Debenhams - WHY?? (Debenhams)

Member Name: Mrs-LT

Product:	Debenhams
Date:	14/02/09 (314 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Restaurant very family friendly, blue cross reductions on premium cosmetics

Disadvantages: Everything else

Debenhams is a really well known department store (although it is currently rumoured to be in financial trouble). They are perhaps most famous for their Blue Cross Events which are on at regular intervals across the whole store offering up to 25% off. This tends to be just 20% off concessions and 10% off cosmetics but either way it does offer a genuine discount on goods that are stocked elsewhere at full price. Their wedding gift lists seem to be very popular but we did not have one (largely to do with the fact that I dislike the shop - more on this below).

Many apologies for the length of this review!

To start with brutal honesty I hate Debenhams. I love department stores in general, but I truly despise Debenhams and will do anything to avoid shopping there unless I have a very large incentive (which means either a gift card as a present or a 20% off Warehouse/Oasis/Topshop event as these are not to be sniffed at!). But largely, Debenhams is just rubbish.

One of my main bugbears is the lack of coherence in their sales. They claim to have up to 70% off yet invariably anything worth buying is discounted by 30% or less. I hate sales for the sake of sales - a sale should only happen to sell off stock (which should therefore be heavily reduced) not to allow you to put a big red sign in the window to attempt to entice customers in....only to find that anything they might want is barely reduced while all the other shops are offering huge savings. Post-Christmas their smellies gift sets are normally 30% off at the most - everywhere else takes off at least 50% so why not go elsewhere? I certainly do!

Debenhams is a department store with the following departments:

-Womenswear
-Menswear
-Childrenswear/Babywear
-Wedding Attire
-Restaurant
-Kitchenware, furniture and other homewares
-Footwear
-Cosmetics/Perfume hall
-Suit hire (for men)
-Accessories (mainly handbags and costume jewellery as well as watches for men and women)
-Children's toys

WOMENSWEAR

Ahh, the home of Designers by Debenhams. Which are actually high street, not designer, clothes. Also included concessions of Warehouse, Jacques Vert, Principles, Topshop and Jane Norman among many others. Basically, OK if you are in a rush or have no stand-alone shops nearby but I would rather see the whole range from each place and therefore prefer the stand-alones. Good when you can get 20% off on Blue Cross days though.

MENSWEAR

Includes Topman and Nike concessions. Nothing to say as I don't buy clothes from here and neither does my husband. Bit of a confusing layout though.

CHILDRENSWEAR/BABYWEAR

I'll keep this short and sweet. Lots I could say but it mainly boils down to one thing. I do not want JUNIOR J emblazoned across my newborn baby's chest. Tacky and looks awful. If you want to dress your children in designer labels have a bit of class - real money means no big brand names on show.

And also, Designers at Debenhams is NOT REAL DESIGNER CLOTHES ANYWAY you know, it is designed and made for a high street shop.

Plus, rubbish sales and actually by-and-large the clothes are not even very nice, label or no label!

WEDDING ATTIRE

Very popular for low budget weddings. And therein lies the problem - it is boring and too common. Local dressmakers offer tailor-made bridesmaid dresses costing the same or little more than the Debenhams ones but largely are far better quality. The material of the dresses just looks cheap and nasty - have a good look and I'm sure you will see what I mean. For flowergirl dresses they are pretty good though.

I would not personally even contemplate purchasing my wedding dress from Debenhams but I know lots of women do because you buy them off-the-peg and they cost less than the designer ones. I think you get what you pay for, but clearly the off-the-peg option is invaluable if you are arranging things in a hurry...in which case definately make a trip to Debenhams as their range is really large.

THE RESTAURANT

Ok, this is the first (and largely the last) very positive part of this review. The Debenhams restaurant is absolutely brilliant, especially if like me you have very young children, even more so when compared with the frankly pitiful offerings of other department stores and M&S. For example:

M&S - does not cater for very young children at all as all they do are sandwich lunchboxes. Very limited choice for adults, it is a cafe rather than a restaurant (Cafe Venue).

House of Fraser - No idea what their children's meals are like as their adult meals are inedible therefore I refuse to eat there (see review of House of Fraser for further details on this).

The restaurant is counter service with a huge seating area. Even at peak times I have always managed to find a space although the tables are sometimes packed too closely to allow good manoeuvrability of our pram.
They have a microwave, tubs, a bottle warmer and little spoons provided for you to heat bottles and baby food - this is fantastic and a godsend in the early days of weaning, believe me! It may not sound a big deal but I have never seen a department store that offers this facility and it is much appreciated.

They are also the only place I have ever seen that offers highchairs for very tiny babies as well as the normal ones for older ones. They are a car seat-style sloped shape and allow young babies to be on eye level with the family as you sit at the table. It is little touches like this that make the restaurant so popular with me and my mummy friends. There are also masses of highchairs so you are pretty much guaranteed one whenever you visit - another stress reducer.

