Shopping Heaven? (H&M)

Member Name: GuruOnAMountain

Product:	H&M
Date:	13/11/04 (2745 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good range., Usually reasonable prices., Changing rooms available and are quite spacious.

Disadvantages: Staff aren't particularly friendly, usually., Don't really cater very well for larger sizes., Can take a good rake to find what you're looking for.

I'm not much of a girly girl and although I desperately avoid walking within a 5 mile radius of clothes shops, my big sister usually ends up dragging me into one eventually.

My big sis (having acquired all the girly girl shopping genes in the family) has been a big fan of H&M for quite some time and is forever telling me that it's really cheap, but stocks good quality clothes.

I'd let her drag me into H&M a few times before and to complete my torture had allowed her to convince me that what I really needed was to buy two shirts that have since hung in my wardrobe at home barely worn since.

I should have known better than allow her to lead me towards a repeat performance, but alas, I found myself in H&M once again last week.

Most H&M stores are quite large and stock clothes for men and women. Occassionally, kids' clothes are also sold. Of course, you can find the usual jackets, tops, t-shirts, trousers etc. in stock, but they also sell underwear, pyjamas, purses, umbrellas, bags and other little bits and bobs.

The annoying thing about these stores is that they tend to be a bit disorganised. Some of their clothes are neatly displayed on racks, others you really need to have a good old fashioned rummage through. I've also found that sometimes they'll have racks of clothes high up above other racks. Now, admittedly, I am a bit of a smurf, but I don't really think anyone would be able to reach these without a ladder.

The clothes on sale seem to be a mixture of unwearable tat and nice, fashionable, good quality items. On this particular visit I'd decided to buy a pair of cords. After all, I am a student and need to look studenty! After walking around for what seemed like days with my sister stopping at every rail like a dog stops at every lamp-post, I stumbled across a pile of cords. It literally was a pile, and after carefully extracting my size from the lot without toppling them all over, I headed off in the direction of the changing rooms. On the way, though, I found a rail full of cords for only a tenner a pair, so I hastilly returned my other ones, and picked up a pair of these instead!

On one of my previous visits to H&M I'd had to wait in a queue for the changing rooms for about 25 minutes, but since it was about 4.45pm this time, the shop was dead and I was able to just walk right in. Unnervingly, there were no locks on the doors and fairly sizeable gaps at the tops and bottoms of the doors. However, the changing room was spacious enough and had the necessary full-length mirror.

Finally, clutching my cords under my arm, I headed to the check-out. The cashier was very friendly and chatty, although the other staff I'd bumped into around the store hadn't been half as pleasant. They'd been quite content to push past me without saying 'excuse me' and had made it plain that they just wanted to be at home rather than putting clothes on rails. Not that I can blame them, I've worked in a shop myself so I know it can be taxing, but it really does help to mind your manners and keep a smile on...not only do the customers like it, but it tends to make your day go in that wee bit quicker.

So would I recommend H&M? I suppose as clothes shops go, it's not too bad, but some of their prices were far too high for my liking. They were selling some nice zipper tops that I'd looked at, but they were wanting £29.99 for them, and I didn't think they were worth much more than a tenner. On the other hand, some of the clothes they have are great value. After all, the cords I bought for a tenner were an absolute snip, I feel.

It really is the kind of place you need to take your time in, though, as it isn't laid out all that brilliantly. It doesn't cater particularly to the needs of the larger customer, either, I feel. I have noticed that most stores do have a section for bigger sizes, but the clothes are quite small made at the best of times. I usually find I have to get a size bigger than I would normally. I can fit into the clothes off the rail, but I have went shopping here with some of my bigger friends, and they couldn't get anything to suit them, so this may be an issue that H&M should consider. However, I reckon H&M probably does better than stores like New Look on this issue.

I haven't found the staff in these stores are all that friendly, but they do tend to be a bit more cheerful and helpful than staff at stores such as New Look.

Their pricing isn't always ideal, but they do have quite a good range, and it is usually easy to pick up certain pieces of standard clothing such as plain t-shirts, cords and jeans for next to nothing.

It's definately worth popping in here if you happen to be passing, but I don't know if it's worth going out your way to find an H&M to shop in.

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