BonPrix > Reviews (31)

Despite French-sounding name, Bon Prix is a budget part of the German (and the world's largest) mail order company, Otto GmbH. They operate in 10 countries and claim 14 million customers (though it's not clear whether this refers to Bon prix alone or Otto as a whole).

I first encountered Bon Prix in Poland before the advent of Internet shopping and had reasonably good experience, so when I came across it in the UK, I was happy to give it a go and have been using them for several years now.

They offer traditional mail-order as well as Internet shopping, but I have always bought on-line.

Range

Bon Prix has a large selection of women's clothing, most of it casual, but with some forays into formal and dressy items. I tend to stick to casual and basic items from Bon Prix, as the more dressy (and more expensive items) do tend to look and feel cheap.

Among the casual clothes, Bon Prix offers mostly a decent budget selection, with prices varying somewhere between mid-range High Street and catalogue retailers like Marks & Spencer or La Redoute and rock-bottom chains like Primark or Matalan.

The quality pretty much matches the prices: most items are reasonably well made from decent enough fabrics, but there is not much sophistication to designs, and the finishing touches can be pretty rough, Bon Prix clothes last quite well: they are more of a solid-but-a-bit-clunky kind than flimsy-and-fall-apart-after-first-wash type. The sizing isn't always entirely consistent, but in my experience not to a worrying degree.

The styles are fairly basic, and my feeling is that the more fashionable Bon Prix tries to get, the worse it becomes, but it could be my age showing here.

One of the greatest advantages of Bon Prix for me is the range of sizes they offer. Most items go to 22/24 (although the teenage/youth clothes end at 18); and quite a few of them go all the way up to size 32. The double sizes are sometimes a bit of a problem, with the lower one being slightly small, and the higher one being obviously too large; this only tends to be an issue with close-fit clothes.

All sizes cost the same.

Some of my most used clothes came from Bon Prix, including three chunkish cotton jumpers whose design I liked so much I bought three different colours (below £20), great pair of smart brown jeans (forgot now how much but certainly less than £25), a winter shower-proof jacket (£30), nice simple cotton or cotton/viscose tops and tunics (some have unnecessarily feminine designs, but it's usually possible to pick some decent ones; all below £20). T-shirts in a variety of designs can be had from about £5-£8 per top.

I also buy bras from Bon Prix. They are not particularly sophisticated but fit well and many go up to high cup sizes with due consideration for support needed. At around £10-£12 per bra, they are probably the best value large-size bras around. Bon Prix also have a rather daring range of erotic lingerie, with open-cup bras and open-crotch knickers, but as I have not sampled those delights, so can't comment on that.

Bon Prix also have men's clothes (in a much smaller selection) and children's range. I have never bought men's clothes, but children's ones are pretty decent too, with styles similar to the cheaper ranges of La Redoute/Vertbaudet. I also like the sizing of children's clothes, which is European style by height and not age.

Service

The website is well designed and very usable, with a good functionality for browsing and searching, especially in women's clothes. It's harder to browse children's ranges because when browsing by height different ranges overlap, and when browsing by item type, not all items are available in all sizes.

There is a very useful "quick look" function which allows the browser to see more of the item's detail in a kind of pop-up window without leaving the page.

There is also an information on whether the item is in stock at the moment, although I found that some things ordered as being in stock still took long time to arrive.

The delivery costs £3.50, while the returns and replacements are free. This is great because it means you can easily order shedloads of stuff and just try it all on in the comfort of your home and then just send back what you don't want.

Deliveries take quite a long time - just like with La Redoute, the packages come from France and take at least a week, usually about 10 days and often up to 2 weeks to arrive.

Bon Prix use Home Delivery Network for their deliveries and you have to use them for your returns too.

The refunds of returned goods are processed in what just about clasifies as reasonable time (I think it's usually done within two weeks, but to be honest I really don't remember as I always pay them by credit card because I over-order masssively and don't like such amounts of money to come out of my bank acccount).

However, if you are returning some items and replacing others, the refund will be made by cheque rather than to your original card, which takes ages and is generally a bit of a pain. I thus never order replacements - I just buy more stuff to start with if I have doubts about which size is best.

Bonprix offers a "Club" subscription, which costs £10 and gives you 10% discount for six months. This can be a good value, but it's obviously better to make your first order to see whether you like their goods before committing to this.

They also have a credit acccount, which, as all catalogue accounts is I think best avoided, but they don't seem to be pushing it too hard - it's quite easy to pay via normal means and there are no sneaky attempts to route you towards paying on account.

At Cahsback kings, BonPrix offers one of the best cahsback rates available at 8%.

Verdict

A good online shop with a huge range of casual clothes at attractive prices, and with designs slightly different from what's available from UK retailers. Recommended particularly for those looking for plus sizes and larger cup bras.

Returns are free but delivery times and refund times are long.

I don't think there is any particular reason for "normally sized" people to seek out Bon Prix, although most designs have a slightly different style to them - some look more like French stuff (cheaper La Redoute comes to mind), some look distinctly Germanic like stuff in the main Otto and Neckermann catalogues.

However, their selection of plus sizes in all kinds of styles and at very reasonable prices make Bon Prix very worth trying for all the fat women out there: nowhere near as middle-aged-country-weddding as Ann Harvey, and not as unthinkingly following even the most unsuitable ideas of "fashion" as Evans or Rogers&Rogers from Matalan. You can buy normal clothes in Bon Prix.