Primani…. a place where women revert to their primeval instincts.
In Primark anything goes, it’s like another world, a modern day journey to the heart of darkness.
You walk through the doors in a good mood; it’s a sunny day and you’ve been shopping. But once you get through those doors everything changes. It’s an attack on the senses, children are crying, women are elbowing each other out the way, men are hovering timidly on the sideline, constant announcements are being made over the loudspeakers, oh no there is no soothing in store music in Primark. To avoid changing room queues people are getting changed in the middle of the shop, inhibitions forgotten. Shop assistants can even be seen telling customers to clear up the clothes they’ve finished looking at…. errrrm excuse me? Isn’t that what you’re paid for?
Despite the fact that there are far more people per square meter than in any other shop, well, anywhere except perhaps Oxford street Topshop on Christmas eve, the air conditioning is something we, as customers, can only dream of. Instead their mediocre attempt at keeping the temperature somewhere below boiling point is a fan in the corner of the room.
Aforementioned trauma aside you spot a bargain across the shop. You bravely grab a garish purple sack (do they need to remind us we can’t afford to shop anywhere nicer?) and head into the masses.
Everything, absolutely everything is on the wrong hanger. You think you’re picking up a size 12 and it turns out to be an 18. You hunt through rails of clothes building up a sweat, ignoring the children who seem to have no parents wrestling at your feet, the shop assistant who nearly ran your feet over with a clothes rail and the chavs fighting over the last fake Burberry belt. Ah ha, you’ve finally found your size, you turn around in triumph to show your friends, but no, they’ve gone. Disappeared into the crowd never to be seen again. Then comes the next problem, cell reception. It is almost impossible to get a cell reception in Primark as everyone is lost trying to call their friends. If you are lucky enough to get through, it is almost inevitable that their voice will be drowned out by some unfortunate and undesired primarktastic noise. Primark! How difficult would it be to set up meeting points? I myself, have lost 2 friends in your shops before!
Then the changing rooms. After filling your basket with bargains and queuing up for at least half an hour you are only allowed to take in six items at a time! Six?! So, after the moody looking assistant hands over your items you are allowed in. The curtains, you will definitely find, don’t close properly, meaning the changing rooms may as well be communal. Wonderful.
Eventually, after you have made several journeys from your changing room to the basket to collect yet another 6 items and decided on your purchases you are forced to stand in yet another half hour queue to pay.
But eventually it is over. All you want to do is leave. Alas no. Primarkians all walk extremely, excruciatingly slowly. It will take at least another 15 minutes to locate an exit.
So, good luck on your quest to Primark my friends!
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello, i am dissapointed that every stores of primark , stocks are limited . eg: bra sizes i can never find any 38b bras .
i am very dissapointed whatever primark stores that i visit never have limited stocks on bras , they never have any size 38b , maybe this is apopular size but they should stock more . i like to shop in primarks but it is very frustrating that i cannot find bras of my size and also recently they are not stocking g strings. so alternatively i have to go to other retail shops for these items.
Had my first and last ever experiance on Saturday when I wanted to exchange some support leggings because they were too small.
Had receipt and had not been opened but NO I couldn’t exchange them because they are classed as underwear. When I bought them at no point was it made clear to me either from the stand that they came off or at the till the I couldn’t returned or exchange.
At first I thought ok I should of known this because they came off a stand near the underwear but as I was queying in a rage to pay for more leggings they had another stand which was away from the underwear and again there wasn’t a sign which states they couldn’t be returned.
I will not be visiting Primark again if they treat customers like that
Completely accurate comments. Here’s a masculine view. I was sauntering through Primark Hammersmith this morning (it’s a shortcut to Sainsburys) when I was unwisely drawn to a pack of 3 pairs of boxer shorts, loose fit, for £3. Why not, I thought. I hiked over to the distant checkouts, since the conveniently placed ones are no longer in use, and me and another chap wandered past the unmanned checkouts looking for some sign of life. A woman behind one of the tills she shouted across “Do you want to pay?” We said yes and she told us to go to the adjoining checkouts. So we walked 10 yards back and another 8 between the barriers and the same woman walked 3 paces and served us. I left the shop and went to browse in the shop opposite. Glancing at the Primark bag, I noticed the red S on the little hanger on the packet. I had picked up Small when I wanted Large. I went back into Primark, got the correct size pack, up the escalator, across the width of the shop to Customer Services, presented the 2 packets of pants, apologetically explained my mistake and could I make the exchange. The young woman said “Did you leave the shop?” I said yes, I went out maybe 10 minutes before and came back, which she could see from the receipt anyway. She didn’t say anything about not being able to return underwear, maybe because the pack was obviously unopened, but that if I had left the shop I couldn’t have a refund or exchange. This was news to me but I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I said: “Oh well, never mind.” and started to walk away. She called me back to take my purchase with me. I said “Why would I want to?” She said “It’s your purchase, you can’t leave it here.” I said “I picked up entirely the wrong size, they are of no use to me.” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and I left, convinced more than ever that Monty Python was a documentary. The only lesson I can draw from all this is that I should have lied and said “No, I was downstairs all the time admiring Primark’s extensive range of quality products at bargain prices” – then I would have been fine. And if you can possibly afford to shop elsewhere, for Gods sake do so!
