The nightmare at market village/home pro

[OscarMike]

This is a gratuitous rant so some viewers may find some scenes disturbing while others will reply with stupid one liners such as TiT. I know TiT but now and then some things deserve a rambling at this magnitude.

I needed to purchase a number of large items for my new home and there is usually a good selection in home pro. The first anomaly was the lack of helpful staff - why is it when you're just browsing a flock of them attach themselves to you like remoras but when you actually want to make a purchase a knowledgeable member of staff is rarer than rocking horse shit.

Firstly the ceramics and tile department, what a joke - they have more selection than every other tile shop combined and better prices but less availability than a welsh fish and chip shop. Nine out of ten selections were met with the mandatory "mai mee" response or something on the lines of 'you cannot order that many in one go and they will come out different shades because we have to order from different places'. I mean what kind of tile shop has limitations on orders? Nothing over 40 square meters apparently. Virtually all of the tiles at reasonable prices were out of stock or couldn't be ordered ... why display them?

The kitchen department were a little more helpful but technical questions were often met with blank faces, even when asked in Thai. Eventually after almost five hours in the place I managed to secure some tiles (though not the ones I wanted or even second or third choices), lighting and some kitchen appliances with a bill totalling almost 80k. The next shocker was that they did not offer free delivery and charged an additional 1000 baht because I dont live in central Hua Hin - I mean a few hundred baht in diesel on a sale of 80k? Obviously too much of a liberty.

Upon asking for a discount I was directed to a carousel offering a cuddly toy, fondue set or portable walrus cleaning kit to choose from ... thanks. They then offered me a discount card but of course I was not allowed to use it on this purchase and it was only valid if I came back another day to buy a box of screws. Finally on my way out of the place a trumped up car park attendant charged me for 'parking too long' after I'd just spent probably more than his annual salary in the store.

Evidently the customer does not come first in this place because the customer is a cnut.

Rant over.

[brianks]

I understand your complaints as they are quite valid. I would not have had the patience to stay there that long with so many frustrating incidents you encountered. I would have walked out after the first negative encounter. Home Pro is rarely my first choice for purchasing anything big. If I don't receive proper service there I abandon my search there immediately. Just don't want to get bogged down in their system.

Why are you complaining about being charged for parking? Its plainly signed when you enter the parking lot that if you stay over three hours in Market Village (not mattering which store/s you visit) you will be charged for parking. That has nothing to do with Home Pro.

Five hours in Home Pro--your a real trooper or glutton for punishment. Hope you got some good deals to make the experience worthwhile.

[Spitfire]

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't have stuck at it in there after the initial problems you're talking about, I would've turned round and left too. There are other choices than Home Pro and it's almost always impossible to do a deal with them, whereas non franchise shops often do.

It is true about the way you are mobbed by a multitude of baffoons the minute you walk into a Home Pro anywhere that be nosey and bombard you with silly bollox.

If I am unable to browse a bit then I'm less likely to spend anything. I just find the shopping experience in such places a hassle and vexatious to my soul, as I just end up walking around seething about how fcuking useless so many people can be, so I just avoid it altogether now.

I now tend to have a look around the locally owned large stores as you get better deals than the likes of Home Pro and still get your guarantees/free delivery etc.

[splitlid]

I dread homepro visits.
i remember asking about some taps they had on display once.
only to be told that they no longer have that model.
i asked about another one on the same display and got the same answer.
in fact, i got the same answer for about 6 taps that i asked about.

and got the usual, vacant look, followed by a smile, when i asked why was they even on dsplay.

[bcrglobal]

You can get your parking validated--Homepro does it, Tescos do it, etc. Just hand the customer service desk your parking card, and they'll re-set the time....it sucks to have to do this, but......wait for it......TiT.

[OscarMike]

The parking fine was just the cherry on a painful shopping cake, the general lack of service in HP, total lack of available stock, inability to make orders from the supplier, and refusal to even attempt to ensure a satisfied or return customer was the cake.

Home Pro is just a huge warehouse of items that you can't buy.

[PeteC]

A general note about all these type stores, if you're shopping for something like a hot water heater, cloths iron, water cooler etc., when a sales person approaches you and tries to divert your attention from the brand you want to something else, tell them to get lost. Many are on commission, but only for certain brands, and those are the brands that aren't selling well because their quality is usually crap. Within the last few months we've been burned on both a hot water heater and an iron after some of the best sales pitches I've ever seen. Pete

[dtaai-maai]

As rants go, that was excellent! Thoroughly enjoyed it. "Less availability than a Welsh fish & chip shop" was new to me - full marks (I think - do they not have much fish, then, in Wales? Do they have lamb & chips?).

