Review: CSN Stores

Several weeks ago I was contacted by CSN stores to review a product from one of their more than 200 stores. I jumped at the chance. Why not? I'd thought it's be great to see how their service, shipping and products compared to a the other big sites that I normally shop at.

After a whole lot of thinking and debating, I settled on a couple different items. I wanted to see how this site did with multiple items in an order. I also made sure I hit 2 totally different departments in the hopes that they would come from different warehouses. (I probably over thought all of this, but oh well)

I finally decided on the Nordicware medium sized roaster



and some page protectors. The page protectors are kind of weird to review I know, but when you have a home office, office supplies are cool. :o)

I made my order on a Wednesday afternoon and would you believe that UPS showed up the NEXT day with my page protectors! Really! I'm not sure I've ever gotten something the next day, but it looked like they came from a warehouse about an hour away from here. Nice to now that they support Michigan in at least some little way.

The page protectors were exactly what I thought they'd be and arrived quickly so yeah! I will say though that the box they used was huge! The item itself is the size of a notebook, but the box could have easily held a couple pairs of shoes.

A couple days later FedEx showed up with the rest of my order. I was immediately shocked at the size of this box as well, but not in a good way. There was no way the box the man gave could have held a 16" roaster pan.

I was a bit puzzled, but took it inside a opened it up. It was, in fact, the "medium" roaster, but it was not large enough to hold a turkey at all like the product page had stated. Also there was no way it was a 16" roaster.

I finally got a ruler out and measured it. It is 16" long, from handle end to handle end. I was completely disappointed because I had planned on using this for our Thanksgiving dinner.

In an effort to figure out what went wrong, I looked at the same product on a couple other sites. All of these sites listed this roaster as a 13.5" pan. I would agree with that measurement. It's really like a deep dish 9x13 pan.

I spent most of the day considering calling customer service and returning this pan, but something weird happened.

I fell completely in love with this pan. It was not what I expected, not what I ordered and not what I wanted, but I love it.

It works great for lasagna and other casseroles that never quite fit into a regular 9x13 pan. It even worked great for roasting a small ham roast I had.

I would have liked to send the pan back just to see how there CS was, but I couldn't part with my pan. I will make sure I leave a review on the pans product page warning others of this size issue.

Overall, my experience with CSN stores was positive. I loved the fast shipping and for the most part the products were great. I will definitely consider buying from them again. I will just be more careful about the products and there actual size in the future.

(With thanks to CSN Stores for providing me with a $35 gift code in order to purchase and review a product for their company. This review is my honest opinion.)