"James Selby pros and cons."
A review of James Selby Ltd by Tufnell Shopper - Monday 24th of March 2008
Some of the good things about James Selby: good hardware departments; reasonable lingerie and luggage departments; small but well stocked toy department; and excellent shoe department (good choice of lines for women and particularly helpful staff in that department). Small but fairly good selection of beds. Better clothing lines for the younger age range than there used to be. Some very friendly and helpful staff. Convenient location. Well maintained toilets. Cafe.
Less attractive aspects of James Selby: off-puttingly cramped layout on the ground floor with too many clothing rails crammed into the central space. Sometimes rather half hearted service on the cosmetics counters and the central tills on the ground floor. A particularly odd system of having to go first to a till and then to a desk down in the basement to get refunds. Another downside is the toy department's rather odd choice to stick hard to remove price stickers on its toys (when I commented on this I was told to use warm water to get them off without tearing the packaging) which makes me a bit disinclined to buy presents for kids there.
Suggestion: Add some middle range clothing lines for 40+ customers (such as Alex and Co, Windsmoor or Gerry Weber) to replace the lines like Biana which they dropped some years ago. Put in place a refund system which allows refunds to be handled on the ground floor (and preferably at every till).
The upside and downside points above have, I think, been offered in conversation at various points over the years to store staff members. I hope that James Selby does find a way past some of its difficulties because it remains a good local resource and one which it would be a shame to lose.
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