hi, just brought primark wipes and have had a massive allergic reaction around my eyes, swelling was so bad i couldnt see and servere stinging. not impressed. if this ios what gentle cleaning causes then i will not be buying any beauty products there again!!!
also, reading others comments i do have to agree with the bad customer service and problems finding bra’s
I bought several items from the bolton store primark – only to discover that the wrong size was on the hanger.
my brother said i am going into town so i will exchange it for you or get your money back. no that would be to easy.
they did not have my size so he asked for the money back. he had the item and the receipt.
they could not give him the money back as i paid on my card. they would not put it on his card. so all over xmas i was left with a top that i could not wear and no refund. i have closed the account that i paid the card on so were do we go from there.
not very helpful – you will not gain custom with this behavour
i might have some useful info for you. if the account is closed u should still be able to get your money back if you take your statement in. i work in retail myself…not primark thank the heavens…and our practice is that if the account is closed and you still have the receipt proof of purchase on the statement should be enough. primark should understand that people close accounts.
I work for primark and can say there is no weekly or monthly trainning staff get fed up coz they are doing the same thing for the whole of there shift all they wanna do is go home I agree with you there is no music witch can make the working day boring and customers waiting in line get fed up
Please rate my complaint a high rate. It is the one called ‘Lack of hygiene at your leisure centre’
Thanks
listen ya silly cow shut up ya winging! the store is huge! i know i work there! the staff do not at any point tell customers to pick up there things they have left behind, and also they get paid less than £6.00 per hour and so much is expected from them u think u have a hard job try working in there hey! maybe if u went at a decent time of day like morning time maybe u will be able to walk around and if u dont like it then dont go in divvy! why are you so lame as to write a silly commentary on the internet why didnt u speak to someone in the store? maybe the problem u so called have would of been solved! now shut your wining and u call people chavs, u shope there yourself u buy the same things as them so ur one big fat chav ur self arent you!
Rant over with!!
So im at the front of the returns/customer services desk, at Primark, waiting my turn, waiting for the guy to call me over after finishing with the customer in front of me, thanking the gods there wasn’t the usual line of people, buggys etc, when low and behold an obviously upper member of Primark staff, went up to the guy and returned her Primark shopping, and then quibbled with him about charging her wrong for the items she wanted to replace them with. I could not believe it. Im not a complainer usually, it seems to be coming with age though lol, but I will be emailing them to complain the very moment I find there hidden!!! email address.
I Travelled to uk went around shopping as i m from Pakistan ,on asking how can the VAT be refunded the coustomer service was of the opinion that shop for 2000 pounds then you are eligible . a strange reply .I M SURE THE amount must be much less any how i have also contacted the tax department . I hope the problem be looked into . thanks
i have also the receipts .
Khalid, there are vat forms at the customer service desk. Ask a member of the staff for one. Show your recipt and you get the form filled out. Just show it to customs on the way out of the country. The £2000 is nonsense
When we show the form customs at the airport, do they pay the VAT back immediately? (Is the money refunded at the airport if we paid it on cash when we were buying? or will we be refunded days/weeks later?)
Thank you very much for your comments and sharing your idea and knowledge with us..
My phone was recently stolen at a Primark (was in a very packed area, was took out of my pocket), I notified the security guard, and being quite a young teenager, I got a little bit upset at the fact my phone was stolen. The security guard didn’t help at all, and he was quite rude to me about the whole thing, telling me I was making a big fuss over a phone which could be replaced. Words can’t explain how upset I was.
Everybody laughs at primark & criticises it , but I work at 2 primark stores in the midlands & must say they are busy every day so someone likes them ,the sizes are misleading but most customers allow for this & usually purchase a bigger size than their normal one . The security at these stores is usually tight & personally I believe there a lot worse places to shop …..
i recently bought a shirt for my 1 year old daughter and when i put it on her she screamed out in pain. Turns out there was a NEEDLE in the are still hanging off the shirt with the thread still attached! I am appalled!!!! it had stabbed her in the arm!!
