Homebase

went in here the other day to get some inspiration for decorating a room but it was very dire and lacked in being a place to go to get some ideas. Instead it seemed it caters now for the cliché/​stereotype market.
Home base is a very large store and has plenty of free parking outside. It’s on a small retail park with Argos and habitat inside. it stocks the usual range of things — diy, bathroom fittings, with a small display area for baths, toilets, suites etc.
There is an outside garden area which always seems to be well-​stocked. There are seasonal displays in the centre of the store, eg christmas things, outdoor furniture, sale items. This area often seems a bit tacky to me, a heap of stuff jumbled together.
Prices always seem high compared to B & Q or Wilkinsons, even for the same things, eg Dulux paint. I find it a useful place to browse, but rarely buy anything there. Homebase often have special offers of 15% off for the weekend, which make it a bit more competitive price-​wise. but sorry to say i walked out empty handed.

Recently relocated from the unit next door Homebase is now the ‘Homebase Design Centre’ and incorporates Homebase, Argos and Habitat.
This store is WEIRD. It is having a massive identity crisis. First off the Argos section has done away with the laminated book of dreams and tiny pens in favour of iPads. In fact there are sections of the store where someone, around some visual merchandising table said ‘lets do it like Apple would’, the strangest innovation being replacing those awesome displays of colour charts with painted balls…
In my opinion this store flounders a bit in that of all the sections it is trying to incorporate, none are done very well. The habitat section is almost the same size as the household cleaning products? The isles are narrow and there are large sections of things I would expect to find that are now gone e.g. outdoor lighting. In their place are strange carpeted display sections of hardware tools.
I’ll give them one thing though, in trying to get as much in as possible they have improved the efficiency of some of the displays. Everything was very neat and very tightly packed.
So, I spent a lot of time wondering around very disorientated and not terribly impressed only to be further disappointed at the checkout. Where the lady serving chatted to a friend whilst she served the person in front of me, then left me standing there as she carried on, including that ever so rude looking at me, acknowledging I was there and then still carrying on chatting with no apology for keeping the by then five deep line waiting.
This store is within cycling distance of my house and I had been visiting a lot, now though it will be into the car and driving to the competitors. I like my hardware stores with stray screws on the floor and decent selection. I’m also not quite ready to accept an Argos without the catalogue.