As anyone who has read my opinion on Norfolkline will be aware, I am a snob. However, I also like a bargain, which means that I end up using a lot of cheapy products and services, giving me more opportunities than most for snobbery.

One such opportunity is when I visit Wilkinson. Just to clarify, the shop is called Wilkinson, but their own-brand products carry the Wilko brand. Wilkinson has probably been around for getting on for 20 years now, but has only become a prominent name in the high street in the past 3-5 years. It sells just about everything! Departments within the store include a basic range of clothing, home and kitchen ware, garden equipment and furniture, tools, paint and DIY, toiletries, children’s toys, stationery, cards and confectionery. I would not, however, define it as a department store, as it normally only occupies one floor, and the space for each section is pretty small. It is more like the non-food section of a large supermarket.

My personal experience with Wilkinson is largely based in the toiletries department. As well as carrying their own Wilko brand for many products, they stock the majority of well-known brand toiletries, but at prices generally at least 10-20% cheaper than those to be found in Boots, Superdrug, or even Tescos. For example, my L’Oreal Elvive shampoo sets me back around £2.29 in Boots (although admittedly I try to take advantage of BOGOF offers, which they do regularly have in Boots) but can be found for just £1.44 in Wilkinson. Similarly, Tampax Compak retails for £2.69 in Boots, and just £1.99 in Wilkinson. Other bargains I have recently picked up in this department include a couple of shower puffs for 39p each – compared with £2.50 in Boots – and a couple of plastic butterfly clips for my hair for 29p. Even somewhere cheap like Claire’s Accessories would probably charge £2 or so for these. They also sell some medications, such as painkillers, and anything else that you can buy in a chemist without having to ask the pharmacist. Even these come in for the own-brand treatment, and I recently picked up a week’s worth of Wilko’s hayfever tablets for £1.29.

I have had a quick look through the other departments, and similar bargains can be found. A colleague recently bought Wilko’s own version of a large Pyrex casserole dish for £4.99, and we bought some certificate frames for work at just 99p each.

The quality of the own-branded products is as you would expect for the prices: not fantastic, but certainly not complete rubbish! I would personally steer clear of the own-brand toiletries though, as I once bought Wilko dental floss as no others were available, and the quality was very poor so I had to throw it away. When branded toiletries are so cheap, it seems silly to take a drop in quality for only a slight saving.

So, how do Wilkinson’s keep their prices so low? Well, I would assume they do this in two ways. Firstly, the shops generally seem to occupy sub-prime locations within the town. The one in Bournemouth Town Centre is tucked away at the back of a recently refurbished arcade, next to Lidl and downstairs from Peacocks. In Eastleigh and Boscombe, two smaller shopping locations which I occasionally visit, Wilkinson is part of the main shopping centre, but neither of these towns are popular or fashionable shopping destinations, and each of the centres contain a similar range of “cheapy” shops – T. J. Hughes, Peacocks (again!), Lidl (again!), Mark One, Poundstretcher and the like.

Just in case that last paragraph was not snobby enough for you, here’s the other reason they can keep their costs down. The shopping experience in Wilkinson is not pleasant, and somewhat basic to say the least. Despite the Bournemouth store being no more than a couple of years old, all the shop fittings look like they came straight out of the 1980s – metal checkouts with non-moving conveyor belts, and shelving units that are shabby and basic. I would not be surprised if these had actually been acquired second hand from a more well-known chain who have refurbished their stores, and loosely rebranded as Wilkinson (i.e. adding a touch of red!) They also have very outdated tills, and all products are priced with labels, as opposed to barcodes and on-shelf pricing. The whole of the shop has a very warehousey feel to it and décor is minimal. Staff in the store are few and far between, and there are relatively few checkouts in each store, meaning that queuing time can be quite lengthy at busy times. Most staff that I have dealt with have been pleasant and polite, however. For some reason, the store also seems to have an above average number of staff announcements – I am rarely in there without hearing at least one or two. Credit cards are accepted in the store, although staff are required to initial the credit card receipts, which I do find slightly strange.

Something else I’ve noticed is that some of the branded toiletries come in slightly different packaging from those you would buy in Boots or the supermarket chains. I have no idea why this is, but perhaps they are ends of ranges or stock from other countries which they can pick up cheaply, thus passing on the savings to their customers.

Now for my piece de resistance on the snobbery front, so brace yourselves. Something else which ruins my shopping experience in Wilkinson is… the other customers. During the week, this is not too bad – at least not in the Bournemouth store. The majority of customers are people like myself – office workers on their lunch break who don’t like paying inflated prices for branded goods and are prepared to endure the shabby interior of the shop to save a few pounds a week. However, I had the misfortune to shop in the Boscombe store at a weekend and let’s just say that I was very pleased to make my purchases and leave, as most of the other customers were loud, rude and generally unpleasant. I won’t say any more, for fear of offending someone, but I am sure most of you will get the gist! There is a running joke in my office that whenever anyone comes back from lunch with a Wilkinson carrier bag they must hide it under their desk as soon as possible in case someone realises they shop there!

I definitely recommend Wilkinson, but with the proviso that you will not have a pleasant customer experience in the store, and you will not carry the bag proudly down the high street after your visit. You will, however, get some branded goods at excellent prices – and can anyone honestly say that’s a bad thing?