FOOD FOR CHILDREN
The Debenhams restaurant has a pretty revolutionary idea - a pick and mix of healthy finger foods for children. Even for my 8 month old there was plenty of choice. Items included mini cheddars, Organix sultanas, Organix carrot sticks, Walkers baked crisps, fresh fruit, tubs of grapes, tubs of cheese, mini Pepperami, individual Babybel and brown bread rolls. You choose 5 items to go in a cardboard box with VIP on and pay £3.25 for this which really is not unreasonable. You also get free crayons and a colouring book and a piece of fruit such as an apple, satsuma or kiwi free of charge. I think this is a fantastic offer as the food is known brands and the best bit, especially for younger ones, is that as they are individually packaged items you don't have to pre-judge appetite and risk loads of wasted food and money - you just take home anything that doesn't get eaten. You can also get children's hot meals for the same price although we have not tried these. The best thing that we only discovered last weekend is that the current promotion is that when an adult spends over £5 on restaurant food (easy to do if there are two of you) the normally £3.25 kids' meal is only 99p! I mean, who can argue with that?

FOOD FOR ADULTS
There is a wide range of choice, from paninis, jacket potatoes and freshly made baguettes to soup, hot meals and cakes. The choice is unusually wide and of an excellent standard. It all tastes fresh and the jacket potatoes are absolutely delicious! The only thing I was not keen on was the tomato soup as it was bland and tasted processed rather than fresh. The prices are mid-range really. A jacket potato with tuna (no side salad) cost £4.35 and a bowl of soup with a roll was £3.95. So you can get cheaper but not massively as far as department stores go. They sell both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and a wide range of hot drinks.

KITCHENWARE, FURNITURE AND OTHER HOMEWARES

Basically, prices are too high and quality is too low. All the branded kitchenware sold can be bought elsewhere much cheaper. The only way this stuff is worthwhile is when it is massively reduced. We got some great tableware at 70% off and the quality was fantastic....but it would not have been worth anywhere near full price. That said though, they do sell anything you could possibly ever want or need for the kitchen including some really weird and wonderful gadgets.

FOOTWEAR

The women's footwear department is so poor (think really, really dated styles and you're getting the idea) that I have nothing to say about it. There is a Faith concession in the womenswear department but this is only worth a look if you don't have an actual Faith store - if you do then head there for a full range of styles and the student discount they offer (if you are a student of course!).

COSMETICS/PERFUME HALL

This sells brands such as Benefit, Origins, Estee Lauder, Clinique and Dior, but they do not stock MAC products unfortunately. I have always found the assistants to be pleasant but the department seems to be frequently understaffed and I end up wandering round different concessions to find someone to serve me, whereas everywhere else I shop has at least one member of staff per brand ready to assist.

It is ddfinately worth taking advantage of offers on the Blue Cross Days. They certainly don't give you a huge discount (10% off everything) but this in itself is rare as premium brand cosmetics never enter sales in my experience so it may be worth stocking up when you get this discount offered.

SUIT HIRE

I have no experience of this as we used Youngs Hire for our wedding. I have heard mixed reviews but when we looked at the hire department in Debenhams they had a poor range and were priced out of the market by other stores such as Youngs.

ACCESSORIES

Pretty good range of handbags included the gorgeous Radley range.

Costume jewellry - the wedding jewellry range by John Richard is fantastic and there are mega bargains to be had here. This is definately the best range of wedding necklaces, earrings and tiaras I found in any high street store and they do have good sales on this stuff. I got all of my wedding party (female) kitted out from this section and paid next to nothing compared to what others pay for bridal jewellry. I would recommend this bit to anyone.

The range of watches is nothing special and I would give it a miss and go somewhere with a far wider range.

CHILDREN'S TOYS

This is pretty easy to sum up as they largely sell Early Learning Centre toys which are decent if sometimes unoriginal. My honest advice would be visit an actual ELC store as they have a far wider range, but this department is worth a look on the Blue Cross days as they discount products by 10-20%. The January sale is pretty much non-existent here though, sadly.

In the summer it has a holiday shop selling bikinis and beach wear and in the run-up to Christmas it brings out a range of Christmas gifts for all ages.

I will give a brief rundown of all the departments I have had experience with (and largely why I dislike most of them so much!).

OVERALL

I will continue to visit Debenhams to have lunch or a snack in the restaurant if there is a store located wherever I am shopping. However, I will not give it a second look for clothes unless they have a Blue Cross day on and I like something in one of the concessions (not that awful Designers by Debenhams range I hasten to add!) as this is too good an offer to pass up.

I would advise you to give the Weddings department a miss for anything other than flowergirl outfits as the bridal wear is pretty cheap looking. But the wedding jewellry (which is located in the accessories department) is worth more than a second glance!

For menswear there are far better stores catering to a much wider taste and if you buy childrenswear (especially babywear) from the Designers at Debenhams then you are wasting your money - there are far better shops out there!

Summary: If Debenhams did go bust I would certainly shed no tears