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Original poster

Pandora queue of hell

35 replies

Shmoigel · 22/12/2025 16:47

Today I made the mistake of thinking that I had a little bit of cash to spare. I thought I would do something lovely and get my teen daughter an extra, small gift for Christmas. There were about 20 people in the queue and I had an hour to spare so thought it would be plenty of time to grab a pair of earrings.

One hour later my left eye was twitching, the older lady behind me was incandescent with rage. They had two people serving and the rest of the 10 staff were there to control the queue. About 40 people gave up on buying something.

I didn’t know if they were trying to create an air of exclusivity or the other staff didn’t know how to use the till.

I ended up giving up after an hour and went to H Samuel’s where I got served in 5 minutes flat!

Anyone else experienced the absolute seventh level of hell that is Pandora?

OP posts:
weareallqueens · 22/12/2025 22:42

They definitely do it to give it an air of exclusivity. I actually said to DH today, from nowhere near a shopping centre, ‘imagine the queues at Pandora right now’. They’ll be losing as many customers as they’re getting with their nonsense.

OP posts:
Original poster
Shmoigel · 22/12/2025 22:53

Actually ended up getting her hoop earrings and silver ring for the same cost x

OP posts:
Original poster
Shmoigel · 22/12/2025 22:56

weareallqueens · 22/12/2025 22:42

They definitely do it to give it an air of exclusivity. I actually said to DH today, from nowhere near a shopping centre, ‘imagine the queues at Pandora right now’. They’ll be losing as many customers as they’re getting with their nonsense.

I definitely reckon that is their thought process behind it.

My daughter also has a charm bracelet from Pandora but we got it in Disneyland paris and every time we go she has a charm from DLP
thank god they seem to realise you are on a time crunch in the parks so they serve you mega fast

OP posts:
Chickensky · 22/12/2025 23:19

GingerBeverage · 22/12/2025 20:19

I'm not sure that is genuine Pandora reviews. Don't ger me wrong I don't like or purchase jewellery from them. But if you scroll down from the link you attached you can see the real Pandora with their actual TM reviews with 164k reviews rather than the 2k reviews on the link? 🤷.

Either way it seems from this thread that the in-store experience and delivery isn't great and I'm glad @Shmoigel you got your daughter something lovely from H Samuels.

DressOrSkirt · 23/12/2025 13:36

I used to work in Pandora so might be able to shed some insight, although it's been a few years and I'm sure each store is a bit different too.

  1. You can browse most of the year but you would miss about 80% of stock because there is no space to display it.
  1. You can not browse alone at Christmas because the shop is too small and we need to make sure people are served in the correct order.
  1. There are normally only 2 tills unless it's a massive shop.
  1. Our set up at Christmas was 2 queues - 1 for the tills, so if you knew what you wanted/were just collecting you could join that and let someone know what you are looking for so they could get it ready to go through the till once you get to the top of the queue. The other queue was for if you needed help, this was generally the longer one with more men.
Original poster
Shmoigel · 23/12/2025 23:19

DressOrSkirt · 23/12/2025 13:36

I used to work in Pandora so might be able to shed some insight, although it's been a few years and I'm sure each store is a bit different too.

  1. You can browse most of the year but you would miss about 80% of stock because there is no space to display it.
  1. You can not browse alone at Christmas because the shop is too small and we need to make sure people are served in the correct order.
  1. There are normally only 2 tills unless it's a massive shop.
  1. Our set up at Christmas was 2 queues - 1 for the tills, so if you knew what you wanted/were just collecting you could join that and let someone know what you are looking for so they could get it ready to go through the till once you get to the top of the queue. The other queue was for if you needed help, this was generally the longer one with more men.

This one is huge as it’s the biggest in wales. They had 8 till points but only two were staffed. I bought something a few years ago around valentines as my daughter’s birthday is very close and they had all of the tills open then. This one had one queue outside and one inside.

OP posts:
DressOrSkirt · 23/12/2025 23:33

Shmoigel · 23/12/2025 23:19

This one is huge as it’s the biggest in wales. They had 8 till points but only two were staffed. I bought something a few years ago around valentines as my daughter’s birthday is very close and they had all of the tills open then. This one had one queue outside and one inside.

Edited
Show quote history

That is very annoying and I have no explanation! Our queues did get long enough to go outside as well but our shop was very small.

soupyspoon · 23/12/2025 23:35

Thats interesting OP, one of my colleagues said today she noticed locally the queues were out the door for Pandora and Ive never been in there, not bought anything from them before and I thought it was odd. Clearly always like that.

TartanMammy · 24/12/2025 00:04

DressOrSkirt · 23/12/2025 13:36

I used to work in Pandora so might be able to shed some insight, although it's been a few years and I'm sure each store is a bit different too.

  1. You can browse most of the year but you would miss about 80% of stock because there is no space to display it.
  1. You can not browse alone at Christmas because the shop is too small and we need to make sure people are served in the correct order.
  1. There are normally only 2 tills unless it's a massive shop.
  1. Our set up at Christmas was 2 queues - 1 for the tills, so if you knew what you wanted/were just collecting you could join that and let someone know what you are looking for so they could get it ready to go through the till once you get to the top of the queue. The other queue was for if you needed help, this was generally the longer one with more men.

All the more reason to shop online! I really don't get how this business model is working for physical stores.
I go to the website, pick the bits I like, check out with a discount code so I save myself money and the time of standing in the massive queue.

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