Reviews of Borden Mercantile Co. Ltd. (Gardener)

Lucky Saumur

Went in for hay and was helped by S, a young guy who knew a lot about rabbits. Thank you so much for the friendly help and for your knowledge. Will definitely be back for other supplies as well from now on.

Jim Brannigan

Excellent, broad selection. Lots of assistance and competitive prices. Ample parking and a clean washroom. I could mooove in.

Brendan Graves

Love this store, they have everything you need for pets, animals and gardening. Stuff you can't find anywhere else. The staff are friendly and helpful as well

Ryan Milner

Great store with fair prices.

Christine T

Excellent selection of essential oils and other crafting supplies with reasonable prices here!

Michael Katz

Really helpful staff!

Michael Marsland

Great selection, high prices for quality goods

Beat Alsace

Good service and good products

stephen kagan

A great local store for gardening and more. Fencing by the foot, soil of various flavors, plants, pet supplies, and so on.

Susan Rybak

I love this store, I will be going back . hey have so many products for making soap and other skin/body care . Helpful and friendly staff.

Anthony Dason

Informed staffing, willing to assist and a wide variety of made in Canada products for pet owners and gardening enthusiasts.

Colleen Moran

Bought peanuts quick and easy. Friendly staff

Caity Robertson

Hidden Jem! They have everything I need to make my garden beautiful and productive

Randi S

More signage on how to actually get into the store would be great. Not intuitive to go into a parkade to get there.

Vicky Zdancewicz

Best place to go for pet, garden, and other diy projects like candle or soap making. Very reasonable prices. Cheapest place in town to get hay and pellets for small animals. Helpful service. Huge seed and bulb collection. Cheapest place for paper bedding for small animals and it's actually good quality, dust free, etc.

V.I. Outdoors

Everything for the garden and pets. Love this store.

Michaela Pennell

Borden Mercantile is great family run store that satisfies all your garden, plant, and animal needs with very knowledgeable staff.

Ryan Budney

Best shop in town for all my chicken supplies. Has excellent assortment of pet food as well.

Jimmy Gi

Friendly service great products and cute cats. :)

Nigel Morrison

Great local business. Excellent service and prices are almost always the lowest in town. Definitely recommend.

John Poppitt

There is no need to close the store to personal shopping , it would have been a ten minute trip for me, having to shop for the entrance took 45 minutes.

Nicole Lancaster

I love Borden and go at least 3 times a week. Having the small town feed store atmosphere is very important to me and they have everything!!! Super helpful staff.

Jenica Enquist

Great prices and lots of selection on pet products.

Black Angus

Excellent selection of product at reasonable prices. The staff is very friendly and helpful.

Trev Friesen

Great deals and its like a small town feed supply right in town.

M

EDIT: I received a very thoughtful response from the management team. I wish you guys well, and I hope things get better during the busy season. I've been in here twice now, and both times my presence was treated like an inconvenience. The storefront is confusing to navigate with all of the fences and corona-restrictions, and the staff is too busy to make eye-contact with customers. The store is built inside a busy parkade, and it does not feel safe or convenient to get into the place due to the log-jam of distracted drivers and confused people trying to reverse out of their spot. Last time, I overheard two of the laborers laughingly talking down another employee while I was present. This is unprofessional and obviously expresses a morale issue. It is not possible to tell who works here, as none of the employees seem to wear any kind of uniform. It appears that Borden Mercantile caters exclusively to farm-owning regulars familiar with the business. The staff is completely unprepared to offer retail customers an easy experience in their store. All of the people shopping there seemed mildly confused. I was definitely among this bunch. This location could be used as a case-study for poor management. I will continue to shop here only because it is so close to where I live. I know that business is tough these days, that customers are hard to deal with and logistics issues are difficult in such a small location - but you really need to do better than this.

Patrick Coble

Only place I could find 10-52-10 fertilizer.

Jason

It's a good place to pick up pine pellets. I use them for cat litter.

Terry Boorman

This is a unique place to get animal feed, gardening supplies, bird seed, pet supplies and a lot of things a hobby farmer would need. It’s hidden behind an office building and you have to enter via an entrance off of the lower park of the parking lot. Very worth checking out though.

