Set Shop

I was trying to source something last minute. Not only were they rude to me on the phone but they did not explain their return policy so I was stuck paying for something I never used. Terrible experience.

Changed my card without my authorization and gave me the wrong product. The worker in the store said his dad was the owner and told me to post a bad review. He said he wouldn’t listen to me and everyone in the store was laughing. Very rude, disrespectful, and liars. They completely misled me. Stay away from this place a complete scam! No customer service.

I was really shocked at how bad the customer service was at Set Shop.
They are one of the only places in NYC that carry a certain type of paint and were not interested in helping me find it. The man who was at the front desk seemed totally confused when I asked for help. When I inquired about ordering the paint, he had no idea how to do that for me, and was not interested in the least bit in trying to figure out how.
The store was also a total mess inside. The paint buckets were all dumped on shelves behind a bunch of junk on the floor.

We use these guys for mostly seamless paper. They are fast and super easy to work with. I have never had a negative experience working with them. they have rental gear as well and some props. It’s a great option to consider if you are looking for a photo gear resource.

I was surprised to see some negative reviews. I have used them pretty consistently for the last 4 years and haven’t had any problems.
I really just buy 5 or 6 rolls of background paper from them and have it delivered to the photo studio. If you call in the morning, it often comes same day, and the delivery charge isn’t really different than UPS on the large items from B&H.
I do think it is odd that after 4 years, they haven’t set up a customer account for me and I have to give them every detail each time, but it is still more convenient than waiting for UPS to deliver.
They have a very small selection of photo products.

Very shady business practices and they will charge your card without your authorization.
The product that I ordered and had them shipped to the Javitz Center came damaged and they tried to bait and switch us and tried to change the price on us when we confirmed priced weeks ago.
Horrible business practices. They WILL rip you off.

If I could rate this zero stars, I would.
I don’t even know where to begin. Justin, the «rental manager» is a total hot-​head. Instead of dealing with business, he wraps himself up in antagonizing customers, and initiating arguments. Then there is the actual manager, or sales manager, not sure which, who is there, seemingly, just to «bro out» with Justin, and fuel the fire. The two of them stood there chuckling, while my colleague and I tried for the 3^rd time in a week to get them to address our issues. (We had to walk over, and speak with them in person, after calling 3 times, and being ignored).
I work for a reputable production company in NYC, and we needed to rent some backdrops for a TV pilot shoot. (i.e. NO BUDGET) We wound up spending over $ 500 for backdrops. After a solid week of arguing, I was finally issued a refund of $ 64.20. (I was expecting to be refunded $ 274.20)
Let me pre-​empt this by saying, in their defense, they are not a rental house. They are more of a still photography boutique sales location, which happens to dabble in the occasional rental. This would maybe explain why they don’t adhere to ANY of the standard policies of every other rental house in NYC.
We had 7 backdrops in total. Of the 7, one was kept, cut, and chosen for the run of show. This was a larger, purchase item, and was $ 160 after I finally got them to honor our tax exempt.
Then we had 4 rental backdrops. They were $ 35 each /​day. (although the website quotes them at $ 30/​day) I specifically, personally, ran the backdrops over first thing Monday morning, per their policy, in an effort to avoid a 2 day rental. They charged us the 2 day rental anyway, because even though they’re not open on weekends, they charge for them. The story goes that in order to only be charged 1 day, we would have needed to return Fri night before 6pm. We picked up Thurs after 4, shot Fri, and returned Mon before 10, but that’s still a 2 day rental.
I’ll stop there in an effort to not bore anyone with details.
In a nutshell — DON’T USE SETSHOP. TERRIBLE, CONDESCENDING EMPLOYEES. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. DISHONEST IN THEIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.

The equipment that we rented was super, and Justin made everything happen. That said, everything else was a fight. Every other person that I spoke to was dismissive and tried to charge me extra for things that are included. The morning of the delivery, the guy called me saying that traffic was bad and that *he didn’t know if he could make it*. Excuse me?! Our equipment showed up an hour and a half and three phone calls later. It was also a fight for them to come pick it up. They said it was too late to pick it up at 5pm, and wanted to charge me for an extra day. This is after I cleared the pick up time with Justin. If he isn’t working, don’t even bother. Its an uphill battle.

One star too many.
They made a mistake on a product we bought for a shoot and refused to exchange it. Don’t go here unless you have money to lose. Customer service? Not their strong suit. Or present in any form, actually.

I’m not exactly the resident photographer, so take this review with a grain of salt please. I own a kick ass Nikon DSLR, but that’s about it. I don’t give myself enough credit by way of photography lingo. I feel lost most of the time. But B&H sent me over there, so it had to be a solid recommendation. All I want to do is take really great and awesome pictures of my art pieces. Needless to say, i felt like a fool going in to the Set Shop asking for gradient backdrops when the guy immediately corrected me to say, «gradation.» Oh, ok. My bad. I asked a few questions and wound up spending $ 200+ on a new tent and a backdrop that will kinda fit — a HUGE upgrade from my makeshift Container Store mesh laundry basket I was using. $ 9.99! Ugh! Is that good salesmanship or am i just nodding to appear as though i know what I’m doing. Immediate buyers remorse. Also turns out that B&H had the exact product tent I bought at The Set Shop for $ 40 cheaper and another model for $ 70 cheaper. The place is all a mish mash but that’s just my ignorant opinion. The sales guy was one of those intimidating fast talker smarties who knew too much for his own good. Not exactly a good setup here for the naïve. But I’m sure for the professional, it’s mecca.
Suggestion: Be well read before you go in or else you’ll end up driving away with a Mercedes for the price of an Aston Martin. You wanted a Mercedes, but you didn’t want that «oh hum» feeling you get when you didn’t get a deal.