Shameless plug

For several years I worked at REI. It was a lot of fun and I'd probably still be working there today except for the fact that they really don't pay enough to raise a family. REI still gets a little flack for the fact that they seem to be higher priced that other stores. Well yeah if you compare a jacket at WalMart to a jacket at REI the REI jacket is going to be more expensive. However, on identical products I never found that REI was overpriced.
One of the things I really respected about REI was their 100% satidsfaction guarantee. It was really nice to have REI take care of things when something when wrong with your gear. Last month my GPS that I got for father's day a few years ago started acting up and finally it just stopped getting a signal all together. I took if back to REI and after a very brief explanation of the problem they gave me a full refund which I promptly turned around and spent in the store. I paid a few more bucks and got a upgrade of the same unit I had exchanged.
In today's world of customer no-service and outsourcing to India or just a voice mail it was really nice to have a human being help me out with such a positive result.