~ Have you ever bought any M&S Kidswear? What's your overall opinion of it? If you're a regular buyer, what makes you buy? If you're not, is there anything specific that's stopping you? What other brands/shops do you buy kids' clothes from?
I have - but not as much as I thought I would if that makes sense (I get quite a few of my own clothes from M&S, had lots of M&S stuff when I was a kid, assumed I would get stuff for my kids from there too)
part of the problem is that I have boys - and there's usually only a fairly small selection of boys clothes in comparison with the girls selection. OK so most shops are like this - but it still means that I have less choice when actually in store. And it rankles - boys still need as many clothes as girls, and if it rains then they need a raincoat/mac/kagoule as much as girls do (or coats when it is cold) and yet there is usually very little selection, whereas the girls have lots of different styles and colours, so if one is the wrong shape or colour you have a chance to find something that works for them - whereas for boys - there is a much reduced choice and so much less chance of finding stuff that is right.
Another problem is the bad cut of M&S kids clothes - particularly the cardigans I've had in the past - they all seem to be very short bodied and long armed. WHich means they just look wrong - either the arms fit and the body looks much too short (and for when they are young it's a pain as they then get cold around the middle, plus their tshirt tends to be showing beneath it so it just looks messy or again contributes to the grown out of look) or if the body is right the arms are much too long and difficult to roll up easily.
I've also had problems with tshirts that have things printed on the front - which seems to be most of them these days. Some wash fine and a year or two down the line still look as good as new, which is great and what I expect from an M&S tshirt. Others unfortunately start to crack, peel off and wear badly after the first wash and very soon start to look very scruffy. There's just no way to predict which will wear well (and I would pay a tenner for) and which wear really badly and are worse than something I've paid £3 for in Asda or Sainsburys.
Yet another problem is availability - for some reason there must be lots of people who have kids my size that decide to go shopping for the stuff I want the day before I do as there always seem to be hundreds of things in other sizes and nothing in the sizes I want. Take yesterday - I was in my local M&S (large branch in Milton Keynes shopping centre) and thought I ought to get some underwear for the boys. No pants for one of them (age 4), other one age 7 there were very few options, several different things I would have bought but nothing in his size. Likewise socks, I was incredibly limited in the choice I had in my size - even though there seemed to be a whole rack of lots of different things - only 3 or 4 sets of socks in total for the ages I wanted. other ages had rows and rows. ds2 wore his new socks today - he saw them, loved them, which was great so I opened them and put them on. Except they fit him just right, now. Socks always seem to shrink in the wash so soon I expect they will be tight. But - these were age 3-6 socks and he is just 4 (and 2nd percentile for his age so tiny and with small feet for his age) - there is no way they would have fitted his brother aged 4 with small-normal sized feet for his age. And these are supposed to last him until age 6! looking at the next size up which I got for his brother - they are definitely too big, but these ones measure up next to his other socks as being exactly the same size - and they are a) washed and b) a size smaller. And because they are all held together with a taggy thing I broke it to take the socks out and he's worn a pair now so too late to take back. Should I have checked before breaking the tag - yes in hindsight. But given they were for ages 3-6 and ds2 is the size of a standard 2 year old, it didn't occur to me that it would be necessary in the way that I would say if I had a regular sized 4 or 5 year old, I was more worried they would be too big and once he'd seen them he would want to wear them and he'd have to wait to grow into them.
Shops that I do get boys clothes from tend to be sainsburys or asda for cheap stuff to ruin hammer at nursery or playing out in the garden. Nicer stuff comes from the more expensive stuff at sainsburys, asda, tkmaxx, next, John lewis, gap, debenhams or M&S. Tend to get it in person or sometimes order to pick up in store, haven't really got into shopping for them online on a regular basis. Tends to be more that we are in the supermarket and see something so pick it up there and then. maybe when they are older and less agreeable to shopping with me it might change!
~ When you're shopping for kids' clothes, what are the most important factors? Is it cost, quality, colour/design, style or brand/label? Or a complicated combination of all of those?!
