I've very new to this site so please go easy on me! I've been uploading my reviews from Dooyoo to st...
I've very new to this site so please go easy on me! I've been uploading my reviews from Dooyoo to start off with as I've heard this is allowed, so sorry if lots of my reviews come out at once!
Member since:19.08.2009
Reviews:51
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I've always been against Primark. I don't know whether it was because of the fact that I was young when it came to near my hometown, at an age when I wasn't interested in clothes shopping, and my mum used to drag me around the store for hours, or whether it's because I actually am really ethically and morally guided, therefore find it disgusting that someone proved Primark were paying their employee's next to nothing with terrible working conditions and that's why their products are so cheap.
Either way, I don't like the store. I'll admit, I have purchased things from there in the past. The odd £1.50 tshirt, the odd £4 bra, a couple of pairs of socks for 50p.
Quite a lot of people I know love Primark and shop their regularly, always boasting about how cheap they are compared to other shops. For example, a plain tshirt in Primark costs £1.50. The same-looking tshirt in Dorothy Perkins costs £7. The same-looking tshirt in Topshop costs £12. Do these people not ever query why things in Primark
are so cheap? I believe there must be a catch, which is why when someone showed that Primark made their employees suffer awful working conditions with a next-to-nothing pay, I assumed it was true.
The Store Itself. My nearest store is in Ipswich, Suffolk. It's a half an hour drive from my home. I know some of my friends who live a 45 minute drive away yet endure that drive just to shop there. It's not even that much of a pleasant experience.
While Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, for example, most likely charge a bit more because they give a higher quality service, this is where Primark is lacking, and must be one of the reasons why they are cheaper.
In Ipswich, the store is in the town centre. You enter through the big main doors, above which a massive sign presides above, luring customers in. As soon as you walk in, it's controlled chaos. Primark is probably one of the busiest shops on the street, and sometimes I feel like the whole of Ipswich must be in there! It is jam packed full of shoppers, all eager to find bargains.
I don't think the staff tidy the store very often. I've visited Primark at least 7 times in the past two years, each time having been persuaded to go in by my mum or my friends, and the store has always been messy, with clothes flung everywhere, falling off hangers, occasionally laying on the floor. The displays where clothes are usually folded neatly show signs of people picking them up, unfolding them to get a look, then discarding them when realising they don't like them. People rifle through these displays to find their size, as the sizes are laid out poorly (each display is categorised by clothing item and then the sizes are piled on top of each other rather than being categorised by size) creating even more mess, and I've never once seen a member of staff tidying or folding the clothes.
Despite this, I've always found that the pajama and underwear section is very tidy, as I think they have their own separate staff for this department, and as there are less items here, I assume it's easier to control.
The staff in Ipswich are very friendly, I'll give them that. They are all quite young, but not of the intimidating kind and seem to genuinely want to help you (no sign of approaching customers and asking them if they need help though, but I suppose it's not that kind of formal place).
At the changing room, there is always quite a lot of mess, but there is a member of staff to count your items, give you a numbered hook and tell them you can ask for help should you need it, which is nice. It's a shame you can't take more than 3 items into the dressing room however. I feel this needs to be a higher number, considering so many items are very cheap I reckon people will want to try on more clothes, and it is inconvenient to have to keep going back and forth.
When approaching the checkout, the staff are still friendly and helpful, with a "is that everything you need today" query. You can pay by card (although I think the minimum amount is £5), cash or cheque. They bag all your items for you too. Unfortunately, the queues for the checkout in the Ipswich branch of Primark are often horrendous, so this isn't a shop to just browse in on your lunchbreak if you intend on buying. The last time I purchased something I was queuing for 15 minutes. No exaggeration!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Cheap, quick stock rotation, does an interpretation on each season's key pieces Disadvantages: Long queues, messy shopfloor and occasional customer scraps
Frayed 25.07.2005 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Primark (Shop)
Oct 15th, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
