Whittard Of Chelsea (Shop) : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Frequency of visit	Daily
Value for money	Excellent
Selection & range	Good selection
In store customer service	Excellent
Freshness of goods	Excellent

Advantages:	-
Disadvantages:	-

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Now I must say before I start writing that I o work for Whittard, but I am going o give a very honest frank opinion on what I think of my shop.

- Store Layout -

Wow! I used to go in there before I worked there and I was always very impressed. It looks good and other stores need to take note of it. It is always clean, we always clean, all the time, if anything in the store is moved it is given a good clean. Everything is always well laid out. It isn’t shoved on the shelf and we do spend time laying it out. You can always see all the products that you are going to buy, including, china, machines, coffee and tea. I think this is very good as you can, touch and smell what you are buying and see if it is right for you. Not many stores do this these days; you just go in, see it in a box and have to buy it. Being able to see all the coffee and tea is also very good; you can really inhale the smell and see what it is like.

- Products -

There is so many!! I will start with coffee; we have 18 different types of loose coffee and even more pre-packed coffee. The coffee’s are – (numbers are on a strength scale 8 = strong – 1 = mild)

After Dinner ~ 8
Santos and Java ~ 7
Monsoon Malabar ~ 7
Café Francais ~ 7
Old Brown Java ~ 7
Guatemala Elephant ~ 6
Vietnamese Dalat ~ 6
Pico Duarte ~ 6
Pure Colombian ~ 6
Pure Mocha ~ 6
Whittard Breakfast ~ 5
Decaffeinated Columbian ~ 5
Kenya AA ~ 5
Kenya Peaberry ~ 5
Caribbean Mountain ~ 4
Costa Rica ~ 3
Blue Mountain Jamaica ~ 2
COFFEE OF THE MONTH (changes every month ~ medium strength)

As you can see there are loads of coffee. You can buy all the above loose or ground for your machine you have at home (cafetiere, machine or filter and the rest). You can also get them as beans and they come in 125g, 250g or 500g packs. These are not all the coffees; there are also flavoured coffees, instant coffees, and valve packs. If you can’t find some coffee you like here then you must be mad. The instant coffees come in 4 flavours; the flavoured coffees come in about 10 different flavours and the valve packs. They are all at good prices as well and the cheapest is from £1.75 all the way up to £30!!

Tea is also another big seller in store. There are loads to choose from and some stores sell over 100 different styles!! Some of the ones you can get are, Assam, Ceylon, Whittard Original, Spice Imperial, Sticky Toffee, English Strawberry, Earl Grey, Afternoon, and the (world) famous English breakfast. We have only about 20 – 30 flavours in our store, and some flavours (the most popular) come in tea bags, but the majority come in loose tea. Loose tea is always better because you will get a better, long lasting flavour. Tea bags are convenient, but not as good in flavour terms. Prices range from £2 to a maximum of £3.50. The prices for this are very good, and are average. You do get great quality as well.

Other tea. If you can’t have caffeine, then you could always go for the caffeine free selection, a big selection, and loose ‘tea’ and also in tea bags. There is about 15 different flavours and these are even better prices, prices start from £1.75 and go to £. 3.00

China, oh my god!! There is so much, there must be 1000’s to choose from, you could always go for the Tea Clipper Range, which is blue and has various designs, which is my personal favourite, or Amaranta, a floral design or the festive designs, which change every season. Again some of these are my favourites. These are designed by our own artist Beth, and are truly brilliant. The latest ones had clever slogans on “Bring a brollie to the Barbie” or “Lippy, Labels and Latte” and “Cricket, Wickets and cups of teas” are a few of the examples. These are very averagely priced and some are a bit expensive, but prices start (most of the time) at £4 and go to about £10.

Machines. There are so many to choose from, but most stores only stock a few, we have about 10 in store and prices range form £125 all the way to £400!! They do go even higher as well, but we don’t stock them. I personally find Whittard machines very good; they are cool, sleek and look good. They are amazing value as well. You might think, expensive, but when you see what they do, they are much better. On one of the machines there is ‘Free coffee for a year’ (worth £50 - £60!!!). We also offer help to people and they get a one-year warranty. I would have to say amazing value.

Accessories – another thing that we sell, these are for the machines; they range from cups to tampers. These are at good prices and for what you are buying. I am not just saying that, but if I didn’t work for the company, I would defiantly buy these items. Prices are various.

Other – we also sell Ice Tea (see my op), Sweets, Cool Cappuccino, Aerolatte, and lots more stuff. These all range in prices as well.

- Staff -

Personally I think that we are very good, I am always nice (modesty!!). We will always go out of our way to help, and I think this is reflected over the company. A lot of the time, we read in our newsletter that people have sent letters saying thank you. Personally, when I have been in there before I think they have always been really nice, helpful and will always go that bit extra to help.

- Sales -

One thing that really annoys me is when you see shops saying, “CD’s from £2.99 and you go in and you can find about 10 that are crap, or in clothes stores 80% off, and again it is the Woolly neck jumper your grandma wouldn’t be seen wearing. With Whittard you get an honest 50% off (at the moment 75%, yes you heard 75% off). We have had a sale (it ends soon, got your car keys??) and some items have had 75% off, 80 tea bags for 50p! A teapot for £4.50 (£18 normally). I think they do offer one of the very best sales, with out a doubt.

- Overall -

Excellent. 9/10 with out a doubt. Sorry if this seems very biased, but it isn’t, this is very honest and if I didn’t like it, I would have written that.