To Think The High Street Are Shooting Themselves in The Foot (Hamleys!)

[GirlRunning]

I know I know, to an extent its my own fault but we took our children to Hamleys yesterday for a Christmas / Birthday treat with the intention of buying a small toy each. I was well prepared to pay RRP in the store and obviously not get any discount but part of the fun was going to the store.

In the end we chose to get one toy between them which was a Thomas the Tank engine Trackmaster set and was £59. We've never bought anything like this before so didn't know the kind of price it should be but it looked good and decision was made so it meant we could get out of the god awful shop

When I got home and looked it up its £39.99 in Argos! Thats with 20% off so RRP is £49.99. AIBU to be fuming at Hamleys for charging 20% OVER RRP just for the ahem, luxury, of shopping instore?

Its no wonder the high street is failing if they rip people off to that extent surely? We don't live a million miles away so if it had been RRP then we'd have made it a more frequent thing to shop there but there's no way I'm going back there now.

YANBU. I'm buying an x-box game for my nephews and went in store to get it yesterday - £39. It's for sale on the shop's own website for £22. And slightly less on Amazon (with free delivery). So yeah, bollocks to that.

Thought you do end up with the desperate, last minute, lunchtime shoppers, who will just buy it because they don't have time to wait for it to be delivered.

I went to Hamleys last year and found most of the toys massively marked up. (e.g. playmobile which was £60 rrp was up for £90 and other things which were normally about £40 were about £60) I left without buying anything and found the sales assistants a bit 'aggressive' as well - e.g. shooting things at me (not actual bullets!!) I had no kids with me at the time.

I think they relay on the super rich doing all their shopping there. I have seen in mags a few times interviews with people who say they take their kids there every year to buy everyone's presents as they love choosing them. These are always celebs/rich people.

Hamleys is very overpriced now. Noticed it when we went in the summer. Stupidly expensive. Not sure it can be classed as typical high street though.

There is an app for your phone for Amazon. You scan a product and it tells you the amazon price. This is really handy as you can price check whilst in town.

I once looked something up online at Curry's and found it was a decent price. As I live round the corner from Curry's I walked round and found it was £20 more instore! So I got my iPhone out, did 'reserve and collect' and took the item to the till - "hi, I just reserved this online" and paid the cheaper price! Madness.

Sleepy can you tell us the name of that app? It sounds great.

So it looks like most things are over RRP then Mama? Thats terrible. But to be honest it's not even a great shopping experience - like you say people flinging things at you, one lift didn't work etc

Thanks for the app recommendation that sounds great!

Now to add insult to injury I have an advert coming up on the sidebar for the Argos reduced trackmaster!!

Its the amazon app. On the home page its got the barcode scanner. Its a free app that's saved me a fortune.

Sorry to hijack sleepy

Yes, I think people are paying for the 'experience'. (and to be able to say that get the kids to do the shopping in hamleys when they do interviews).

Is hamleys really high street though? I've always considered it an experience and almost a tourist spot but not somewhere regular people do their shopping.

It's like going to Harrods. Only the uber rich actually do any shopping. Btw I'd recommend anyone to try on the wedding dresses in Harrods - they'll escort you to the jewellery section and you can try on ridiculous diamonds in an overpriced and frankly odd wedding dress. Plus you get your very own security guard!

Hamleys' target customers aren't people looking for the best deal - people go to hamleys for the experience. Plus i'm guessing they don't rely on repeat custom. Its hard to say whether yabu without seeing their books - they may be doing very well with their current business model.

Other high street shops have hight street rents to pay so generally have to charge more than online stores and it seems that some online retailers are able to avoid paying tax on much of their profits - that must help keep prices down too!

I remember thinking it was very overpriced a few years ago.
I guess it always has been.

The kids absolutely loved it. My son said he thought heaven should be like Hamleys.
I think it's one of the oldest toy shops in Uk or the world. So, a bit of history.

I agree, I went to hamleys recently when I was in London, I knew nothing would be as cheap as online but I was shocked at the extent of the markup (I looked for specific items and knew the RRP from other places)

A lot of people who buy in hamleys are presumably tourists so won't know they are being ripped off :(

I think it's just Hamleys! They aren't really a typical toy shop! There are two independent toy shops in my town centre. Their prices won't be the cheapest but won't be the most expensive either. They are aware that they are competing against Amazon, Argos etc so they try and keep their prices realistic.

I often get things from local independent shops when I can, and don't mind paying a little more for the sake of supporting them, but I wouldn't do it for hamleys or other massive chains.

I don't really think you can compare Regent Street to an average high street, so YABU.

Every time we've ever been, the place has been heaving with people, there are often queues to even get in. They aren't suffering because of their high prices, so your post makes no sense.

I was in Hamleys recently when on a work trip to London. I had intended to get DS some lego as I usually buy him something when I go away.

Due to DS's lego obsession I was familiar with the prices of various sets and could not believe how much more expensive Hamleys was.

For example the back to the future set was £50 and costs £35 everywhere else I have seen and some star wars ones were £30 or £40 more expensive!

In the end I got him a pack of pokemon cards - they cost £3.99 which is definitely more expensive than I usually (grudgingly) pay.

really puts me off buying stuff as so overpriced.

OP - I take it you have opened the Thomas toy so you cannot return it and buy the cheaper one at argos?