A nice department store in Solihull, I find myself visiting less and less now because John Lewis is…read moreusually where I park my car so will always walk through JL first. Beatties does have a beautiful Christmas display and sells a good range of toys on the top floor. I had a make-over done here a while back and the sales staff were really helpful on the counter and kept a card with my details on for me, if I wanted to go back and get some more products. Towards last Christmas they had either a 10 or 20% off day and I managed to get a lovely perfume set for cheaper than anywhere else.

A good department store with a good mixture of thingson sale. Good range of clothing, toys,…read morehousehold items etc. Just a shame there is no Bobby Brown counter! Very easily accesable from Beatties carpark direct via a bridge linking the two so very easy to pop into. Well laid out and easy to understand and helpful staff who are more than happy to help you out. Also a good range of food and drink on offer with a proper restaurant on the top floor and a more like cafe style snack bar on the first floor. Highly recomended and convenient to get to.

John Lewis' only remaining location in the West Midlands, following the closure of their Birmingham…read morelocation, is the flagship store within Touchwood Solihull. It is a large location with entrances via the mall and street level. It is over three floors, with a good range of services offered. They have toilets on multiple levels as well as "The Place To Eat Cafe", for coffee, there is Joe and the Juice, located right outside the mall entrance on Ground Level, although they claim this as part of their store. The store had a nice feel to it, and a good product selection, I like how the store was rather spacious, so moving around the store wasn't an issue, even on a busy Saturday afternoon. A clear store guide/layout plan, as well as having more staff on the shop floor in key areas - would be the main focus for improvement. 4*

I have been a loyal customer of John Lewis for years. However, I recently encountered a…read moredisappointing situation during their delivery of a washer. Although it was to be fulfilled by a two-people team, one of the two deliverymen refused to bring the washer to my kitchen via the stair and instead left it outside my kitchen for over a week, even during the hot weather in June. I am astounded by John Lewis' failure to take responsibility for their mistakes, which only further enables the deliveryman's dishonest and unethical behaviour. It is disheartening that: * Their Duty Manager disregards the fact that the single flight of stair has never posed a safety issue for the delivery of my previous appliances, such as a washer and a heavy 85cm Chimney Cooker Hood with Baffle Filter from John Lewis. * Their Duty Manager remains unresponsive to the photograph of the stair I provided as evidence, conveniently claiming that the stairway is steep and lacks turning space without offering any justification that is specifically substantiated. * Their Duty Manager fails to provide what inclination degree and width of a standard stair should be for their public delivery guidance, instead relying on a so-called internal investigation and empty talk about safety to dismiss my concerns. * Their Duty Manager chose to close the case, even though this decision contradicts John Lewis' own delivery policy which states clearly that customers living up several flights of stairs should not be an issue. Thus, a company of John Lewis' stature shows no business ethics and willingness to refund for a service that customers have unfortunately not received.

Now called the House of Fraiser, this is a good department store.There is about 3 or 4 levels to…read morethe store. On the top level is the cafe, which always serves lovely food at reasonable prices, there is quite a big seating area so it is quite easy to get a table. They stock well know brands for men, women and children, also they sell shoes and homeware items.

A great old style department store where you can lose a few hours. The handbag ranges include…read moreRadley and the prices are in line with others. the cosemtic counters are always happy to give free advice and make overs. There are a number of designer type clothing bits, with Mexx and Oasis for the younger lady and some more older type womenswear upstairs. the cafe is ok. There cards and stationary is good and there is a good selection of jewellery - although mainly costume

House of Fraser in Solihull is a fairly good store, one of two large department stores in the town…read more While I prefer John Lewis at Touchwood, this certainly is not a bad alternative, offering some competition within the town's high-street. The store is a little dated, and seemed very quiet - this seems to be something that has came up in many other reviews. It makes me think if people are visiting and claim it's quiet - do we all turn into ghosts when we visit here? Perhaps they should call it House Of Kasper? The product selection was fine, again there is better within the town centre, the store did feel a little old, in need of TLC and like it was on its' last legs anyway. I'm surprised this store remained open despite many closures within House of Fraser. The staff in the store seemed friendly enough. 3*

I came here last week to pick up an on line order. The service was great and staff was very…read morehelpful, in particular the shoe staff they were very patient while bringing out about 20 pairs of shoes for me. ...But never mind that, the reason I decided to write a review was because of an incredible discovery I made....If you go to the haberdashery section, (next to the on line order collection point) there is a large stand with all sorts of different wool in it, all for only a few pound each! How amazing! I would never have thought to look for wool in house of Fraser, and I definitely never thought I would get reasonably priced wool there lol. So I thought I would share my brilliant find so that my fellow knitters can get an early start on their Christmas presents this year :-)

This is one of my favourite places to shop for clothes. The range is good, items are very good…read morequality and the prices sensible. The on site Costa is also a pleasant addition.

