OK store not the cheapest or the best (Dorothy Perkins)

Member Name: olly374

Product:	Dorothy Perkins
Date:	17/12/05 (3423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good range of clothes and assessories, good suiting, decent customer service

Disadvantages: More expensive than competitors, some stores really badly laidout

I live in West London and therefore have shopped in quite a few Dorothy Perkins over the years, and at one point knew someone who worked in their head office.

Store layout-
In the last 3 years lots of the Dorothy Perkins that I often pop into have undergone a transformation. This transformation involves changing half the store into a Burton menswear store.
This leaves less room for clothes and unfortunately in some highly visited shopping areas such as Kingston-upon-Thames this means that the amount of stock they have in is very limited to either casual wear, or a mismash of casual wear and suiting. As the stock turnover seems to be about 6 weeks this means that you are unable to buy a complete outfit from that particular store and are better of visiting a store in a less popular shopping area to get your outfit.

(Dorothy Perkins has a website which only works in Internet Explorer. The website shows a sample of current stock which means you can get an idea of what type of items the chain is currently selling. However it is impossible to find all the items on the website in one store.)

The store layout of each store is really dependent on how busy it is and whether that particular store is trying to get rid of a lot of sale items. Normally you what think this is due to store size but I have visited serveral stores that seem to me to be of similar size yet the one in Kingston-Upon-Thames seems to be cluttered with a mismash of items thereas the one in Ealing seems to be layout with better planning so you can easily see the different sections of clothing and assessories.

Where the sale items are located depends on the store. Some stores have all the sale items in one place making it easier to look through the rails whilst others place the sale items on the normal rails and just put a reduced/sale tag on that particular item of clothing. The last option is confusing, which makes me believe this is the intention, as you are not always sure which item is for sale and which isn't.

The changing rooms in the stores are normally basic i.e. you have a small cubicle with a curtain, a full length mirror and a few hooks. However the lighting does not distort the colours of clothes.

Clothes-
The store sells clothes in different categories such as petite (for women with an inside leg of 30 inches), maternity wear, tall wear (for women with an inside leg of 34 inches) and regular wear (for women with an inside leg of approx 32 inches).

The store seems to be aimed at women between 21 and 35 years old with a mixture of casual clothing and suiting, and seems to fit those with a pear shaped or hour-glass figure best.

I cannot comment on the range of sizes as I am average sized according to their clothes but I know some petite women have had problems in that their trousers are too long, and other women I know with slimmer figures find their clothes too big on the bust/hips.

The clothes prices are more expensive than lots of it's competitors e.g. a v-neck jumper from Dorothy Perkins costs £12 but you can get the same quality of jumper from the fastest growing chain at £4. This however means the stock turnover is lower and you are more likely to find the item if you go back to the store 3 days later.

The suiting whilst not excellant quality looks good enough if to wear to job interviews and work. The only draw back is that the black suit jackets look cheap. The suits do last a decent lenght of time consisting they are fashionable clothes.

I have noticed that each store seems to have different items in stock, which probably reflects the turnover of that particular store.


Accessories-
Dorothy Perkins are very good with accessories as they sell gloves, scarves, jewellery, belts and bags. I for one particulary like their belts as they usually have a good range in stock. Lots of there accessories seem to be discounted at random times of the year so you can get belts for a £5 and earings for £2.50.


Shoes-
Lots of Dorothy Perkins stores sell shoes. Depending which store you go to the shoes can come from Barratts or other well known-high street shoe retailers. The turnover of shoes if they are the current fashion rage, is high particularly in summer.

customer service-
Lots of the stores employ assistants who seem to be over the age of 20. And some of the assistants definitely don't wear the shops clothes for example I have been served by a woman wearing dungarees which I have not seen a Dorothy Perkins sell for years. This you would think is a bad thing but the customer assistants are polite and seem to realise that it more important to serve a customer than chat with another assistant in the store.

One example of how good they are is that as I have large hands I need to try on gloves before I buy them. I choose some gloves in store and realised that all the gloves had a tag through them preventing me from trying them on. I told an assistant this and she was very helpful in removing the tag so I could try the glove on.

pros-
-good suiting for the price
-range of collections e.g. petite, maternity
-decent and usually polite assistants
-good assessories


cons
-pricey than similar stores
-some stores cluttered and badly laid out with a real mismesh of items
-too basic changing rooms

rating
3 out of 5 for price
4 out of 5 for cheap suiting
4 out of 5 for customer service
3 out of 5 for clothes in general
2 out of 5 for store layout (this is because their is no consistency in the chain with some stores really badly laid out and others looking more spacious.)
2 out of 5 for changing rooms (there are some other stores who are their direct competitors e.g. H & M who ensure that you more than one mirror in a cubicle so you can really look at the outfit.)

Summary: OK store but could do better