Strange days indeed - in praise of B&Q...

randella

...or 'Orange Hell' as I've preferred to call it down the years.

Anyway, I had a good whinge about them the other day so in the name of balance, thought I'd report on a little trip I hadn't there today. I never thought I'd be doing this. 

Had to get some paint mixed.  The guy had my name on the computer, mixed me up exactly what I wanted, was meticulous about his work, and gracious and chatty with it. They even have little stools like a bar that you can sit at. 

Went to to get some sanding pads - staff member spotted straight away I'd absentmindedly picked up the wrong ones and, unbidden, pulled down the proper kit for me with a smile. 

Woman at the till was friendly, smile and a greeting. All this sounds ridiculous - it's customer service 101 - but given the appalling, depressing state of it before, it's a revalation. Fair play to them.

I still came out with a handful of stuff, £85 lighter with a bemused look on my face, but they gotta start somewhere I suppose.

DefaultM

Surprised you managed to find a member of staff. Every time that I go in its so huge that I can't find what I want, and I have to walk up and down the aisles for 20 minutes before O find someone who can show me.

randella

You know, it probably helped that I went in at 11am on a weekday, but nonetheless there were plenty of bods in orange aprons milling about the place. I suspect the yearly profit announcement may have something to do with it. They've closed a bunch of them near me and all of a sudden they've learned how to treat customers well in the one that's still open. 

boogieman

Funnily enough we were in there today too. Pretty much the same experience for us : lots of smiley staff round the place and a friendly cashier. Spent £150 but their prices are pretty competitive at the moment, even cheaper than Screwfix on white trade emulsion. 

TTony

Now wake up.

Nitefly

Don't go in on a Wednesday unless you're over 60.

dogload

Nitefly said:

Don't go in on a Wednesday unless you're over 60.

I was wondering if this was when this miracle occurred!

randella

dogload said:

Nitefly said:

Don't go in on a Wednesday unless you're over 60.

I was wondering if this was when this miracle occurred!

Hah! Cheeky. I've a couple of decades yet. 

I'm still reeling to be honest, maybe @TTony is right and it was all a vivid dream. I'll have to check my bank statement on Monday. 

@boogieman you know Screwfix is owned by B&Q? I didn't until me dad pointed it out a year or so ago. It's a clever marketing position they've given Screwfix, making it feel more like trade when in reality, like you've found out, there's very little difference in pricing. 

boogieman

randella said:

dogload said:

Nitefly said:

Don't go in on a Wednesday unless you're over 60.

I was wondering if this was when this miracle occurred!

Hah! Cheeky. I've a couple of decades yet. 

I'm still reeling to be honest, maybe @TTony is right and it was all a vivid dream. I'll have to check my bank statement on Monday. 

@boogieman you know Screwfix is owned by B&Q? I didn't until me dad pointed it out a year or so ago. It's a clever marketing position they've given Screwfix, making it feel more like trade when in reality, like you've found out, there's very little difference in pricing. 

Yeah, I knew that. They also own Tradepoint, different prices again but actually based in the same building, madness! I usually find Screwfix are still cheaper on a lot of things than B&Q, especially things like ummm.....screws. Lol. 

hywelg

Screwfix is intensely annoying. You have the semblance of service but are forced to give your personal details and wait for seemingly ever in a queue.  Oh and when you get to the counter there is always something on your list that is not in stock, meaning you have to go somewhere else. Might as well just have gone to the other place first. 

boogieman

hywelg said:

Screwfix is intensely annoying. You have the semblance of service but are forced to give your personal details and wait for seemingly ever in a queue.  Oh and when you get to the counter there is always something on your list that is not in stock, meaning you have to go somewhere else. Might as well just have gone to the other place first. 

They do a personalised customer card now, so no need to give your details more than once, they just swipe your card at the till. Yeah, they go out of stock on things occasionally but then what shop doesn't? And usually they'll get it for you within 24 hours and then text you when it's at the branch. Better service than most of the DIY sheds IME. 

cacophony

i went in b 'n' q last week. needed tiles to finish a job. knew which ones i wanted so went straight to them, loading up my heavyweight trolley thing, i noticed that mixed in with the gloss finish ones, were some near identical, but matte finish tiles, with a different serial number on the box. anyhoo went to pay and said to the doris at the till, "wrong stuff in that pile , matte etc someone will be mightily pissed off when they got home and find they've got half matte half gloss. needs sorting" she looked at me and literally said "meh..." and carried on checking out my tiles. looked back as i left and she was serving the next punter,not interested.

hell in a handcart etc etc.

Sambostar

I like Screwfix, I walk in, I know exactly what I want, I'm covered in shit and I smell and I look wild and I tower above all retired type mischlings who are milling about, confused about how Screwfix works or what plumbing fittings they need or how to return something they've just bought because they don't know what they want or are buying.  As said the card thing makes it a lot easier as previously I used to walk over to the order cashier and just spout my postcode before they even said anything and wait and then give my order numbers written in carpenters pencil on the back of an old receipt

No, I don't really like Screwfix, I prefer honest builders merchants like Elliots but Screwfix and Toolstation are cheaper on the Chinese crap.