Latif's has become something of a Birmingham institution for me and I have started categorising…read morepeople by those that know and love it and those that don't. For me you can't call yourself a true Brummie until you have experience this place. An almost palace of cheap and cheerful shopping they stock pretty much everything from home ware, clothes, furniture, garden products, electrical, lights, toys and even sweets and food. Spread over 3 floors once inside you might struggle to escape. I visit quite often as they have a lot of cheap things I use around festival season and Christmas. It is well worth a visit and really you haven't lived until you've spent an hour here.

If you are moving house and are on a budget or you are a student just taking up residence in…read moreBirmingham I think it's worth checking out Latifs. The place has EVERYTHING and it's all cheap as chips. There's so much that you can end up getting a little lost, without even knowing where to start. Some might prefer to go a little more upmarket, but I have no problem at all when you can kit out your whole flat and get change from a fiver (I exaggerate but you get my point). Even though it's cheap it's not all throwaway stuff, I bought some glasses there when I moved to my new apartment and the quality is pretty decent. As well as all the practical things you will need you can also find some very surreal and kitch decorative things. There are three floors dedicated to kitchenware, furniture, bedding, lighting and electrical goods, gardening equipment, tools, food and drink, cleaning products... see, everything! I recommend going by car or with a willingness to carry bags. And expect to leave there with a bunch of useless things you never intended to buy on your shopping trip (I still have the lenticular portrait of a tiger on my wall to this day).

Situated in a superb shopping center, this debenhabs offers great service with some great quality…read moreproduts available. During sales you get some massive reductions on lots of products in the debenhambs store. The staff are friendly and helpful which is always good, and the store is always clean and tidy and well organised, which makes it much easier to find what you are looking for. The returns policy isnt great so be careful with that. Also, the service can be poor when busy and the prices can be quite expensive compared to other places such as on the internet, so dont expect it to be the cheapest place to go to, because it isnt. Apart from that it is very very good.

We opted to come to this Debenhams rather than go into central Birmingham and were glad we did…read more It's right by the car park to the Kingfisher Centre and is really big, set on 2 floors. We went there to spend wedding vouchers and were pleased to find it had a big range of products ranging from electrical goods to clothes and jewellery. It wasn't too crowded and the staff were really helpful in sorting out transferring our individual wedding giftcards on to one card. We will definitely go back to this Debenhams as it was so easy to be able to shop and then nip back to the car to drop the goods off before continuing shopping elsewhere.

Excellent, excellent! No wonder everyone goes to Selfridges!! This place is awesome! This was my…read moresecond time coming here; the first time This time I came here for skin care products. You don't need to go to any other store to get what you need! It's four stories and is massive, it's pretty much a mall in itself. It has a relaxing, cool vibe with dim lighting! People there are very nice and have excellent service! They always have what you need and if they are out of stock, they restock quickly and will tell when they will restock. I was looking for Kiehl's and unlike most lazy sales people, the woman I asked was very attentive and actually walked me over there to sight of Kiehl's. This was very much appreciated. You really are supposed to walk them all the way over to the area, but since she was by herself, makes sense. She was very kind and helpful. Great customer service!! Once I got to Kiehl's it had a nice set up with a large range of products! They had the items I needed unlike the useless Kiehl's store in Grand Central. Don't go to the Kiehl's at Grand Central. They are rude and they don't good stock of their products, even though they are the official store. Do not go there! (It's located at Grand Central, but go straight to the Kiehl's at Selfridges! You will have a great experience at the Kiehl's in Selfridges! :)) Back to the awesome Kiehl's at Selfridges!! They are very kind and the two women there were very friendly, inviting, attentive, answered my questions, knew what they were talking about and were so helpful! I was able to get the product I needed. It was in a larger size, but I'm glad they had it and I bought it! Even though the smaller one was out of stock, they were very honest and told me when they would restock. She was very descriptive and thorough which I really appreciated and invited me to come back next week to get the other product I needed, which they would have in the smaller size. They even set me up the Selfridges mailing list! Excellent! I will happily be shopping here more! So friendly and excellent customer service!! Go to Selfridges, go to the Kiehl's there, go to every floor and company they have there! They have everything and have excellent service!! Plus you get to leave with a cute yellow bag!! :)

Selfridges is still one of the most iconic buildings in Birmingham, it has managed to stay ahead of…read morethe times since being built as part of the bullring when it launched. It still remains my favourite department store in the city and stocks everything you could want from amazing food and drink through to homeware, fashion and cosmetics. The highlight for me is the food hall on the ground floor, I think you would be hard pushed to find anywhere with the diversity and range of things you can try and buy in one place. I could easily spend a whole afternoon looking at the many weird and wonderful items that fill every countertop and display cabinet in the open and modern feeling space. One thing to note is that this place only stocks the very best of everything they sell, so don't go here expecting the cheapest products in Brum. However you can get a bargain from time to time in the many sales they put on throughout the year. In my opinion Selfridges keep pushing the boundary in terms of what people expect from a department store. Forward thinking, well designed and and always changing to keep thing fresh!

