The ‘Sorry, you were out’ card is the bane of my existence. Okay, well, it’s not the bane of my existence, but let’s face it, it’s an utter pain in the bum. For my sorting office at least, they may as well rename it ‘Whatever it is someone’s sent to you, you won’t be seeing it for a few weeks’. My sorting office is open 9.30 – 4.15 every day, which is a fat lot of good considering the reason I missed the parcel in the first place is because, like the rest of the country, I work Monday to Friday 9-5. I usually get parcels delivered to work instead but after a while you get the inevitable ‘Another package?’ from your boss/the people on reception/the postman etc which just makes you feel a little bit like you’re pushing your luck.
So as you can imagine, the concept of click and collect is music to my ears. The pleasure of being able to shop online in your pajamas and avoid Saturday shopping and bustling crowds, plus also avoiding accusatory frowns from the postman at work. Perfect. When I was recently contact to see if I wanted to roadtest the Matalan Click and Collect service I jumped at the chance. I’ve actually long been a fan of Matalan, I particularly love their homewares range but you can also find a good few gems in their clothes sections too.
I spent quite some time nosing around their site online and eventually ordered two jersey midi-dresses, some slouchy trousers for morning dog walks and some cardigans for work. I overspent on the £50 voucher they kindly gave me by about £20 as there were so many things on there I’d been hunting for for ages but not thought to try Matalan for.
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| // jersey midi dress* | matalan | £12 |
They emailed and texted me to let me know when my parcel had arrived at the store and it was within a matter of days which was great. It’s fair to say that the process when I went to pick it up was a little frustrating, but this wasn’t the fault of the C&C concept, perhaps just some teething problems with using it instore (I queued up for quite some time only to be moved to another queue, then it took a while for them to get the parcel and another few minutes to get someone to sign it out for me). Only minor things really.
The only downside of Click and Collect, which stems from my shopping habits and not from the useful service Matalan have provided, is that whilst instore… I spent a bit more money. After we’d queued and I’d handed over my proof of order they suggested we look around the store whilst they found the parcel. Tom found a pair of chinos in the sale and I picked up another two cardigans, a set of bedsheets and a mug. All in all we ended up spending another £65, and about £120 in total. The funniest part was that I bought a cardigan, and when I got home, it was one I’d already ordered online! Ooops.
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| // bedsheets in toile print | matalan | £15 |
I had to restrain myself from not buying more homewares. Two ranges they have at the moment that are right up my street are nautical themes for a bathroom and pops of colour for a retro kitchen. I fell in love with these ceramic pots. I am planning on introducing a bit more of a retro theme into our living room and kitchen so I’ll definitely be snapping these up. The light brown lidded pots remind me of Orla Kiely prints (but at a fraction of the price!), or cult Stig Lindberg prints (which I’d love to find in a car boot sale or charity shop one day, a girl can dream!)
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| ceramic storage jars, £5 – 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
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| Stig Lindberg ‘Bersa’ cups // img: designattractor.com |
All in all I can highly recommend Matalan’s Click and Collect service, and also their homewares and fashion range as a whole. The cardigans I picked up are identical to some I have from Zara but at a third of the price and the slouchy trousers I bought are amazing quality, all fleece lined and basically heaven in a trouser. My only tip? Queue up, pick up your parcel and run. Otherwise you might just come out with a bit more than you bargained for…
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