I helped my sister put this together yesterday. If you plan on making the tall configuration, get two people to help you. there is no way to build the top half and set it onto the bottom half without it falling apart a million times. It was a nightmare with 80 moles taking turns popping out of their holes. She got the bottom half together and then called me to help with the top. It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes of playing whack a mole just to assemble the top shelving and set it in place. Every time you try to fuss with one button, a button somewhere else pops out of its mole hole. After a lot of cussing and me begging my sister to return it to Sam's, I had the brilliant idea to reinforce every corner of the top section with painter's tape (easy to peel) and then reinforce every shelf left to right and front to back. this gave us enough stability to lift the top half and set it onto the bottom half and eventually get everything lined up and stable enough to insert the wood shelves. The buttons kept popping out of their holes anyway. But we finally got the top section situated onto the bottom half with only one button slightly askew. And THEN we found a button on the very bottom shelf was out of its hole. I've never assembled anything as frustrating in my 60 years. The only thing that keeps the top half from falling off of the bottom half is a 1/8" lip on the vertical posts where the top ones sit on top of the bottom ones. Look at the close-up of the assembled shelf in the listing. Pray that you don't have an earth quake. My sister agreed to take me out for drinks at the swanky hotel here in town.

Have purchased many from Sam's club. This is by far the most disappointing shelve purchase. Wobbly, flimsy and you won't need a rubber mallet to put together. Do need two people to assemble. Not worth the money, charging the regular price on something cheaper and less quality. Spend your money on the non Sam's brands and you will be better off. I should have read the reviews before buying. Purchased spur of the moment.

I'm super happy with this shelf system. I put it together myself and it took me about 1.5 hours to complete everything (opening box to installing rubber caps). I'm typically slow at everything and may take you less time if you have help or are just a quick person. I do recommend placing the rubber feet after you put the lower portion together. Looks great and I used a cloth shower curtain and shower hooks to conceal contents within my shelves. Will definitely buy another set of shelves. And, I did ask for help loading it on my truck since I'm female and box makes reference to 2 people lifting the box. When I got home, I backed in my garage and wobbled it out, laying back flat on the ground.

When weight is added to upper shelves the thin metal supports straddle down onto to the lower supports causing the side and front support key slots to pop up and out and collapse, damaged a car hood and could have been worse, tossed the mangled unit and returned the other 4 and warned Sam's personnel, pull this product before someone else gets hurt

I bought two and tried to put the first together and found that connecting the top section to the lower section impossible with the design. I am a fairly handy person, but could not get the two sections to connect. I will probably have to use the shelving as two separate pieces because the top will not correctly mount to the lower section. I am taking the second one back for a refund.

I've been buying these close to (if not over) 20 years, since they were "Gorilla Racks". They've changed several times, and again just now (end of November / beginning of December 2018. The quality has gone down each time, but they've always still been a great bang for the buck, and very sturdy when assembled. As the metal has gotten thinner, they've become harder to assemble as they flop around more, but still plenty sturdy when together. The last 4 I bought online, and as one other reviewer mentioned, they were all damaged. This wasn't much of an issue for me over buying them in-club though, since the last 4 or 5 before these I bought at my local club and like the ones online, each had a broken or cracked shelf. I just go swap them out, they're good about exchanging. It's a hassle, but not enough for me to go spend a bunch more for them somewhere else. So the 4 I got online do not match the last photo- and I'm glad. When I took the 5 broken shelves together with 1 good one and a full set of hardware to exchange at my local club, I got the new style pictured. The main differences are as follows: 1) They are back to the top half being shorter than the bottom. For the last few months they've been 2 equal halves, which is nice if you want to make one long, low shelf. 2) The top joins with the bottom by nesting, as seen in the last photo. The last style butted up against each other without nesting. In theory the new style would make assembly easier, but in practice that's not the case (see below). 3) The bottom uprights do not have slots all the way to the floor. You now have no choice but to have your bottom shelf raised up off the floor, giving up a little bit of total shelf height. 4) Now this is hopefully a defect, but I'm afraid it's probably not. The keyholes are not snug to the rivets. You don't have to tap the cross-bars into the uprights with a rubber mallet, they just slip into place, and out of place very easily. This made assembly nearly impossible. I had to use zip ties to temporarily hold all the pieces together in order to lift the top onto the bottom. The old style would stay together easily, and I would assemble those laying down and then tip them upright after assembled. Following the instructions it's a miracle I wasn't injured when trying to lift the top up the first time, as it all fell apart and crashed all around me. The zip-ties allowed me to get it assembled, but even assembled some of the cross bars keep popping out of place. This won't be an issue once it's loaded, but this kills one of the main reasons I loved these shelves and have bought dozens of them over the years- the ability to easily move them around (unloaded- the old ones would stay together on a hand truck) and take them apart and store them disassembled to save space when not in use. I'm going to wait a month or two and hope things change and/or this one was a fluke, and buy another one. If they are in fact now made with loose rivet fittings, I'll have to buy more expensive ones elsewhere. On another note, I once bought a similar shelf that was 24" deep, thinking the extra space would be handy for some items. Big mistake- the extra depth meant the shelves bowed significantly even with moderate weight items if not placed near the edge. I won't make that mistake again. I've never had a problem with these shelves bowing, and I often have them loaded down with heavy items. Here's hoping they at least fix the loose rivet issue, and soon. Anyone from Sam's care to look up my purchase history, the bulk of them are under my previous account. Same name, different company. You'll see over 25 of these purchased. Wish I still had them all :)

