Waited till 10.22am with two other customer outside shop till shop keeper came and mumbled…read moresomething about a few minutes late then said he would be a few more minutes and kept us waiting another 10 minutes outside the shop till he unlocked the door and stood at the entrance declaring who is next? 35 minutes in all for me to be served. Boy did I wonder if he wanted my business, but the man standing outside with me said this happens all the time, so I guess the answer is a qualified no! Since I don't know how this hardware shop works but guessed it was a help your self and pay at the till because of the layout I was wrong. The passageways were blocked with product and here was the shop keeper demanding what did I want! I found this not very helpful since I am use to just wandering around picking up my purchases as I go. The net result was I was out on the street feeling like I had forgotten several items, and I had! Now I can only think this guy is not sales savvy, as if he had let me in his store ten minutes earlier I would have brought 400-500 percent more items than I had. Maybe he thought if he kept his customer at the door we would not shoplift! Shop lifting is more of a challenge unless they are items near the door! What a disappointment this store is but it's his business to run as he sees fit! Good luck mate with your plan! I won't be back well at least till 45 mins after you say your open.

Homebase is one of those shops you only go in when you've got your own home, up until a couple of…read moreyears ago I wasn't interested. Now we're there every week! It does the general diy stuff you'd expect with some gardening stuff, furniture, and a good selection of homeware such as crockery, bedding, and they do plenty of nice things to decorate the house. The best thing is if you sign up for a free spend and save card so every time you buy something, you get points and these add up to vouchers to use in store. Another bonus is that they have 10% off days quite frequently where everything, even reduced stuff has 10% off. We've dropped on some great savings here and often wait for these weekends to save money. Customer service is great here and if you need to return something you can do it without much trouble at all. All its missing is a coffee shop!

Big store so you are likely to find what you're looking for.read more

We came across this place as Magnet Trade (the tradesmans part is a separate bit at the back of the…read moreshowroom). My husband wangled a trade card which enabled us to haggle for major discounts. We ordered our kitchen worktop through these chaps, some velux windows, kitchen appliances and all in all they're very very good. The only sad thing about them is that if we hadn't had the trade discount I would be saying that they were ridiculously overpriced and not worth it. Some of our discounts were up to 50%, which just goes to show that joe public might be just being ripped off! However they're off the beated track slightly which means they probably aren't targetting joe public and probably just thrive on the trade business. There is a handy car park just outside. Pleasant people to do business with.

If you buy something from here and it breaks or is otherwise faulty, don't ask for a refund. My…read moreboyfriend did and he was screamed at by the manager then literally punched in the face by one of the assistants. Police were called but nothing came of it that we know of. We used to shop here regularly but haven't set foot in it since the disgusting assault by the staff.

This B&Q is particularly good. I've used it lots and lots and often its neglected by customers…read morebecause there's a bigger one in town - which means that their sale stock is often in for longer. Also the customer service is great - they've been open to haggling when I've felt cheeky (in fact I saved a packet on a bathroom suite) and they've also been and looked at the computer to track down a missing bath which they didn't have in stock. They couldn't do enough for me which makes the difference really instead of a big anonymous superstore in my opinion.

At Stockton Heath Carpet Centre the customer is always wrong. Wouldn't go back again after poor…read moreservice care when laminate started to break and flex. They wouldn't accept the quality of the material install and blamed us for the issues. The problem never got resolved