around!
Things started to go downhill when I turned around to find the salesperson wrapping my newborn gift in a paper that looked like it was meant for a 6-​year old’s birthday present. «Don’t you have anything more appropriate?» I asked. «No, this is all we have,» she answered. Wait. Isn’t this a «baby store» specializing in «baby-​everything»? No baby gift-​wrap?
What was I to do? Off I went to buy gift wrap. Upon rewrapping the gift, I found there was no gift receipt enclosed (an oversight or intentionally «forgotten» so the gift could not be returned?). I drove back to Right Start to get the gift receipt, and had the opportunity to meet the manager, to whom I mentioned my disappointment over the lack of baby gift wrap. Rather than saying, «I’ll let the owner know,» or «That’s a good suggestion,» she said, «This is all we have.» Basically, a «we-don’t-really-care» attitude.
So one star deducted for not having appropriate paper and one star off for not enclosing the gift receipt (and I’d like to take one more off for not being more responsive to my suggestion). In any case, I will try another store for my newborn gift purchases, in the future. Heaven knows, there’s no shortage of fabulous shopping in this city. Certainly, there has to be a baby store that has gift wrapping fit for a baby.

Seriously, this place rocks!
Was on vacation in the city, and didn’t have a metal locking clip for our daughters car seat!
Called around 5 different places, and no one had any for sale. Neither did RightStart either… BUT Geetu was so nice that she said just to come by and pick it up! They basically had a few lying around from other car seats and were willing to let us have one for free.
Great store! Great people! Really can’t go wrong!

Great product selection and service, Kita was very helpful and patient. Prices aren’t as competitive as Amazon, but definitely worth paying extra for great service and local access to baby gear.

I love this place! Their sales people are the best and the shopping experience is always pleasant.
As a first time mom to be who didn’t know the first thing about car seats, strollers, or registry basics, Right Start’s educated sales people patiently answered all of my questions, let us demo the floor models, and never pressured me to buy anything.
We ended up creating our baby registry here because not only were the staff SO helpful (and could easily recommend their favorite products), but also because the prices were cheaper or as inexpensive as those advertised at the big box stores. Awesome, right?! And they carry all the best brands in a range of different price levels so it’s not overwhelming.
This is definitely my go-​to place for all things baby and am so thrilled that a reasonably priced, clean, chic store like this exists in San Francisco.