166 Murray St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9202 1034
http://www.crazyclarks.com.au
Hours:
Mon-Thu 8:00 - 18:00
Fri 8:00 - 20:00
Sat 8:00 - 17:00
Sun 11:00 - 17:00
Crazy Clark is and unglamorous but cheap variety store located in the very heart of the city, tucked around Myers, David Jones and the Forrest Chase shopping area.
The store is reasonable big and they sell a huge range of products that go from the the useful and necessary to the superfluous and dispensable, and everything in between. They have a variety of packaged & tinned food products, stationary, gift items, cards, painting and art-crafts material, things for your laundry, pantry and pets needs, garden and electrical, some small kitchen electric items and seasonal electronics . Crazy Clark's sells well-known brands, generic brands, look-alike brands all at terrific prices. However, brands and products change a lot from time to time.
The staff are friendly or just OK, but always very fast at the cash-out machines and always ready to help in the aisles.
A must place for unemployed people, students, backpackers, working families in need of school and crafts supplies for their kids, and bargain-hunters in general.
TIP
Before going to the Woolworths downstairs drop-by Crazy Clark's, and see if they have what you want. If they do, you could save fifty percent. I always find the case with some mid-range shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant and toothpaste brands. The same can be said with tinned fruit, instant coffee and other staples
200 Murray St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9265 5600
http://www.myer.com.au
Hours:
Mon-Thu 9:00 - 18:00
Fri 9:00 - 21:00
Sat 9:00 - 17:00
Sun 11:00 - 17:00
Everything about Myer city is about location. They are in a way of passage from one part of Forrest Chase to the other, and you are gonna buy something in between the entrance and the exit, I'm telling ya!
I buy a lot at Myer's, I confess, out of convenience most of the times. However, Myer in the CBD is a bit mediocre regarding layout, lightening, attrezzo, and the products they sell, although this also changes from section to section.
What I like the most about Myers is how approachable, courteous, and helpful the staff are. Most of them will go out of their way to help you with anything you want or ask. I also love the presence of different mid-range brands shops (Cue, Review, Basque), Australian designer section, and some European affordable designers. The cosmetic stands on the ground floor are always a stop for me. I also love their underwear section -nothing over the top, but many different styles, qualities, prices, colours, textures and degrees of sexiness and spandex-itis.
Their bag, shoe and accessories section s mediocre regarding variety, styles and prices. They have a good selection of walking shoes, usually overpriced, and some fancy staff, but nothing truly trendy. The wallet section is poorly displayed, with a boring selection of items, mixed with some isolated "poshies". The bags area suffers from the same surf-and-turf style, "cheapies" and "expensivies" mixed without style - my aesthetic organs suffer. The designer bags are poorly displayed, and the bags displayed are very conservative, even if you had the extra 1000 dollars to pay for one of those. The selection of belts, scarves, glasses, watches and fashion jewellery is just OK.
The electronics section has been in decay in the last years regarding variety, customer service and quality. They've completely forgotten the mix of brands they used to have available for MP3 players, to become slaves to the new-religion-for-the-Masses Ipod. Their camera and audio areas are small and poor (worse than any small Dick Smith's), still a bit pricey, and the same can be said of the computer and camera accessories, which are expensive and boring. "Macos" area, however, has been expanding at their cost. They still have a great selection of laptops at very affordable prices, first-class brands; however, they used to have each computer's specifications printed and available for the customers, but this is no longer the case. Why are they going to think about the customer, eh?
I love the thingies in the barista and kitchen areas, but most things are ver expensive, even on sale. Their crockery section is nice, varied and affordable. Their bed-linen and bathroom section is OK with a mix of conservative good quality brands, but they rarely have creative beautiful items or designs. Bed, Bath 'n table is around the corner and you'll find those in there.
Their sales all year around are in many cases... fake and/or poor. I trust the discounts of the branded areas as they operate independently. However, Myer styff suffers from a constant sales-itis, which serves to showcase their need to lower prices that were unrealistically high to start with. For real sales, good quality ones, go to David Jones. For example, last year I bought a coffee plunger "half price" to find later that day that David Jones had the same size and brand much cheaper and it wasn't even half price.
The Pinnacles, Myer's restaurant, is unglamorous and decadent, like designed for a club of retirees in their 80s - a pinnacle of blandness: Bland food and cakes, terrible instant coffee machine, bad service.
Myer super-master-top-brain CEOs were crying out to the public this year about the poor volume of sales. It is not the crisis, guys, it is YOU, the way Myers operates, and the comfort business area you've settled in. Move your buttocks, and think creatively. Reinvent yourselves. Change your pricing policy, don't lie to the customer with fake sales, and don't overcharge. Reinvent the style of your shops and make them a bit trendier. Delimitate better the different shopping areas and glamorise them. Bring into the shop new mid-range and posh brands that are classy but a bit trendier. Revamp your website and offer online sales that can compete with the ones the USA sites are offering. So many things to improve!
I feel I could reorganise the whole chain on my own, really. Give me a pair of Jimmy Choos with the matching bag and we can start talking...Ah, no, those are only available at David Jones...peccato!
