A Cracker at Clintons!! (Clinton Cards)

Member Name: kiss_me2070

Product:	Clinton Cards
Date:	06/11/08 (187 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Large selection of cards, Large Choice

Disadvantages: Over-priced and Xmas takes over!

Clinton cards is the biggest greeting card retailer, with over 700 shops!

They have a shop in nearly every town, in fact you may even find that in some towns they have 2 shops! Clinton Cards are also part of Birthdays! They are owned by the same people (Don Lewin)!

***WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY SELL***
* Cards (Obviously) - Cards for EVERY occasion including Thank You, Wedding, Anniversary, Graduation, Birthday Ages, Mum, Dad, Nan and other family cards. Humour cards, Blank Cards, Love Cards, Photographic Cards and more and more!
* Gifts - They sell gift-cards which can be used at selected shops, Mugs & Glasses, Forever Friends/Character gifts, Frames, Albums, Bags/Purses, Unusual Gifts, Baby, Wedding, Birthday and Anniversary Gifts.
* Party Items - This includes balloons, banners, badges, party poppers, glow-sticks, napkins, paper plates and more.
* Gift Wrap - Single Sheets of Paper, Rolls of Paper, Gift Bags and Gift Boxes, Bows and Ribbon, Tissue and sellotape.

***ME TO YOU RANGE***
Clintons have stocked the Me To You Range for years now and always have a large range of this in most of their stores. Its a lovely collection of bears which are grey with a little blue nose. A lot of people collect these bears and they are very popular. At Christmas they also do Limited Edition bears and bears wearing duffle coats and Santa hats.

***FOREVER FRIENDS***
Clintons also stock a large Range of Forever friends which have been around for a very long time. I'm sure many of you will have heard of them and know what I am talking about. Again they do a large range of bears and gifts in this range and also have limited edition bears and themed bears at special times of the year.

***CHRISTMAS***
Clintons sell a VERY large range of christmas cards, and wrap. They also sell a large range of packs of Christmas cards. How-ever christmas seems to over-take the stores and all the normal/every-day cards are cut down in order to make way for christmas, so it is quite hard to find a decent card from November!
I have also noticed that a lot of the cards are repeated every year! For example, when I was looking for a Nephew's first christmas card last year, they were the same designs as they were when I worked there pver 4 years ago!


***PRICES***
I find Clintons can be quite expensive and the prices are forever rising! When I first worked here the cheapedt card was about 0.99p and now the cheapest card is probably about £2.00 for a decent, good quality card! Their cards can range upto at least £6.00!

Wrap has also risen, as when I workd here the cheapest sheet was 85p and now the cheapest sheet of wrapping paper they do is over £1.00 each! Rolls of paper range from about £2.00 - £3.00 depending on whether the paper is plain or whether it is embossed or has a special design on it!

***QUALITY***
Some of their products are very good quality and look very nice, but other items do look quite cheap and tacky like some of their anniversary and baby gifts. A lof of their products also sit on the shelves for a long time so when you go to pick something up, some of the items are quite dusty and dirty!

The paper is very good quality and is quite thick and doesn't tear when you try to wrap presents unlike some paper you can buy from markets which feel like tracing paper!

***SHOP LAYOUT***
Everything is fairly easy to find, as they have signs which stick out from the card sections showng you which sections are where! Some of the shops look very neat, tody and spacious but some of their shops do look quite old and dirty and some of their shops are quite cramped and its hard to get a push-chair into them!

***CUSTOMER SERVICE***
I dont find that their customer service is brilliant, some of the staff look really grumpy and unhappy and I wouldn't like to approach some of them if I needed help or advice about something! How-ever at christmas they do try to serve you as quickly as possible in order to keep customers happy and queues to a minimum!

***MY OPINION***
I can't say I'm a huge fan of Clintons. I prefer PaperChase or WHSMITH's instead. I find some of their competitors a lot cheaper and their staff a lot more helpful and happier. I only ever really go to Clintons if I'm walking past and need something last minute or if I can't find what I''m looking for anywhere else!

Summary: Cards for every occasion and the odd tacky gift to match as well!!