The cafe upstairs in Fred Winter has really loveely food (and that includes the vegetarien…read moreoptions). the man and lady that run the show are lovely! They really make you feel welcome. But beware if one of the young 'n's serves you! They forgot our order meaning we had to wait over half an hour for a sandwich and when they brought it it was the wrong stuff as they had obviously just made it up to cover us the fact they forgot the write it down! Nice food though.

A History of Fred Winter Ltd (https://sites.google.com/site/fredwinterltd)…read more Fred Winter was a 23 year old Suffolk man who described himself as a draper and auctioneer when he opened his first store on the 25th June 1858. The store was located at 17 and 18 High Street Stratford Upon Avon, and sold general drapery, haberdashery and high quality outfitting for gentlemen. By 1881 Frederick, his wife and a family of five daughters and three sons, shop assistants Clara Cowles, Frank Gibbons, William Potter and James Thornber, and two servants Mary Lively and May Morris, lived above the shop in what is today Marlow's restaurant. This was to be Stratford first real department store [the Shipston sheep farmer JC smith didn't open his store, now Debenhams, until 1870] and was a huge success not only with the towns growing population but also with customers from far and wide as is the case today. Frederick Winter died in 1897 aged 62 leaving the running of the business to his 31 year old son Fred. Fred was a skilful retailer and businessman who by 1908 had incorporated the spacious premises at 14 High Street and turned it into a thriving business. In March 1917 Fred bought the freehold to Reynolds grocery store at 30 and 31 High Street and for the next seven years the company operated from both sides of the street selling everything from reels of cotton, luggage, straw boaters to Aquascutum coats. The lease holds of 14, 16, 17 and 18 High Street were relinquished in 1924 and the Fred Winter store operating solely from 30-31 High Street, became a limited company. By this time Mr Fred Winter had become a local dignitary serving as Mayor on more than one occasion and was responsible with 'Marie Corelli' in uncovering and restoring many of the famous half timbered buildings in Stratford. He died aged 71 in 1941. The business then passed to his 43 year old son Frederick Charles [Eric] Winter who instigated many innovative retailing changes plus the modernisation and enlargement of the store with the building of Bell Court in the 1970's including a large modern extension on the back of the existing Fred Winter Ltd Frontage in High Street. Frederick Brian Winter, the great grandson of the founder took over the business in 1973 and under his skilful guidance achieved unrivalled success over the next 25 years. By the early 1990's Brian's son Guy Winter was in the business and the store became renowned for selling an ever increasing range of merchandise that included furniture, carpets, furnishing fabrics, dress fabrics haberdashery ladies fashion, bed linen, gifts, china and glass. By the late 1990's Bell Court had become run down and a decision was made to build a brand new store behind an existing building in Henley Street. The large and stylish building was completed in 1999 and has undoubtedly become Stratford's premier store. After Brian Winter's retirement a few years ago the company is now under the overall direction of Guy Winter. Steve Newman

Went for first time in four years today and luckily not too many customers. The shop assistants…read moreprobably outnumbered paying customers, but they were all so helpful and obliging, everyone we met showed tremendous knowledge of the items in the store and ideas. We could have stayed there for hours. The cafe is just that, a standard snack serving cafe, nothing outstanding but the service was exceptional. But the greatest benefit is the massive selection of women's and men's clothes, from the ordinary to top quality. Something for everyone. It might have been an 80mile round journey, but worth it and we will go again before Christmas to get a few more bargains.

This one goes out to all the senior citizens... boy, I get cooler by the day :P…read more Be warned this place can be terrifying. It's so big when you enter that you can't even see the far walls beyond the vast sea of clothing stands in front of you, all arranged in a grid that forces you to move pac-man style through the aisles whilst dodging slow-moving pensioners on all sides. I think it's my uber-cool little sister's idea of hell. Not exactly my idea of a good time, and I'm not about to suggest it should be yours! But they do have a huge range of middle-aged-to-elderly mens and womenswear, much of it from branded labels at outlet prices (think Austin Reed, Moss Bros, Jaeger, Hobbs etc), plus things like bed linen, books, perfumes and stationery. Whilst I may have turned 30, I haven't grannyfied my wardrobe just yet - I'm actually suggesting you earn some good grandkid brownie points by bringing your nan here to browse and bargain-hunt. Yes it'll be two hours of your life you won't get back but it's well organised, saves them the stresses of the big malls, and the pensioners love it (there's always plenty of them enjoying the cafe at the back!). As well as doing something nice out of the goodness of your heart, you might just strike it lucky as I did and find one of the handful of things in the store that someone under 40 might actually wear (and my little sis approved of!). In my case, a gorge Adrianna Papell work dress reduced from its £139 RRP to a £30 outlet bargain, that I'm proudly wearing to the office to combat the back-to-work blues today. Boom :)