WOOLIES (Woolworths)

Member Name: STACEY0526

Product:	Woolworths
Date:	11/01/09 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: GREAT OLD FAVOURITE

Disadvantages: TOO EXPENCIVE AND BEHIND THE TIMES

Woolworths was a store that I have very fond memories of as a child, My grandparents would treat my brother and I to a bag of pick and mix every Saturday as we took our weekly shopping trip to Hinckley, and as an adult shopping for my little boys first clothes before he was born, and as he got a little older treating him to the many toys they had for sale, with my son only being two when they sadly closed pick and mix was not a tradition I was able to keep up.

The Recent History Of Woolworths.

Woolworths or woollies and it came to be known by the media and public was a British group that owned 800 branches, It was the UK's biggest seller of candy king Pick and Mix sweets and also had its own range of Chad valley toys, Ladybird clothing and the value range of Worthit children's clothes.
Throughout recent history Woolworths has had a lot of competition and has tried to compete against many other stores. Wilkinson's was fast expanding and in direct competition, Argos was growing fast in popularity so in the summer of 2006 Woolworths launched an in store collection service for items ordered on their web site or in store to compliment there already well established indoor ordering system which was soon followed by the big red book which came to light in late September to compete with the already hugely popular Argos book. In the years building up to 2008 the company moved into the entertainment and electronics market the smaller in town stores known as Woolworths would sell a small amount of electronic goods and have a huge selection of cds, dvds and computer games and other entertainment ranges. Other stores were then open on the outskirts of town known as Big W that stocked everything that you would find in the little Woolworths stores and a lot more items that were not available in local stores, the choices in these big W stores were endless.

My Opinion Of Woolworths.

I really liked shopping in Woolworths for toys for my little one but found that they were quite a bit more expensive than their competitors and a bit behind the times. This however did not stop me having a wander around whenever I passed. Being into buying DVDs (I say buying as I rarely get time to watch them) I would always have a look at their collection, although they did have a wide selection it wasn't always a good one. I often scoured the shelves for an old classic but is was very rare that they would have any, if they did it was a lot more expensive than in any other shop that was selling the same film.One thing that you couldn't beat Woolworths on was the a number of old DVDs selling at £1.00 only problem was that I or anyone else I knew had even heard of the majority of titles in the selection. The new selection of DVDs that were selling in the Hinckley branch was very small and very expensive, I do tend to look at the prices of things a lot more now that I have more financial commitments and less money to spend on the things that I would like and as a result of this I can say that I never once bought a new release from Woolworths.

The clothing range
While I was pregnant I went around all the shops in Hinckley (not that many) that would sell clothes for newborns and of course Woolworths was one of them, At the time I found a good selection of clothes that I bought if this had been my second child I probably wouldn't have been so eager. As a first time mum anything that I classed as cute I bought, Compared to other stores yes Woolworths had clothes that I classed as cute but not as much of a range, the prices were more expensive (ladybird range) than other places with no difference in quality and as my little boy got older we found that there were less and less items to choose from, with this factor and the contributing factor that I had to cut down on my spending the less I was buying from there until it became so that I didn't buy anything

Woolworths to me was a shop that will be missed and if it had moved with the times and kept an eye on its prices compared to those of its competitors I strongly believe that it would still be here today as peoples favourite and not an old favourite as people have described it as today. I think that it is very true to say that shop loyalty is a thing of the past, with everyone feeling the pinch if one item in shop a is identical to that in shop b but shop a was charging £3.00 more I think that the majority would go to shop b

Summary: SADLY MISSED