AIBU to get INSANELY IRRITATED when using the Boots website

[eveholt]

The Boots website has been a source of sheer anger for me for years (and others, another forum I used to go on had a rolling thread) so this is just another in a long list!
The worst thing to date has been their incoherent listing of kids' clothes in the Mini Club section - if you filter by size you got a few in a handful of sizes then loads with the size "size". Useful.

Today I wanted to buy some plastic bibs similar to ones that I got in Boots before ages ago. Search for 'bib'. Get shown the 'section' of "feeding" > 'bibs and muslins'. Nothing relevant in there. No products that have 'bib' in the description that haven't been categorised into the section "bibs and muslins".

I try 'crumb catcher' as this is the sort of bib it is - no result.

I go into Mini Club kids' clothing (several hundred products), guess 'accessories', scroll down and finally find, in the boy's section, the entirely gender-neutral bibs I want. They have 'bib' in the product title and 'crumb catcher' in the description.

It's almost as if they don't want people to find the thing they're looking for. And don't get me started on the first thing you see when you search "We have 0 articles & videos on 'bib'" before you even see the product results. Who cares about articles and videos?

YANBU. Their app is awful too.

I have no idea why they've had this issue for this long either. It's so frustrating.

@popehilarious so you DIDN'T use it and you actually went to a brick and mortar store like u suggested in my second post? So my advice was spot on?

Life's too short to waste getting irritated at websites for which there are numerous other options.

Boots has one of the worst websites. Items in the physical shop aren't on the site and vice versa. Also not all the local physical shops show up when trying to see if an item is instock (even when they do have it).

*like I

Is Superdrug any better ? I can never find anything in the actual shop either 😬

@Lockheart not sure what you're on about but can you link to those bibs please?

ah yes and even when I want to find the store to pick it up from, the store address doesn't have the town name on. So it's just "16 example street, Big City, postcode" when the store is in a decent-sized town that isn't in the Big City at all, it's just sort of nearby, but has loads of Boots stores within it.

AGREE!!!!
I always see people collecting from boots and I think ... oooh I should order online.
Then I go online and remember exactly why I don’t .

Agree. Irritating website. Wanted to order a few bits that arent in my local small store for click and collect. Logged into my online account first, added about 10 items in total, it said I needed to log in (again). Did that and it said my basket was empty. Added them all again... then there was double of everything! Removed the duplicates and then everything was gone. Gave up in the end!

I agree! Also had problems with clothes.

For ages I didn’t think they sold Chanel makeup on line as you can’t get to it using the menus “all lips” has no Chanel. Even clicking into the brand you can’t navigate to all the Chanel make up. You have to specifically search for Chanel makeup.

There have been other times when I have found something on the website and then I can’t remember how I navigated to it and it is lost forever.

I use my mobile or iPad for shopping so perhaps it is better on a desktop.

@evehoklt plastic (not silicon) sleeveless bibs with a crumb catcher: www.amazon.co.uk/BABYBJ%C3%96RN-Baby-Powder-Yellow-Green/dp/B07MFV1XJ6/ref=asc_df_B07MFV1XJ6/?hvlocphy=1007183&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=310843171112&hvpone&hvlocint&th=1&hvpos=1o3&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-652407145835&hvrand=14207508633294690304

Just Google, there's loads of them.

Its awful, i lost my advantage card and on the website it says in the FAQs to click on the order new card button and fill out the online form to get another but when you click it you get a message saying to call a number 🙄
They also dont expand the delivery section when you are ordering it so if last time you ordered click and collect you have to remember to go into the delivery section and check before you pay. Ive done this in a hurry which meant having to go into town which is what i was trying to avoid in the first place 🤦‍♀️

that isn't a fold-under crumb catcher - please try again

They also dont expand the delivery section when you are ordering it so if last time you ordered click and collect you have to remember to go into the delivery section and check before you pay.

Yes! This is really annoying!

Agreed - the search facility is terrible.

I've stopped using the website because for some reason adding items seems to make it lock up. I've not got an old laptop / browser and it's fine on other websites.

The last time I used it, I ended up having my order doubled and they refused to cancel it. I had to wait till the stuff was delivered then take it back and get a refund, so I was in debt for a few days because of it.

see my old thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3576980-To-expect-Boots-to-deal-with-problems-caused-by-their-website

I use Boots because I like some of their own brand stuff, but I am gradually finding alternatives.

Agreed. I tried to get on there to look at their harry potter stuff & its useless, you press the selection you want and it just keeps taking you round in circles. Never did manage to look at what they have.

If you go to the kids' clothes and see something is on 'offer - 2 for £9' of whatever - that little box describing the offer is a clicky link, so you might expect to click on it and see what items are included in that offer. Don't be silly! It takes you to a login page, where you can log in and view your account. Of course!

the site kept taking items out of my basket as I added new items This happens to me too, every time! It's really frustrating, because I order all my make up in one go, enough to last me 6 months, and then have to go back using the shitty search function and chose the shades all over again. Then sometimes the items that were 'deleted' appear back there at checkout, so I've ended up with duplicates

You'd think a massive company like them would be on top of shit like this.

Superdrug pisses me off too. I wanted to look at what foundation they stocked, but they list every shade of the same foundation individually, so there's like 3 pages of the same frickin' thing! I don't know if it's any different now because I never bothered looking again. What a slog.

*choose the shade

I genuinely believe a better website would help boots fight closure. The same problem that’s hit BhS and M&S will call on them soon and they don’t have a strong enough digital presence to grow. They’re missing a trick against Cult Beauty et al.

But they have that advert about order and collect the next day to make life easy for busy career women or something. Suddenly I needed blusher the next day, could I order it? Could I buggery. I gave up

Even now if you go to 'all baby and kids clothes' there are two separate filters for 'gender' - one lists girls, baby girl, boys, baby boy, and unisex - OK, I guess, if you know where the cutoff is for 'baby' sizing - and the other, much further down the page, lists unisex, baby boy, and baby girl.

The size filter has different listings for, e.g., " 12-18 months" and "12 - 18 months" i.e. one has a space between the 12, dash, and 18, and the other doesn't - it's the same for all ages. Then there's a third "12 - 18 months" where I can't even tell what the difference is between that and the other two.

A child could give those one look and tell you you need to de-dupe your filter categories. And there are still 518 products with size "size".

Come on @Lockheart I'm still waiting for the bibs that meet the criteria I stated, that are apparently 'everywhere'.

(Obviously the retailer would need to sell the other things I'm buying as well, to avoid duplicate postage.)

I agree, on the app it is particularly difficult to shop as well, it's so easy to come out of the mysterious trail of menu options you've gone down and never get back there. I've had better luck ordering in store for out of stock items or things they don't have in that particular store.