Barry K

Great place to get bulk gardening soil enhancers! Staff are friendly and helpful.

Bernard von Schulmann

Best garden store in town

Marnie Hart

Always have what I need

Richard Pattee

Awesome country store in the city with great staff.

Greg Dorscht

Good convenient store, knowledgeable staff!

Anna Clare

The covid response has been top notch. I call, order over the phone and call again when I'm at the store where my order is wheeled out to me and loaded into the car. Very quick and efficient. Much appreciated. Nice bales of Timothy hay too.

Rodrigo Feracini

Too be honest I was a bit confused. Is this a pet shop or a garden store? Seems to have a mix of both. I went for the gardening stuff and I was able to find what I needed. However, store was very dirty and a lot of the items had a thick layer of dust in them. Staff was very friendly.

Myc Powers

This is probably Victoria's best supply store for farming, gardening, animal husbandry etc...

Caulk Nazi

Always reliable

John Clifford

Borden Merc. Is a great resource for anyone engaged in agricultural production. Their people are great and their pricing is competitive.

Garpin Lithor

Great selection, knowledgeable staff

Harriet Cunningham

Very helpful

Katie Fillion

Great selection of gardening and agricultural supplies. Everything needed for seed starting, excellent selection of plant pots, garden stakes, seeds, poultry supplies, and garden amendments.

ladushky scholoniepher

They had soap making supplies! And so much more craftzy stuff that I didn't get personally but looked good quality. The soap supplies are really good for sure.

Steve McAusland

Good selection. Many items that I can not find in other locations. Like any great business it is the awesome staff that make this place as good as it is

Geoffrey Stamp

These fine folks have all you need when taking care of pets or gardens

Ken Patterson

More concerned with how you wear your mask .. slow ..pricey

Shane Hansen

Very knowledgeable feels like a secret jem in the city.

Nick McGeachie

Super cool store, full of all the things I didn't know you could buy. It seems like they're a general store for garden, bee keeping, pet, candle making, farm, bird, and agricultural supplies. Definitely a spot worth checking out, you'll see all sorts of things you didn't know you needed!

Alfredo Arbule

Attentive and knowledgable staff. The only place i go in search of hard to find products.. reasonable price..

Robin van G

this is a great resource in town for my backyard chickens and my garden. the helpful young people don't always get it right. they dutifully bring orders to your car, but one misquoted the price of one item (under $20 when it was more than $60) and lastly I paid for straw and got grass, which I only saw when I got home.

Kyver Schofield

Great place for many gardening needs. Helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Michael McDougall

They're very helpful, pleasant and knowledgeable. They know their feeds. I drop their name when people ask me what I'm feeding the quacks in da park...Hen Scratch.

Michael Anderson

Kinda hidden away but has it all.

Amanda Hamilton

They are helpful, careful and kind

Rory L Keewatin R (Rory)

A really cool gem of a shop rural styled buisness in an urban setting so neat!

Helena VonDrakenstein

This is a good place but the staff seem to be rather low toned and uninspiring

Louise Potvin

Great service and selection. Treats for your doggie too.

April Gilliland

For some reason I had never visited this store before. I went to look for a large terracotta pot. I ended up coming out with more than that. I was a little confused by the parking and entrance situation. One has to drive into the car park into the lower part and there is free parking there and that is where the entrance is. To exit the place one takes a different route out and down towards Quadra Street. So while you enter through Borden Street you exit through Quadra Street. The store is definitely following Covid protocols from what I saw. I caught a brief glimpse of a cute little shop cat. The store is a mix of farm supplies, bird feeders and seed, beekeeping gear, gardening supplies, including tubers and seeds and pots and tools, and various other items including pet food. The staff are friendly and helpful. I found the prices good. I will certainly be returning and I wish I had visited here sooner. This is a neat store.

Darin Ritchie

Good products, good service, good prices.

