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Original poster

Mothercare. Another one bites the dust.

133 replies

TheQueef · 04/11/2019 09:33

Another 2500 job losses.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50287153

Sad news.
The high street is amassing job losses not unlike the mining and steel industries did.
We need to start trying to counter the unemployment now.

OP posts:
Dandelion1993 · 04/11/2019 12:17

It's a ridiculously over priced shop. I mean the clothes are a rip. Off!

LucaFritz · 04/11/2019 12:33

Not surprised in the slightest everything they sell is massively overpriced compared to their competitors some of it is hundreds of pounds cheaper to buy online like cots prams etc and ive seen plenty of threads on MN over the years about their terrible customer service and repairs on prams. Wasn't there also a thread a few weeks ago where a mum said a pram from the display fell on her baby because it wasn't secured and mothercare did nothing Hmm

Saucery · 04/11/2019 12:41

I have fond memories of Mothercare as they stocked a good range of prem baby clothes which were an absolute godsend when I had my ds. To be able to stock up from a good range with all the other things I had going on was fantastic. Friends and family knew where to go too. I remember the staff asking about my teeny tiny baby too ♥

OneForMeToo · 04/11/2019 12:46

Everything they stocked was cheaper else where and everywhere else had better customer service. I’m not shocked.

The one thing I did ever get was measured for a feeding bra, by a blooming 16 year old.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 04/11/2019 12:49

Aww my favourite mothercare memory was them sending me a letter congratulating me on ten years service and looking forward to many more.
On the day they made us all redundant... Grin

SoyDora · 04/11/2019 12:58

Ah I’m actually quite sad about it. We live nowhere near a John Lewis so mothercare is the only place nearby where i can actually go and look at/try out items. Ours is clean, well laid out and the staff helpful.
It also has a Clark’s in and being on a retail park it’s much easier to take the DC there for their shoes (no parking charges, can park directly in front of the store) than it is to go to the other Clark’s which is in a massive shopping centre (£3.50 to park for an hour!)

PixieDustt · 04/11/2019 13:02

Not surprised really. It's over priced in there anyway. A top for DS is about £16 in there!

JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff · 04/11/2019 13:17

Not surprised. My local one existed in a city centre mall - I was always popping in there for bits and it was always busy. Then they relocated to an out of town retail park, due, I think, to lower rents. The store is lovely and bright and helpful staff, but it's a pain to get there. And then, the stock is rubbish. They didn't have any nursing tops when I went in once - another time, in February, they didn't have any children's cardigans or jumpers at all as 'we've moved on to summer stock now'.

That said, favourite memory- we tried for ages to have DD1 and at the start of the pregnancy, I had a big bleed and we were told we had probably lost her. Whilst I waited for the EPU scan to determine if she'd survived or not, I went to Mothercare and bought a single cuddly baby towel with a duck hood. If she hadn't made it, that was going to be my one memento of her, the one thing I would ever buy for her.

......In fact, she did, and that towel is still being used today by her toddler siblings!!

dipstyque · 04/11/2019 13:24

It'll be tragic if ELC go.
I really like Mothercare in theory, great place with everything if you're expecting your first baby and need advice and everything under one roof. Maternity stuff. Invaluable to test out pushchairs, travel systems and look at mattresses, get car seat guidance, feeding bits. I like the clothes too especially the not going overboard with pink/blue for baby clothes.

In reality the car seat advice was crap, customer service was crap. One I went to does do kids' haircuts and has a cafe which is good. I will actually miss it as there aren't that many places that do decent young kids' clothes.

Frith2013 · 04/11/2019 13:34

When I was literally penniless, I used to take my 2 into a large Mothercare store not far away. We’d sit on the sofa upstairs and read all the stories, browse the clothes, sit on the “car seat” where you could clip your potential child seats on and test out the sit on toys! They had a tree with moving animals that we’d play with for ages.

Luckily no staff member ever suggested I had to buy something.

ifigoup · 04/11/2019 13:36

I’m not surprised it’s gone. In principle our local one was brilliant, with a feeding room, family loos, etc. In practice these were always absolutely filthy with a permanently-broken bottle warmer.

The customer service was also atrocious. The people on the tills were slow, rude, and knew nothing whatsoever about their stock.

It was way overpriced, with horrible frumpy maternity wear; and (apart from the Little Bird stuff, which I do like and hope will be available from elsewhere) the kids’ clothes were ridiculously gendered.

OneForMeToo · 04/11/2019 13:36

ELC was sold off to the entertainer wasn’t it?

MNHQ
RowanMumsnet · 04/11/2019 13:54

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff

Not surprised. My local one existed in a city centre mall - I was always popping in there for bits and it was always busy. Then they relocated to an out of town retail park, due, I think, to lower rents. The store is lovely and bright and helpful staff, but it's a pain to get there. And then, the stock is rubbish. They didn't have any nursing tops when I went in once - another time, in February, they didn't have any children's cardigans or jumpers at all as 'we've moved on to summer stock now'.