I went to primark in the metro centre and i bought a superman t-shirt and a batman t-shirt but i am complaining that you dont have any spider man shirts WE DEMAND SPIDERMAN T-SHIRTS
Haha, what an amazing collection of posts… It’s Primark! What do you expect?! When it costs you less to buy a tshirt than it does to buy a sandwich, you can reasonably expect that they are going to be cutting corners somewhere!
Bottom line:
Beggars CAN’T be choosers…
Costumer service is getting worse and worse In Primark. Last week I was told off when asked to go into changing room to feed my baby as I’m still breast breastfeeding. I been told to go somewhere else to feed him as it’s apparently a new rule in Primark, she suggested me to go to Mothercare as they have baby feeding rooms, but i am them customer so why should i go else where looking for it??? Sorry for the babies, it’s not them fault that they are not able to eat anywhere they like. I wasn’t asking any special room for it, all i needed just to feed him in one of the changing rooms. Next time i will have to pretend that I’m going to try some clothes on, how stupid is that that you have to hide something like this. By the way it happened in Ilford Primark, where staff are so horribly rude including them management, it seems that people don’t get trainings on good customer service no more. Today i was asked to leave the changing room when i walked in with my mum to see how the jumper fits her. So i said i will try something, so took a blouse, this girl came in and saw that i wasn’t trying it on but was just waiting for my mum to come out with that jumper so i could give my opinion, so this girl told me to leave the changing room as i wasn’t trying it on, i refused to leave as all rooms were empty and i wasn’t doing anything wrong. I told her that it’s my worse experience in Primark were staff are treating them customers with no respect at all, so she was happily arguing with me. When i said that i came here not to argue but shop that bitch called the security on me. They told us to listen next time what staff are saying and told us to leave the shop, how ridiculous is that??????????? wtf?????? it’s sad that the customer service is as high as them item prices which is LOW and staff can talk anyhow they like to customers and nobody cares that they shouldn’t do so! Everybody in the shop was staring at us while security was leading us to the exit making us feel like the biggest criminals ever!! Won’t ever come back to this shit place ever! What a horrible shopping experience to my mum as she was only visiting the country. Earlier before all that happen mum tried the hat on and wanted to see herself in the mirror as we couldn’t see one close by she went to the changing room that was closest with mirrors, so she’s been told to leave the changing room as she’s not suppose to try the hats in there and got pointed to the mirror in the shop, instead she could’ve let her in and be more polite and nice i was just speechless. Hope head office is reading all the comments made and will take some action as they have so much to work on talking about them staff. I was working 6 years in customer service and never let feel any of my customers like that, always been told to treat them with respect no matter what so would like to be treated same way back.
During december n this month I have been on a few shopping trips to primark in woolwich south east london and I find the level of discrimination towards staff And customers by members of staff and management in store no. 567 absolutely DISGUSTING! Now I’m not of ethnic origin but find this unacceptable in this day and age where we are ment to be promoting diversity n equality at work! I have worked in retail for over 15years in the city of london and have never seen anything quite like this, how on earth are primark employing individuals to manage and be the face of their store and they are promoting racism and discrimation with no care in the world! it was hard for me to even purchase goods on these occassions but I did just so I could talk to different members of staff and find out how they were feeling and how they could handle this on their shifts. One member of staff told me they were too scared to complain to head office because they might lose their job and another member said that they got no hope iin hell as that’s how management and most staff of that race in the store are they stick together and treat us however they want because they can, so they put up with it as there’s no one to support them if you complain it gets ignored and you get treated worse ! Ridiculous! Is this what britains retail industry has come to! I work with many people from different ethinic backgrounds and they certainly would not be put through this on a daily basis. Being told this isn’t their country so they have to do all the work whilst members of staff and management the same race as me stand by laughing! I remember 2 ladies in paticular by the names of katherine and stacey being awfully racist to staff and a customer returning goods whilst I was browsing near by there was no customer service being given to the customer she was being shouted at and spoken to like dirt a member of staff who was of ethnic origin then got told you want to come here and take all our fucking jobs and its our country so you do your work! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and then the other lady agreed who I later found out was management! I’m appalled by this! It wouldn’t be so bad if I was treated the same when I asked for help with an item then I could put it down to the ladies having a bad day but no they were fine with me because I’m not ethnic which is totally wrong and I’m sure goes against all ethical polices but yet they are getting away with this! The well being of staff at this store is not even there scared hard working staff being buulied victimised n discrimated against great impression this store is giving of the british society today I’m surprised a mystery shopper hasn’t caught these staff out yet and hope they do get caught out soon as they don’t deserve to have a job I’d be dissapointed if that was one of my stores a customer experienced these awful shopping trips and am greatful my staff are trained managed disciplined and supported properly!