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"Oh these offline shopping reviews are coming in thick and fast now. Today's topic WHSmith as I have just spent my whole lunch hour there without even realising it in the huge Birmingham store.
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What is WHSmiths?
Well this shop to me is like a box of chocolates in that I like all of the products. It always reminds me of a newsagent in store form.
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Where are they located?
If you go into any town or city you should be able to find a WHSmiths lurking about somewhere. They are distinguishable by the big bright blue sign they associate with themselves. I have yet to find a store located in a village but let me know if I am wrong.
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What do they sell?
In these stores you can expect to find the following;
Books There is a good range of books stretching over a lot of categories. When you are in the store you will be able to locate them by searching for the particular genre you are after. All of the stores by me have a great selection stretching from fiction to non-fiction and children's to horror. Also the stores do tend to have a lot of offers on the books quite frequently. Today the offer is take some money off the price of the book so about 1 or 2 pounds or you can have 3 books for the price of 2. I always find the book I am after.
DVDs A decent range of DVDs can be seen. This stretches from new chart releases to older releases and to TV DVD box sets. Also the store occasionally will have special DVDs such as sets with the film and soundtrack included. Today I saw sets with the film and the film adapted edition of the book for a few films for £9.99. I was so tempted but managed to resist. Also they go one step better than HMV with their 3 DVDs for £18 sale. It is easy to find the DVD you are after because you either look in the chart in the alphabetically ordered DVD section or the TV DVD section. The DVDs they have in store always seem to be a good selection.
CDs To be honest the CD section is the only one I will have a little moan about as in all of the stores by me they have not really got a great collection. They have all of the music that is in the chart at present which is the most important I suppose but I always find that CDs are hard to locate and the selection of non-chart music is always a bit pants. Saying that the prices on the CDs are generally fantastic and you can get some right bargains like I found I'm warning you not to laugh straight away an old Britney Spears album there for £3. Now I know you are all going to start saying well her music is only worth that but I like her and that is a bargain and an example of what you can find if you look hard enough.
Magazines They have a very good Range of magazines from women's to men's. I am pretty confident that you will be able to find the one that you are after. I buy around 5 magazines a week and I get them all from WHSmith.
Board games I am not saying they have a great collection but you can buy some board games here. They sell the popular ones such as Monopoly and Cluedo. You can also find travel board games; you know the little magnetic ones so Smiths is always a good shop to go to before you go on holiday.
PC and console games Again the selection really depends on the size of the store but in Birmingham you can find all of the games in the current chart and quite a few older ones to.
Stationary WHSmith excels itself on its stationary selection. You can choose from the cheap stationary, you know what I mean the 99p folders and 49p clear pencil cases but then you can go one better. They sell really nice ring binders with themes such as bright colours or silky textures. These are around £2.99. They also do themes such as stationary with Blue on the cover or Harry Potter. As well as folders you will be able to find the usual such as pens, pencils, pencil cases and mathematic sets. Calculators and I know it's not exactly stationary but things such as briefcases and storage boxes can be bought from here to at reasonable prices. I bought a really nice set of 3 clear boxes for £4.99 about 3 weeks ago and they are of a very good quality.
Cards Any occasion they will have a selection for it. I am talking Birthdays, weddings, valentines and Christmas (when the time comes round) you should be able to find a good selection. All of the cards are price coded with letters and the prices are generally the same as you would find in places like Clintons.
Gifts Gifts are there to buy all year round but especially at Christmas. I have seen oil burners, candle making sets, magazine subscriptions and photo frames. The best gift I have ever had from there was WHSmiths own version of the red letter day. It was £59 for a quick drives gift which you could choose from Quad biking, rally driving or a fast car ride. I cannot tell you what it was like yet as my stupid boyfriend keeps forgetting to organise it, I must nag him about that tonight. Also in these days you can get stuff like cinema tickets and hot air balloon rides.
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What are the prices like?
To be honest WHSmith are reasonably priced. Music and films generally can be found to be the same price as everywhere else and the games are quite cheap. The stationary on the other hand is generally quite expensive but this does depend on what you go for.
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What is the stock like?
Generally it is very good and you are bound to always find what you want if it is a new release. If you do want an older title though then I recommend going to a larger store as they generally have the better stock amount.
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Why buy from WHSmiths?
Well apart from the excellent service and selection of stock, you can also collect club points. The WHSmith card is free and every time you spend you just hand it over to the checkout person and they will swipe it for you. You get 1 point for every pound you spend and 1 point is worth a penny. I know it doesn't sound a lot but honestly if when you need a DVD or CD or a magazine just buy it from there and it all adds up. On the receipt it will tell you how many points you have and how much they are worth. I have £2.77 on mine at the moment which means I can get a couple of magazines for free next week. You can spend the points you earn on anything in store. You can also earn points online so it is brilliant.
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My opinion.
I love Smiths and try to buy everything I can from there so I can earn points on my card. It really does add up and it is always nice to think that you are getting something for nothing although it does take a while to get there. I am quite cheeky and I make my whole family buy things from there so I can have the points.
The stores are generally very clean and the staff are pleasant. In many of the stores, music will be playing at quite a low volume so you can hear it but it doesn't annoy you. Aisles are wide so disabled users and pushchairs are welcome.
Although I love the store I am not going to promise you that they will always have in stock exactly what you want as it just simply isn't true. I am lucky that by me I have quite big stores so the ones in Birmingham tend not to disappoint but in a few of my nearest towns like Walsall and Lichfield, the stores are smaller and the stock is not always great. You can always find what you want if it is in the charts at present but the older stuff is sometimes hard to find.
Also I have to commend the store at the moment for its excellent sale on TV DVD box sets. I have had some bargains. Not only did I get Frasier series 3 for £15.99 and Six Feet Under series 2 for £13.99 I managed to get the first series of niptuck for just £10.99. What a bargain!!!!!
Ok so I have spent some of my wages on DVDs so I am going to be happy for a while so ill see you later, I'm off to watch Frasier. Come on Eddie the Jack Russell my fave character!
;)