Dora Jessen

Interesting shop. Animal feed, some gardening tools, soil, bamboo poles, pest control... I'm not sure what I was expecting. Got good advice on a rat trap - so that was a plus (powerful no-name-brand and reasonably priced).

charles goodmanson

Great for your garden and hobby farm or full farm needs

Anita

Repeat customer for years

Ken Lin

(Translated) The backyard supplies are complete, and there are all kinds of fertilizers for melons and vegetables ------ (Original) 后园用品齐全,瓜????菜肥料样样都有------

Nolan Ward

If your into crafts, this is the place to go

Michael Simard

Well-stocked for all your mercantile needs and with helpful, knowledgable staff.

Alex Vozian

Great supply of pet food and gardening/farming supplies.

Murray Leslie

An old fashioned feed store, in Saanich. Bee keeping, chicken feed, pet food and great bulk garden supplies.

Mary Freeman

Lots of fun things to look at, with a wide variety of supplies. They were a bit short staffed so I could get anyone to help me with my purchase. Could just have been the day.

Dave Critchley

Good garden supply store. Farm and pet supplies as well..

dickcharlton

Always get my animal food at borden mercantile.

Morgan Sargent

Pet food (cat, dog, bird, rodent) gardening supplies, farm feed, and more! If you haven't been in to Borden Mercantile, you are missing one of the greatest treats in Saanich. Great staff, great products, local. Shop here!

Tami Gilmore

Such helpful staff

Robert McHugh

It's been awesome for i don't remember how many years. Victoria landmark!

Gregory Elworthy

Helpful, knowledgeable staff, and good health protocols

Patricia D

Great service

Brayden Faganello

Garden supplies, pet food and supplies, horse supplies, tools, feed, fertilizer and pesticides as well as wire by the foot. A fantastic location for many supplies and feed located conveniently in the city. Borden Mercantile has a long history in the area.

Tracey Collins

Lots of candle and soap making stuff

C Hurley

(This experience was April 27th, but my original review failed to post.) =Been coming here more than twenty years now, probably closer to thirty with my parents and grandparents as a child. Today *(4/27/21) will be our last visit and I will never recommend this store in the future. I can look past the fact that many items have increased in price by upwards of 200% since just a year or two ago, if you no longer want to remain competitive with 'grow stores' and 'big box stores' that's perfectly alright. Pricing more similar to 'G Works" now though without the fluff or service. What was not alright however was your cashier spending about ten seconds inspecting the two twenty dollar bills I used to purchase a product that now costs $35 (almost double a year or two ago); further yet when I went to load the product I had another employee demand my receipt accusing my of stealing. Good thing I asked for the receipt from the cashier openly mocking her offensively thinking I had a wad of fake cash in my wallet two minutes before. Yes, I took a break from house shopping and came to shop at Borden Mercantile with my wife, two year old Daughter, and dog to steal a $35 product from your store. Whatever is wrong with the clowns you're currently employing to staff your store and price your products will most certainly cost your business far more customers than just myself. If your loss prevention thought I looked suspicious it would have been a good idea to simply get my license plate and/or speak with the cashiers before deeply offending a long time customer. For the record "grow stores" will give 10, 20, even 30% discounts on products that are 'regular priced' cheaper than your store now, heck I can order 200 cell trays for 10 to 30 cents each online shipped to my door.. you used to charge 1.79+tx per insert, now 3.79+tx; all this combined leads me to conclude good luck and good riddance.

Gord Plant

I bought Parrot food from Borden Merchantile around 9 months ago and had problems with the food having flies and maggots. My Wife agreed that the problem got so bad around the house, we had to call an exterminator to get rid of them. I got my money back for 2 bags after trying a second bag and hoping for the best, but same thing. I remember I only had my receipt for the second bag bought but not the first bag, but still I was given my money back for 2 bags. It’s been many months now so I thought I’d give Borden Merchantile another try a couple of days ago. The guy confirmed that of course it’s a new batch of food since I last bought there. I brought home the bag and set it at the front entrance of my house, where just a few hours later getting home again, I noticed the bag had rice weevils crawling all over it coming out of the small sewn up holes on top, so once again I took the bag back yesterday. I was asked for my receipt which I said I never got one, as it says Borden Merchantile right on your Parrot food bag. Even the coworker of the girl I dealt with at the till said that he remembered me from the day before. I was told that the girl at the till and coworker needed to talk to the manager about a refund. The girl came back after speaking with the manager and said all they can do is give an in store credit. I said that not right. You’ve given me back my money before for your rotten food. It’s not the first time, and anyone can see on the bag that this food came from your store. She didn’t care about the health of my pets or atmosphere of my house, never once tried to act apologetic about their garbage food. So for a matter of $30 they’d rather just screw someone over and go on with the rest of their day. NOT GOOD BUSINESS!!!

