I don't like it either, it's a horrible shopping experience and I've never seen anything I'd consider wearing in any branch. All blingy Eurotat with logos on or very mumsy. All the stuff reminds me a bit of M&S' s hideous Per Una range.
<div><br></div><div>Me three - the one in Wood Green is my idea of Dante's Inferno.</div><div>The one on Charing Cross Road, where Books Etc used to be is also pretty crap.</div>
Wood Green TKmax is terrible. I think there's good stuff to be found at good prices but I think as soon as you get your stride on some vulture seem to descend. What I mean is that there are probably only two other people on the same rail which is about 10 metres or more and then you see some interesting stuff and they start to come up to you and searching right beside you thinking you've discovered gold. And I mean I've had people vultures checking out something right beside what I've been looking at. Basically people with no social etiquette. Once a year I try it out and leave after about five minutes.
I love TK Maxx, Most of my wardrobe is from there. Always good for cheap skate shoes...<div>Must admit the one in Wood Green is particularly hellish, the one on Kensington High Street though is very different.</div>
As in Sainsburys Green Lanes?<br><br>I always though TK Maxx was rubbish but the one in Wembley is actually quite good, it's brand new so hopefully this one may be ok?<br>
They can be very hit and miss. I agree that the one in Wembley is great, well run and laid out. It is especially good for gifts at Christmas and I have got good deals on normally expensive brands of nice hand creams or bubble bath. However the one in Ealing Broadway is horrible and looks like a badly run jumble sale!
Made out like a bandit on Hope & Greenwood style jars of sweets one November in the Wembley branch. Agree that the High St Ken one is surprisingly nice. Could go either way!
I worked for the Hope & Greenwood pair for a while a few years ago in their head office, I would never buy their overpriced sweets! The chocolates are bought in from a factory in Park Royal but they pretend it's all homemade and the sweets are from the same Watford warehouse that all the corner shops get them from. All Emporer's new clothes. They treated their staff very shabbily.
<span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Oh, live a little and stop finding fault with everything. The point of sweets like that is that they make good presents. I wouldn't buy them for myself, but presentation delights some people more than actual content. And in this case they </span><i>were</i> cheap!
For the last couple of years, I've done homemade Christmas gifts. Not really a fan of the sort of holidays that necessitate going into the overdraft, but what can you do. People give you things, and you have to give them things in return.<br><br>Anyway, homemade gifts. I can't sew or knit, nor can I afford to buy nice fabrics and wool. So I bought some cute boxes and jars, and I baked stuff and made various sweets. It took forever and cost more than if I had just bought stuff.<br><br>Homemade gifts are great if you're a small child or a professional cook. For the rest of us, there's always Ikea jars and Lidl cakes.<br>
That would be H&G Misscara. I do the buying the same sweets from the 99p shop and sticking them in a sterilised jam jar number myself these days. Pop a bit of ribbon and a nice sticker on and bob's your uncle. Agreed it makes a nice gift, and has the added benefit of saving stacks of cash!
Having worked closely with that pair of bandits (I invented their Tuck Shop Jar), I feel able to find fault, both in their products and the way they treat employees. I don't expect everyone to feel the same as it's just my personal experience.
Thanks Mirandola, I'll nip in there tomorrow. I donated heaps of Monsoon stuff there a few years ago, nice to know that other people are still donating good quality items - so often it's all Primark in the charity shops these days.
One of my pals found a limited release Bruce Springsteen album for £3 in a charity shop in Islington, sold it for £420 on ebay. He knows what he's looking at and unearths unlikely treasure all the time.
Oxfam have experts sorting their stuff, vinyl and books especially. My pal finds the most amazing vinyl and favours animal charity shops. He made enough to buy a nice car with a couple of obscure 80's albums last year!
The Red Cross shops are the worst for pricing, they currently have Steve Madden shoes for £4 a pair and Primark jobbies for £10 in Holloway Rd. I pointed it out, they couldn't be less interested.
What annoys me is that if someone was going to spend £25 on vinyl they'd have at least a small amount of knowledge on the subject. Enough to know they could get it cheaper elsewhere.
The whole joy of charity shops is finding a vinyl album, cd, book ...for next to nothing. Someone in the volunteer group I am active in told me of his involvement in charity shops recently and he said the one he got involved with recently was as businesslike as Starbucks.
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