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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...to think that a shop selling kids' clothes should be buggy-friendly?

26 replies

Moorhen · 18/09/2007 21:33

New Look have just opened up a big fancy new store in my home town. Went to check it out, and it's designed like the one in Oxford St, eg sections on different levels which can be reached via rather steep stairs.

Saw kids section, which was down said stairs. Only other option was one of those tiny lifts that get put into old shops for prams and wheelchairs when is not possible to redesign shop. And it was broken (in first week, NVG). Nice young assistant offered to help me carry pram down, but honestly... He also confirmed that I was by no means first customer to whinge about awkwardness of layout.

AIBU to think that it is stupid to actually design a shop so that customers with prams or wheelchairs have to fiddle about with crap mini-lifts (assuming they're working), just to keep to the design theme? My local Topshop has managed to install ramps...

Realise this is trivial, BTW. Just irritated.

OP posts:

JackieNo · 18/09/2007 21:35

Monsoon in nearest town used to have kids stuff downstairs (and the stairs were a wooden, open tread spiral staircase). No lift at all. I think they've moved it back upstairs now.

2shoes · 18/09/2007 22:12

I have never understood why kids clothes are always upstairs. I think someone once told me it was for safety. but the dc's I have seen playing on the escalators proove that wrong.

doyouwantfrieswiththat · 18/09/2007 22:17

no YANBU...digressing a bit, but it's along the lines something I heard today about kids involved in interviews to choose teachers, people who don't have to deal with the teacher/child relationship on a daily basis thought it was a marvellous idea...ditto buggies in shops with narrow aisles between displays & lots of stairs...

canmummy · 18/09/2007 22:21

A baby/kids shop has recently opened in our village but you have to go up 4 steep steps to get in?! I walk past often but could never be bothered to get the pushchair in Wonder how many more people walk past - you can't even park outside as it's double yellow lines!

kickassangel · 18/09/2007 22:36

jackieNo, that's exactly like monsoon in cambridge. if it's not too busy they'll 'let you' leave your pram tucked under the stairs, but you must take all your possessions with you, so sleeping dcs, shopping etc. helpful, isn't it?
and what if you're a disabled person wanting to buy children's clothes?

mylittlefreya · 19/09/2007 06:44

I've found what looks like a great clothes/ kit shop - with 3 narrow steep steps. They are doing themselves out of a sale. Many sales.

glitterchick · 19/09/2007 10:15

As far as I'm aware womens clothes will always be the first thing you'll see in a clothes shop its to do with their/marketing sales psychology or some other crap. It is bloody stupid to have a childrens clothes section so inaccessible. Makes no sense but chances are the person who makes these decisions didn't have to haul 4 kids and a double around the place.

saltire · 19/09/2007 10:17

Almost every shop I ever go in that sells children's clothes has them upstairs, with the exception of Asda and Tesco

bozza · 19/09/2007 10:19

It's all to do with getting people in to buy things and marketing and nothing to do with customer convenience - although you would have thought this could be quite an effective marketing tool

MerlinsBeard · 19/09/2007 10:22

childrens clothes are upstairs or downstairs for quite a few reasons...one being that the smaller items are easier to steal so having them upstairs means that shoplfters have a greater chance of being caught by camera/security gurads than if they were by the door

and another is that if the shop is selling predominantly womens clothes then those clothes are what they want you to see first.

It is actualy illegalaccording to disability discrimination act nowadays to have floors/shops inaccesible to wheelchair users. likewise there has to be a certain width between floor fixtures to enable a wheelchair user to manouvere around them

suzycreamcheese · 19/09/2007 10:23

you are not unreasonable

they rearranged our mothercare no stairs but there was just no room to get slim pram through some aisles and look at stuff ... nevermind those big prams and twin ones...

complain and leave...its shit planning

newgirl · 19/09/2007 12:19

if you have time write a letter to head office - they may well install a ramp

flowerybeanbag · 19/09/2007 12:21

Monsoon in Cambridge has children's section upstairs. Stairs are spiral, so no possibility of bumping pushchair up. No lift.

ruddynorah · 19/09/2007 12:22

in zara in leeds kids clothes are upstairs, no cusomer lift at all. you have to go through ladies fitting room, into back stock room area to get goods lift.

GrumpyOldHorsewoman · 19/09/2007 12:23

Jigsaw in Cambridge has the children's section upstairs, and in Gap Kids Baby Gap is upstairs, but at least they have a lift. Cambridge (although I LOVE it) is not terribly child friendly.

alicet · 19/09/2007 12:23

There is a shoe shop where I live that has the childrens shoes downstairs. And when friends have carried their buggy down they got asked to leave it upstairs. Er - No! The stairs are next to the main entrance and I am not leaving my belongings in there for anyone to nick. Thanks!

I have never gone there for this reason.

GrumpyOldHorsewoman · 19/09/2007 12:25

Just remembered Fat Face in Cambridge, too. You have to leave the buggy at the bottom of the stairs. PITA

Cappuccino · 19/09/2007 12:28

I once knocked a display over in BHS cos you couldn't get a buggy through

it was kids socks fgs

I barged buggy into it and it fell over on impact

"There's not enough room here" I said to woman and breezed out

flowerybeanbag · 19/09/2007 14:24

Grumpy - to be fair to FatFace in Cambridge, they've moved now and the kids' section is downstairs, hoorah!

Must name and shame Mothercare I'm afraid - was in there recently, a small one to be fair. Their 'changing facilities' were, er the tiny fitting room. DS was changed on the floor in there, with my backside hanging out into the shop, and lovely aroma of baby poo emanating into the clothes section.
An interested enquiry elicited the information that the fitting room also served as a feeding room.

We don't go there anymore.

brimfull · 19/09/2007 14:25

WE have a toy shop in town where tis bloody difficult to get in and grumpy olg git tuts when you bring a pushchait in.It's hilarious!

stleger · 19/09/2007 14:27

I bet Monsoon in Cambridge is where Snob used to be in the eighties...

flowerybeanbag · 19/09/2007 14:31

Don't know about Snob stleger, but Monsoon is on corner of Sidney St and Market St..

And continuing my vent about the local Mothercare, the same time I had to change DS in the fitting room, I couldn't get my buggy to the fitting room because all their buggies for sale were parked in the way in the aisle.

I shoved them out of the way while muttering something rude...

TellusMater · 19/09/2007 14:35

I read this title and instantly thought of Monsson in Cambridge.

mustsleep · 19/09/2007 14:43

have also noticed that the womens clothes are all upstairs in victoria quarter in leeds

also have you ever been told in ann summers that you cannot take your sleeping toddler into the back bit of the store!!

stleger · 19/09/2007 16:31

That was Snob! I hated the spiral staircase... Does anyone in Cambridge remember Heffer's Children's shop, with all the picture books and baby books downstairs!

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