That said, favourite memory- we tried for ages to have DD1 and at the start of the pregnancy, I had a big bleed and we were told we had probably lost her. Whilst I waited for the EPU scan to determine if she'd survived or not, I went to Mothercare and bought a single cuddly baby towel with a duck hood. If she hadn't made it, that was going to be my one memento of her, the one thing I would ever buy for her.

......In fact, she did, and that towel is still being used today by her toddler siblings!!

Think I've got something in my eye @JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff

AmIThough · 04/11/2019 13:58

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff someone's chopping onions in here... that's amazing!

Dirtyjellycat · 04/11/2019 14:08

I used their personal shopper when my LO arrived and she was amazing. We adopted our son at 8 months old, and it all happened much faster than we expected. We had assumed we’d be matched with an older child and had been reading up on toddlers so were completely clueless about babies. The personal shopper was brilliant and when I went to pick up some items a few days later, she had left me a list with details of local groups and useful Facebook groups. That was well beyond the call of duty and I was so grateful to her.

maggienolia · 04/11/2019 15:38

It's sad but not surprising

The first item that I bought was an outfit from there in 2003 when pregnant with DS1. Sadly he never lived to wear it.

A lot of DD1s stuff came from there but it had gone downhill by the time that DD2 arrived.

BorisJohnsonsModelBus · 04/11/2019 16:06

I was pregnant at 17, but decided I wanted to keep my baby. To make it 'real', I went into Mothercare and bought a tiny yellow jacket. I hid it in my bedroom, because I hadn't told my parents yet.
I still have the jacket, put away. And my baby just graduated University :D

Original poster
TheQueef · 04/11/2019 17:12

It was a right of passage to go choose your pram and cot from Mothercare in the 80's.
Everyone looked forward to it.

OP posts:
bakingdemon · 04/11/2019 17:15

For my mum it was the go to place for me and DBs and so it's where she got all the bits for her GCs (high chair, cot etc) to use at her house. For us? Not so much. I think I ordered one piece of nursery furniture there solely because IKEA didn't deliver it and otherwise we could get it all cheaper/nicer elsewhere. I went into our nearest one (in a v big mall) when DC was about four months old and I needed some clothes in the next size up, but the store was horrible (narrow aisles, hard to get around with pram, messy) and I didn't like any of the clothes at all.

I have happier memories of hanging out at the Early Learning Centre when I was about 6 and playing with all the little plastic animals.

Hedgehogblues · 04/11/2019 17:20

Way too expensive for me anyway

user1497207191 · 04/11/2019 17:24

There used to be local/independent pram/cot shops until Mothercare opened up in every town and forced the independents out of business. It's just evolution - what goes around, comes around.

NotMeNoNo · 04/11/2019 17:27

I'm not surprised. 13 years ago when ours were babies, I was looking for reusable nappies, slings, organic stuff, (yes I was very PFB) a Phil and Ted's buggy not a travel system. Ended up buying nearly everything cheap and cheerful from IKEA or from online suppliers. Mothercare just seemed to have an old fashioned, conventional stock range. Or endless overpriced matchy nursery ranges. If you have babies in tow online shopping is really appealing.

Cocoaandbedsocks · 04/11/2019 17:30

It doesn't surprise me at all - I'm amazed they've lasted this long. I was a Mothercare store manager but left twenty years ago. Their stock control was shocking both in terms of amount of stock held and stock availability.
I have to defend the car seat training though as that has been criticised several times on the thread. Obviously things may have changed but certainly when I worked for them we spent a lot of time training staff how to correctly fit car seats and they would practise over and over again. It wasn't just a quick ten minute training session.

Chottie · 04/11/2019 17:49

I can remember DSiL making an emergency dash to Mothercare to stock up on first size babygros. The staff were really helpful.

I really like the Little Bird range too. I've shopped on and off in Mothercare for 40+ years from the birth of my first DC to the present and the birth of my GDC. I've always found the customer service excellent.

Beyondexhausted19 · 04/11/2019 18:09

2 yrs ago when I was expecting dd I saw the silver cross pram. I liked in mothercare.
Great deal, free car seat, bag and cozy toes.
The delivery was awful. Given 4 seperate dates. 1 for bag. One for chassis, one for car seat and one for apron pack.. Spread over 5 weeks!
They tried to deliver 1st part to wrong address.. After lots of faffing and 1.5 hours on the phone to mc and the parcel people I demanded a refund

Went to john Lewis.. They didn't have the bag offer but rest they did. Ordered at 3pm..collected the next day at 12pm..

When it came to dds cot.. I loved a mc one but after the palaver before I wasn't even going to attempt it.