We bought this shelving unit to use in our garage to store our camping equipment. It took 3 of us to put together because no 1 person has enough arms to hold the shelf support beams while assembling other pieces. We looked like a tangled octopus trying to hold it together. Then, one of the rivets broke off. We put that beam on the top because we aren't planning to put anything heavy on top anyway. Didn't want to fool with packing it up or we would have taken it back to Sams. I have emailed the company but no response. Don't make the same mistake we did and buy this unit. I wondered why they didn't have any on display...probably afraid someone would pull on it and the whole unit would fall apart. Hopefully the weight on the shelves will keep the rivets seated but if someone grabs a shelf to move it, the unit will fall apart. You are supposed to bump the rivets in with a hammer. We tapped with a rubber mallet till they were seated but they still can come apart easily.

Was desperate for shelves and the heavy duty ones I've bought over and over have been sold out for months. Couldn't reach the display in the store to test, but i had (past tense) faith in Sam's so i drove 80 miles to the closest Sam's with the shelves. Got them home and started to put them together and here's where the "fun" starts: 1.) The steel literally flexes in your hands a full 90 degrees. It is not doubled up like the good shelves (which wouldn't flex, btw) 2.) The connectors are laughable. Don't put ANY weight above the middle connector. 3.) The shelves themselves are decent, but if you plan on putting the advertised 600lb per shelf weight limit, plan on buying thicker plywood. 4.) Did i mention the flex? 5.) While putting the shelves together, that flex thing i mentioned makes it darn near impossible to do this yourself. To make things even better: the steel is sharp and when it smacks you in the back of the head because the idiotic braces flex, you get cut. Head cuts bleed. Bad. 6.) putting it back into the box is oddly satisfying. 7.) Paying double the price for the same shelves (only heavy doubled steel) at home Depot or Lowe's is totally worth it. And they're 6" deeper.

Requires two people to assemble. You assemble the bottom half and the top half separately. Then you lift the top half and set it on top of the bottom half. The top is supposed to be held in place by the middle shelf supports, but it will not stay put for you to get the shelf support latched in to hold the top in place. Not to mention that the shelf supports just kind of sit in the holes and don't latch down like they should. The metal is flimsy and thin. The shelves themselves are laminated particle board and they had all kinds of cracks through them and are bowed. The 24 inch deep Member's Mark shelf I got last week is really well built: thicker metal, better quality shelves, and a better design. This one is a completely different story.

I am surprised at some of the negative reviews that dated back several years. This merchandise just recently started to appear at select locations at Sam's Clubs in southern California. I have purchased 9 of these in the past 2 months, several of which I drove 40 minutes to pick up from another Sam's Club. These are my top reasons: 1. they are precisely engineered and made. The more bulky, 6-ft comparable shelf that's been available at Sam's for years, they occasionally had small quality control issues. In comparison, this new 6-shelf, 7-ft shelf are precise and consistent. 2. sturdy and stable, and it's 7-ft and 6 tiers. I must admit, this shelf uses a newer kind of shelf that's lighter and thinner, but they are held in place precisely and snuggly cradled by the metal racks. That means the lateral movement is drastically reduced because of the tight but easily-fit gap that's available. Being 7-ft, I am comfortable putting heavy items on the top shelf, and not see the shelf move much when trying to sway. Most of us are not looking to put heavy items on shelves this size (each shelf holds up to 600 lbs!). Instead, we want more vertical space and more shelf space so that it won't take up much floor foot-print. 3. easy assembly and not as heavy. I think the material used for this shelf is newer generation, more sturdy and less weight. the older shelf we have used has heavier shelf boards, often requiring 2 people to fit them. This shelf is lighter, albeit sturdy just like the other. I lined up 4 of these shelves and put them up in 25 minutes total, having one other staff assist me. Again, amazed at how consistently they are manufactured. No surprises. 4. the price point is excellent. Most of us want the best price / surface area ratio. This shelf is priced at $60 for 6 shelves. That's great. 5. packaging is much better. the box is half the thickness of the old shelf that Sam's Club has carried. The old shelf is great, and has more load capacity, but the trad off is that it comes more bulky, harder to transport. I highly recommend this product. Please note that some of the older reviews do not pertain to this product, because it is not carried by Sam's Club until fairly recently in 2021. You might not find it at your local Sam's Club, but they seem to be stocking more regularly now. They go fairly fast whenever they are on the floor. I am glad that Sam's Club is starting to let people order and ship this item. Thank you.