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Editor's note: Buy Buy Baby’s parent company, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 23, 2023. All stores will close by June 30, 2023. If you already have a Buy Buy Baby registry, learn more about what the closure means for you. Need help switching your registry? Take a quiz to be matched to the best baby registry for your needs.

Going from having zero baby gear to being fully equipped to take a tiny baby home from the hospital can be quite the leap. Luckily, you have nine months to prepare (mentally, too) and stock up on everything you could possibly need — and What to Expect's Baby Registry Builder makes it easy to get started. All you do is answer a few quick questions, and we'll recommend the best registries and baby products for you.

Don't feel like taking a quiz right now? A Buy Buy Baby registry could be for you. It takes away some of the stress by focusing solely on baby-related stuff, so you won’t get distracted while you're building your registry. Plus, it tries to make the baby registry process even more attractive by throwing in discounts, coupons and samples. Gotta love that! 

The benefits of a Buy Buy Baby registry

Free Shipping Rewards Program: If you (and friends and family) have purchased at least $1,500 worth of gifts by the time your due date arrives, you get unlimited free shipping for your baby’s first year. You can start using it after baby's arrival date, just in case you realize you're missing something important after bringing your little home.

Completion discount: Within six weeks before your due date, Buy Buy Baby sends you a coupon for 15 percent off everything left on your registry.

Welcome box: Buy Buy Baby gives you a mix of samples and coupons in their Welcome Box, which you can purchase for $10 and have shipped to your house or pick up in stores, pending availability. Within seven days of your Welcome Box being shipped or purchased in-store, $10 in rewards will be applied to your Buy Buy Baby account. You must, however, have a Buy Buy Baby Registry to receive that perk. 

Price match: Show a competitor’s price for an identical item and Buy Buy Baby will match it in stores or over the phone.

Group gifting: Baby products that are $100 or more will automatically be eligible for the online-only group gifting feature. Your friends and family can choose how much they want to contribute, and this amount is converted into credits in your "My Funds" section. From there, you can decide which product to use those credits on.

How to create a Buy Buy Baby registry

To create your registry, you will need the usual information: your name, address, email, a password and due date. Once you’ve plugged everything in, you can start adding items to your registry. Search around the site if you already know what you want or use the registry checklist to make sure you’ve covered the essentials.

Using your Buy Buy Baby registry

Once we signed up, Buy Buy Baby sent us to our registry’s main page where we could add items and get suggestions.  A window pops up that lets you explore their collections, like "baby on budget" or "city baby." There’s also an “analyze your registry” button that breaks down the gifts by price range — from “under $25” to “$300+” — with a recommended number of items that fall into each range. If you completely follow the button’s advice, you’ll end up with 100 items on your list, but it's a helpful starting point if you haven't started looking at baby gear yet. 

There’s also a baby checklist that gives you the “essentials” in product categories like nursing, bathing, toys and more. Things automatically get checked off the list if in their respective categories as you add iterms to your registry. And did we mention there’s a thank you list, too? It's a lot of lists, which might be helpful if that's what keeps you organized. If not, it might stress you out more to see all of these suggestions in so many different places. 

Even though we aren’t raving about the registry’s design, we appreciate Buy Buy Baby’s selection. It has all the major brands and covers every kind of product you could need. Adding an item is a breeze, too.

How to return a registry gift

It doesn’t matter if you bought a product online or in person; both can be returned easily within a year of the purchase date. While Buy Buy Baby has allowed you to ship returns previously, the retailer is currently only accepting returns in stores open to the public.

To return something in person, just bring in your item and the gift receipt to exchange it or get a credit. (Note that you'll also need to bring a government-issued photo ID if you're getting a credit.) If you don’t have a receipt, an employee can look up your registry or order number to find the product. And what if you don’t have a receipt and your gift wasn’t purchased from your registry? You may still be able to return it for 80 percent of the item's value.

Pros

  • Specializes in baby products
  • Has a 15 percent completion discount
  • Registry price analyzer can be helpful
  • Has an accompanying app to manage your registry on-the-go
  • It's easy to shop curated gear collections that apply to you, whether you have a specific nursery theme in mind or are a city parent

Cons

  • The Welcome Box costs $10
  • Limited store locations might make taking advantage of perks more difficult 
  • Certain brands are excluded from coupons
  • No universal registry feature like baby registries from sites such as Amazon and Target have

Our review

Buy Buy Baby is the kind of brand you think of when envisioning a traditional baby registry. It’s solely baby focused and has a huge selection of products to get you started with parenthood. The store is big on coupons (and sometimes accepts expired ones!), which we love, and it offers parents benefits like a 15 percent completion discount, free in-store or virtual registry consultation, and easy returns.

However, some of Buy Buy Baby’s perks involve actually stepping foot inside a store. There’s only one problem with that: Buy Buy Baby only has 135 stores around the country. To take full advantage of your registry, you need to be near one of those locations.

And when it comes to coupons, be sure to read the fine print, since Buy Buy Baby limits which brands qualify for them. For example, the popular brand Uppababy is on the exclusion list. If you're hoping to use a coupon to save on the big ticket items, do your research to make sure your desired stroller, car seat or crib is eligible. 

Buy Buy Baby’s shipping process also fall a little short compared to other registries. You qualify for free shipping on orders over $39. When you think about Amazon Prime’s free two-day shipping, Buy Buy Baby’s $39 order total seems steep.

We don’t suggest using Buy Buy Baby as your only registry, but it could be good to use in combination with another one. There are some good benefits — like the completion discount, coupons and free shipping rewards — but they aren’t better than some of your other registry options (like Amazon or Target).

What Buy Buy Baby does have is a pretty good selection of brands and competitive prices, which is why it would be great as your secondary registry.