I HATE plantation shutters so I think they both suck

I have Graber at one house and Norman at the other. My choice would be Graber. Love them and they are lifetime guarantee. They back their work for aure

While I don't know the brands, I am an amateur who loves her plantation shutters. They're so much easier to manage on tall windows than the 2" wood blinds I had at my previous home. They're also easier to clean. Lots of my guests have told me how much they like them.

Graber is awful. That company was sold years ago to bigger outfit that doesn't do much but ride on the brand recognition from decades ago. They do not innovate. I just went thru a mess with Bali and Graber both owned by Spring Window. They use cheapo Fedex whose Troutdale hub is a black hole for anything shipped. Endless threads on this on Reddit. Lowes staff is sick of the complaints regarding Fedex too but execs at Lowes still support these brands. I canceled the order since they could never get it to arrive in full. I waited over and over again for delivery based on Fedex lies and apparently my time is worth nothing to any of them. Just done. The Graber brand charges way more than the Bali brand but they use the same parts! The quality control is not great since Spring Window has them made in Mexico and shipped across the border and then uses Fedex zonal shipping which is the cheapest worst black hole shipping method. The beads get sucked into the clutches way too easily. On my testing blackout and solar shades I found the blackout had glue on it which made a tearing sound with closing them. I cleaned off the glue but the glue ruined the finish on the vinyl. They sent a replacement and realized they cut the first one wrong and was narrower! Dealing with Lowes escalation department is a joke and they bully consumers when those customers have had it with all the games. They requested that I either donate the only two blinds and want me to drive around and take care of that or they wanted me to cut them up and send a picture and then put in my garbage. I told them have Fedex come pick them up since they caused most of the problems with all this. I also had to say I will then submit a claim with my credit card if they won't give me a refund. Since they want to play hardball with all this. Lowes and Spring Window do not allow you to pick the shipper either. Also with zonal cheap delivery with Fedex neither Fedex or Spring window scan the packages but load them up on pallets and ship them to regional hubs and then they are scanned and then take the slowest method to the destination. I watched how the tracking stopped at three CA cities that were not far from each other before they headed north to Oregon. Talk about your pony express. Then thru all that they lose them. Won't do that gain and won't use any online retailer that uses Fedex.

I don't mind if things take longer but I really do mind being lied to over and over. That was the worst of it. I don't like the fact that Lowes knows there is a problem with Fedex and still puts their customers thru that meat grinder shipper. I am kind of rethinking what to do with this but right now this past year with the pandemic and so many retailers lying and not being honest about availability etc I am just tabling anymore buying until things improve.

Also Fedex lost the Amazon contract this past year. I know Fedex likes to say they dumped Amazon but in realty Amazon waited till they were able to deliver 50% of everything before they made their insulting offer to Fedex. The offer was so bad Fedex had to turn it down. So I get the frustration Amazon had with Fedex and made their point that way. But I see their stock dropping and top executives cashing out more stock which they tend to cash out when the stock is doing better. So it wouldn't surprise me if Fedex finally files bankruptcy since it has had financially problems for decades. If Fedex can't be valued more during a pandemic when folks are stuck with using shippers that says a lot about the lack of confidence investors have with this company overall. Fedex saves money subbing out workers and trucks and still they can't get things done right. Whereas UPS hires their own workers, owns their own trucks and pay benefits and the staff have a vested interest to getting things done. Plus they make sure the fleet is has regular maintenance done to keep the trucks in operation. I bet they have less stealing too.

I can't tell if the previous commenter hates Fedex, Graber or Lowes more. Maybe they hate them all more than the first commenter hates plantation blinds? It's hard to tell, but based on the number of words used, probably?

I know my comment is also a waste of space, but I can't help but be annoyed when I came here looking for Graber vs Norman recommendation, but finding trash comments like some above.

An even later comment. Graber seems fine. I decided to go with Norman for horizontal blinds as there were some features that were ”standard” in their pricing while with Graber it was an upcharge. When I added the additional charges for the feature into the Graber pricing the price was actually identical but I preferred Norman having the ”extras” as a standard feature; seamed more thorough and better thought out. FWIW, the extra was the cordless feature.

If all features for the plantation shutters truly are the same then I’d go with the lower cost. I haven’t personally heard of anyone being disappointed with their Graber purchase but yes, Norman is considered an industry standard.

Hey all... seriously the product. Normans has a machine grade wood core with a poly wrap and graber has 100% poly. Normans margins are tighter and in a professional manner Normans is a better product. Where you buy them and all the above comments really has nothing to do with the product. Normans has a three week offering with limited colors, a couple of whites, take advantage of this. 40 years in the industry this is my statement. You want to buy them from us www.castlehouse.biz