But in a way, it serves you right. Sorry, but Home Pro is the last place I'd look for tiles, there are just so many places around. It's a bit like doing all your food shopping in Lotus.

[MrPlum]

Thanks for the warnings. There was I trusting what I was being told and all the while the conspiracy theorists' were right.

Quite a twist.

[hhfarang]

When I was a newbie expat here, I did all my shopping for home appliances at HomePro, (mostly in Samut whatever because Market Village wasn't open yet) and a few AV and garden items at the one here. Now as others have said, it is the last place I will go and will never go there unless they are the only ones who have what I want. We have had many problems with items purchased there and whether in or out of warranty, their service has sucked big time. Absolutely horrible place... what I wouldn't give for a U.S. style "Home Depot" here!

[Nereus]

Any place that plays that ridiculous "musuk" over and over, needs avoiding on that basis alone!

The practice of displaying goods that they do not have in stock is not restricted to Home Pro though. Maybe they have some deal with the wholesale suppliers to display items in exchange for a low price. I have not been into the new Boonsavorn (sp) shop, but at a couple of their other branches they do the same thing.

Ceramic tiles are something that should only be bought at a specialist outlet. There is just such a vast range that shops like Home Pro should not even try and sell them.

As for the staff, I just cannot understand how any business can have so many hopeless people standing around. As with a lot of similar outlets in Thailand, the staff seem to think that they are only there for their own enjoyment. Stand around in groups ignoring the customer, attend to their makeup in a convenient mirror, and what REALLY gets up my nose is blocking the display aisle with ladders, forklift trolleys and / or empty boxes.

[hhfarang]

Examples of my HomePro experiences:

We have 9 ceiling fans in the house that were all purchased years ago; seven from a fan/lighting specialty shop in Bangkok and two from Homepro... the seven still work fine; the two from Homepro stopped after a little over a year (quality bad).

I bought a 10k baht gasoline (string) trimmer from HomePro. It never worked and HomePro sent it to Bangkok for waranty service. It was gone for months and returned in pieces in a box and I had to re-assemble it myself and it still didn't work.

I have many, many more stories like that but those are two good examples of why this store shouldn't even be in business.

I finally found a shop down in Pranburi that found the problem and it has worked fine ever since.

[crazy88]

Homepro can have the most patient person on the planet jumping up and down like Rumplestiltskin in no time.

If you really have to do it then I suggest lunch in Fuji first with plenty of sake to take the edge off the experience. When waiting 20 minutes whilst they check if something is in stock, which it usually is not, amuse yourself by asking them how much things cost and watch them scrabble around to find a calculator only to type a completely different price to what is on the printed label attached to the item and then change it 3-4 times without you saying a word. Bundles of fun to be had wandering around the television section followed by an entourage of people repeating what it clearly says on the bright coloured stickers on the displays whilst the people at the desk spend an eternity struggling over organising your bill payment and delivery details. Strangely enough my partner, being Thai, reads writes and speaks the language fluently. Several years back upon seeing my frustration at trying to buy a mattress that varied between 12k and 48k, depending on which calculator was being waved, she pointed out that it is not their fault and she is right. They are clearly not trained to do the job and have been given little or no product knowledge. Whilst our frustrated attitude of "why can't they answer a simple ******* question" is understandable, how do you think they feel being unable to perform what the customers perceive to be their job? IMHO it probably causes a lot of constant loss of face situations, which is more uncomfortable than we can understand for a Thai person and the blame should be on the company management rather than the floor staff whom I make point of being nice to rather than letting my blood boil.

Crazy 88

At least they are an "Equal opportunities" employer

[PeteC]

↑ There's a good comparison to think about in what Crazy says. Even as a teenager with my first ever jobs I was so curious about what I should be doing that I drove people nuts asking questions. I think we all did. It simply goes against everything in me to just stand around and do nothing, the most boring thing in the world, pay or not.

Perhaps these Thai young people working at these places have no one to ask as the managers themselves don't know the answers. Or, against Thai custom to ask....better to just wait until we're told by a superior? Or......it's fun to get paid and just do nothing. It's a different world. Pete

[barrys]

When I lived up north, I always used Global House - they normally have an amazing range of products for building an entire house from scratch - at reasonable (labelled) prices and with knowledgable staff.

I've just done a search: www.globalhouse.co.th/Default.aspx

The nearest branch to here is in Ratchaburi