Ann V

They are being so great during the isolation..take payment over the phone and then will load into the back of your car with no need to come into contact. Busy when I was there but still doing their best to get to customers quickly and efficiently.

Paul Hutcheson

Food for my pets! Yahoo!!

Bart Verruyt

Has every thing for garden and your pet's

James Brown

Excellent place, knowledgeable staff, great selection of gardening and crafting supplies,

Scott Butterfield

It's ok

Alex W

Go to place for pet and farm supplies. Good prices on high quality pet foods. Great prices on bulk bird seed. Super nice staff. You can pet cats here too.

Jason B

Excellent customer service and selection! I've been coming here for years!

Robert Armitage Fudge

Great store, great staff. Above average prices but its so close to town its worth it. Reliable animal feed and assorted pet stuff and plant stuff.

Deborah Davidson

Good prices...useful items

Almira Plant

I bought Parrot food from Borden Merchantile around 9 months ago and had problems with the food having flies and maggots. My Wife agreed that the problem got so bad around the house, we had to call an exterminator to get rid of them. I got my money back for 2 bags after trying a second bag and hoping for the best, but same thing. I remember I only had my receipt for the second bag bought but not the first bag, but still I was given my money back for 2 bags. It’s been many months now so I thought I’d give Borden Merchantile another try a couple of days ago. The guy confirmed that of course it’s a new batch of food since I last bought there. I brought home the bag and set it at the front entrance of my house, where just a few hours later getting home again, I noticed the bag had rice weevils crawling all over it coming out of the small sewn up holes on top, so once again I took the bag back yesterday. I was asked for my receipt which I said I never got one, as it says Borden Merchantile right on your Parrot food bag. Even the coworker of the girl I dealt with at the till said that he remembered me from the day before. I was told that the girl at the till and coworker needed to talk to the manager about a refund. The girl came back after speaking with the manager and said all they can do is give an in store credit. I said that’s not right. You’ve given me back my money before for your rotten food. It’s not the first time, and anyone can see on the bag that this food came from your store. She didn’t care about the health of my pets or atmosphere of my house, never once tried to act apologetic about their garbage food. So for a matter of $30 they’d rather just screw someone over and go on with the rest of their day. NOT GOOD BUSINESS!!!Never coming back again!!!

Lisa

My parents used to shop here many moons ago for hay ???? feed and ????. They have an excellent array of farm items including crafts like soap or candle making.

Susan Bryon

Great staff very helpful

Bryan

** Edit; The store now has a chair readily accessible when needed. Their effort to quickly address this is appreciated! ???? Not the store from when I was younger. Drove all the way in from Metchosin to purchase an arbour and then possibly a big bird feeder my mom spotted. Unfortunately, she suddenly found herself needing a chair to sit down on as she was suddenly quite faint. It seems that this store has none and no one really seemed to care! We left and will take our business back to the westshore. Big change. Too bad.

Jonny Arbour

Good selection of feeds in the bulk lane

mark kolodinsky

Your one stop shop for animal foods gardening needs.. Lots of great books and nice staff

Alison Sheppard

Love this store, I want to buy one of everything ????

Steve Otway

Very helpful staff

Vida Hillard

Everyone was very helpful. Has a bit of everything in the store.

Samantha .R

Great selection of a wide range of products and a fantastic bulk selection to boot! The classic rural general store I've been missing!

MultiMusichound

Great for gardeners supplies, tools and plants and dirt and fertilizers.

Terry R

A little out of the way for me but they do have a good selection.