Not so bothered by actual brand or label, as I avoid any clothes that are obviously branded.
Style is important - I tend to like plainer styles so hate all the boys trousers that have extra seams and bits and bobs on for no good reason. ds then complains about the extra seams rubbing or that he can't run around in them as easily, you play for all the extra work that has gone into making them, they look stupid, are an extra fiddle to iron, bad news all round. It's become increasingly difficult to find simple nice plain jeans or plain trousers or even plain cargo trousers, all the trousers seem like they have had a stylist go mad on them. Just seems like you are trying too hard to do something to them to make them different - and forgetting about the wearable basics.
Colour tends to come into the style side of things - my dsis has more problems than me as her eldest dd is a real tomboy and therefore has real problems when everything is pink or flowery or girly. There are no simple crossover basics which could work really well in the summer - plain tshirts and shorts in primary colours or simple stripes or spots or checks that would work for boys or girls. and with a 7 yr old, I'm discovering it's not so much about the colour (although it would be nice to have boys coats in colours other than black and navy) but the designs - the older boys range in aiming to be cool for the older half tends to mean that there isn't anything very suitable for the younger ones (having said that, yesterday I was pleased to see that there were fewer 'nasty' designs than there usually are and a few more feel good/cartoony things that I wouldn't mind my 7 yr old wearing. There's always too many polo shirts and too much emphasis on football stuff - whether it's team logos or just football logos everywhere - arrrggghh. get rid of them!
cost and quality are important too - need to strike a good balance.
~ Do you tend to shop in store or online for kids' clothes and why? If you shop in store, do you look online at what items you might buy beforehand, or do you tend to go and see what takes your/your DC's fancy?
Have done both - prefer to look instore but if I am doing an online order for me then I'll have a look to see if there is anything good. I'll also order if there is something specific I am looking for or if I have seen something nice in store but not the right size. However, I am lucky in that I am only 5 minutes away from my local store and often passing by so it's easy to pop in. If I lived further away (eg where my mum lives, where I grew up - 30 mins drive away) then it could well be very different as you don't just pop in on a regular basis - you tend to go out for a day's shopping. In which case I would order online a lot more.
~ Is there anything that you think M&S could do to encourage you to buy their kidswear? Or buy it more often if you already buy it? Is there anything missing from their kidswear ranges that you'd like to see more of? Do you think they cater for certain ages better than others? Or for boys better than girls or vice versa?
more nice basics (don't necessarily have to be a cheap basic/value range, but well cut, nice fabric ordinary trousers/jeans/chinos that haven't been messed around.
Girls are definitely catered for much better than boys. Boys aged 6-10 particularly badly catered for as the stuff seems to be aimed at older kids.
More space for pushing prams around kids clothes departments - if you are shopping for baby clothes or younger kids clothes there is a reasonable chance you will have a pram with you and yet it can be a real pain to get in there sometimes, which is enough to put me off from even looking - and if I don't look then I am definitely not going to buy.
just remembered something else - school uniform polo shirts. DS has to wear white short sleeved polo shirts. He has a big head for his age and the necks are not big enough - I need to get 2 sizes bigger for him to get a big enough neckline and then the rest of the shirt is much too big for him. I bought M&S ones originally but it got to be too much of a hassle so have now tried several and ended up with some from matalan that are the best of the bunch when it comes to big necklines. This is a common problem amongst lots of his friends - if you had necklines that were a buttonhole longer (ie could cope with heads several inches bigger than currently per size) I would definitely switch back and lots of others would as well I am sure.
~ Thinking specifically about the M&S baby ranges, what's your overall opinion of these? Do you think there's enough variety? Is there anything you'd like to see more of?
More stuff with less/no white or very pale colours in - especially for the weaning ages! Pale stuff just ends up stained. Or maybe need some teflon coated tshirt fronts to help with that!
Haven't really looked at baby stuff at M&S recently, other than getting presents for friends. Has been OK but I'm always amazed by the amount of unpractical pale or white stuff!