Jan 28, 2007 12:24 PM
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Was reading through a number of reviews of Big Bazaar most of which appear to be negative. Hence I would like to share my experiences on my visit to the Mysore Road branch at Bangalore.
Like many people, my earlier experience of Big Bazaar was not too great. That was in Hyderabad(somewhere near Abids) a couple of years ago when the concept was just catching on. Billing was chaotic, crowds were heavy(they had some silly offer at that time of purchasing all your used and useless household goods for a price - as a tactic to get people to the store it seemed to have worked then), but to be fair my wife and I chose to visit them on a second saturday evening around 6 PM!
After we shifted to Bangalore, we found Big Bazaar was heavily advertising in Times of India offering a variety of attractive deals. My son's first birthday was fast approaching and we thought - why not give the Bangalore stores a shot so that we can try to pick up some stuff.
More due to the fact that currently we do not have our own transport than anything else, we decided to pay one of the outlets a visit on a Saturday afternoon since both of us have a five day work week. Although Big Bazaar has five outlets in Bangalore almost all of them were equally inconvenient to where we stay However the Big Bazaar outlet on Mysore Road was conveniently located in the Mysore Road BMTC bus stand complex (where the Mysore buses now leave from) and the location more or less clinched it for us, since we could easily reach there even with a change of buses.
We reached the place around 3 PM, there was hardly any crowd and hence shopping was a pleasant experience. As mentioned we came primarily to pick up clothes and stuff for our toddler and also to choose some clothes for our teenaged niece. We were not disappointed on both counts. The range was good, quality excellent for the price (as people with young kids will know - good quality clothes for toddlers are difficult to find at reasonable price). There were some good quality footwear as well for the young man also on sale . Same for the teenager. Dresses were good and the staff were more than willing to show us things. More importantly what really made it a good experience for us was the fact that all the staff were genuinely friendly with the young ones, one which helped us a lot in enjoying the shopping experience to the full.
We left around 4.30 just as the crowd was slowly trickling in. Billing counters at that time were not crowded, although on checking the bill we found that the billing clerk had actually missed out one item, which I pointed out and we paid the revised bill. We had a purchase of around Rs 1500 including a lot of stuff for the kid - so were given some toy and also 5 KG of sugar free! On leaving the security alarm sounded for some reason - but unlike the experiences of many others here, the handling was very professional. One of the staff requested us to move over to a security station, they checked everything - repacked the same after finding the alarm spurious and we were out in five minutes, the whole situation being handled very well.
All in all a really good l experience. The infants and teenagers clothes are good value for money, the staff are really "kid friendly" and in this store at least everyone was professional - right from the doorman to the security staff to the attendants. Shopping in the neighborhood shop itself with my naughty one year old is a challenge , but the very fact that we still enjoyed going to this shop halfway across the city, and the toddler retained his good humor throughout, says a slot for this store and the experience!
I would strongly recommend this store especially for young kids stuff. Try to go during the late afternoon timings on a Saturday when the crowd is not there.
If at all I have anything to complain about it is the 5 Kg loot of Sugar which was given free. Now - that wasn't advertised! And since we didn’t have our vehicle - well it was tempting to say NO THANK YOU. But the wife wouldn’t hear of it - and finally we managed to lug it home somehow! May be the option of a gift voucher for the same amount redeemable for future purchases may not be a bad idea - keeping in mind that the last thing you expect after mainly shopping for clothes is to be given free groceries