The only time I go into B&Q is to cart 375kg of cement out on a flat trolley that looks like it's going to break to the Tradepoint desk again looking and smelling and covered in shit, but I only do that because my planning is so poor and I like to take a bigger cut on materials if I'm in the area because Tradepoint do cheap cement.

As for actual shopping, little bits and pieces, I'd never consider B&Q etc unless they had a catalogue and I knew exactly where it is as it's a massive waste of time as their bits and pieces and materials are all crap too and to be honest, all these places, including Screwfix and Toolstation don't stock the specialist stuff you need, so it's easier to just order it online and get it in the post or go down your local timber yard or builders merchant.  I go to the local imported stone merchants for tiles and paving.

I also go to Brewers which is a trade decorators place for paint or polish and stuff for the flat.  I did go to B&Q once for paint though, after thoroughly researching it online and put it through Tradepoint, although I see In-Excess is doing cheap Crown paint now as well, although honestly, I find that place is another curfuffle jumble full of confused, mumbling people, milling around and bumping into each other whilst looking for a beacon of spiritual guidance or a reason to live.

If I want tat, I get it out of a skip or make it or get given t from someone's garage or house clearance, I would never buy it.

Even the sanitary porcelain in the toilet came out of a skip and I ordered the fittings that came off the back of a lorry from ebay for a tenner.

If you don't know what you want or can't grasp how fittings and things fit together then no one else can help you and all the muzak and visual information and staff will do to help is confuse you further and lead you further away from your spiritual self.

You see, I don't expect to go into a high end guitar shop and start cursing at the staff or blaming the instruments for the fact that my Bluegrass cross picking sucks.

Well then.  Sheeple.

Thing is B&Q has a hot dog stand in the car park as well, it's tempting but frankly the only way they'd get me in there regularly is if they had a Hooter bar and grill in Isle 15 and even if, it's still cheaper at Lidl's and knocking one out online, no I'm sorry I am a tight fisted sociopathic independent hermit who cannot be converted.  B&Q aren't even in the same league as me.

Sambostar

Look at Boneo, look how confused he is.  Do you want to end up like that?

No.

randella

Well that escalated quickly

randella

FWIW I still prefer the local ironmongers above all else. I'm still on speaking terms with one of them even though I realised much later the guy couldn't work the till and ended up charging me a tenner for a tube of Gripfill. 

boogieman

randella said:

FWIW I still prefer the local ironmongers above all else. I'm still on speaking terms with one of them even though I realised much later the guy couldn't work the till and ended up charging me a tenner for a tube of Gripfill. 

Our local hardware shop went out of business last autumn. Not surprised really, he was the biggest crook going. He'd try to shortchange you, everything was hugely overpriced and a lot of his stock looked like it had come from the 1970s.

I like old ironmongers shops though, I used to work in one as a Saturday boy in my teens, a proper old place where the staff wore brown shopcoats and the stock was all in cupboards and drawers behind a counter, bit like the Two Ronnies four candles sketch. The whole place smelt of linseed oil and paraffin. 

vale

i'm seriously seriously surprised you got good service in any of those industrial estate warehouse places at the weekend of all times. my friends & i used to do weekends&hols at them when we were students (pcworld, b&q, halfords, etc, they all merge into one striplit hell) & it was basically hangover central on non-weekday shifts. we would happily get blasted until 4am & be in propping up the tills at 8am, false eyelashes, fishnets & red eyes.
& the advice! people used to come into the diy shop (will keep name out of it) where i did a summer & ask for advice about how to install a new cooker. & guys from my college who were doing art or music courses (eg basically clueless) would send them home with doorbell wire.
funny at the time but, thinking about it now, probably not that funny if they took that advice at face value & burned their house down. you got off lightly!

Sporky

I like Screwfix, but only to order online then collect. That's an ace system.

randella

@vale having done my fair share of similar jobs I'm generally sympathetic to the zombie wandering the aisles in uniform still half-pissed from the previous night.

I hate the places, the people working there hate the places. If I was a shareholder I'd probably like the places but I'm not so I don't. Work out exactly what it is you need, steel yourself - military precision. In and out. 

It it was a Friday a.m. I was in there, I think this is probably the key to the whole matter. 

randella

Sporky said:

I like Screwfix, but only to order online then collect. That's an ace system.

Argos have a similar system, until you realise that every product you've so slickly purchased has been bought, used and returned by at least two people. 

I've never tried it with Screwfix - I've had a couple of things delivered to the house, including a bloody heavy air compressor, which they did very efficiently. 

I had a right ordeal once in my local Screwfix. I went in my decorating gear, and another customer mistook me for a professional and started asking me complicated questions about 15mm-to-microbore compression fittings. Safe to say I've never felt more inadequate.