Homebase replacement

With the demise of Homebase here in Inverness a few months back it's been announced that The Range will be opening in the same unit come July. I've heard good reports about them but never actually shopped there. Any opinions on The Range will be appreciated please.

 

Hu @Sheal, we have a Range . It's the sort of place that if it exists they'll sell it. The garden centre in ours used to be fantastic but has gone down the last two years or so. Still great for bulbs and seeds though.

 

We shop at the Range. The plants in ours are well kept and reasonably priced. They do lots of seeds if that's what you are into. We have the Range and B&M together. Now there is no need to go anywhere else. The Range has a good coffee shop.

 

Hi Jack. Do they also do a good bacon butty?

In the commercial world, things are always on the move. Many perhaps well known names suddenly close down and are replaced by a shadow relative business. I think it's now a matter of fact. If they have what you want,then go for it. Sad to say, in todays world, loyalty has gone out of the window.

 

I've visited 2 of their stores, one has a large selection of gardening and other stuff, but the other one has a tiny stock of gardening items and half their small display of plants didn't have any prices on and I wont bother going to that one again.

 

@Mike Allen They do lovely chipotle chicken panini.

G.

 

The Range is a great store for, well it has an eclectic range of stuff not really like another store. The gardening section is well stocked and well priced. The plants are probably best avoided, like Wiklos and Aldi, it's if you drop on them at the right time.

 

Thanks all. I'll enjoy having a look around. We are told it will be the full Range, excuse the pun, with a garden centre and cafe.

 

Looks like our old Homebase is turning into Home Bargains eventually. Things happen really slowly........round here.

 

We already have Home Bargains Wee Tam and I'm not that impressed, although it's only a small shop.

 

There used to be a Homebase close to my home. It had a massive car park that was also home to a team of Eastern Europeans who had set up a car valeting service. Really top class service they provided. The store sadly wasn't all that large, to todays standards and in a way was likened to the old style corner shop, where the owner wanted to sell everything....Open all hours. So it often meant that if say two shoppers were looking at something, then that aisle was blocked. Anyway it is now closed down. Rumours are that IKEA have their sights on it.

That another strange thing. All this Brexit business, company's here packing up and going across the channel. So! Ikea, Aldi, Lidl etc....perhaps they have their A-Z up the wrong way. Nevertheless. ( I love that word. Reminds me of my legal days. Heretofore etc). Our ways of shopping are changing so fast. Yes, the internet is perhaps leading the way. Just think, you no longer have to dress up warm in winter and go to the shops. Order on line. Even the groceries can be delivered. Perhaps a future directive from the medic and live better experts. You're becoming obese. Get up off your arse...oops! bottom and go shopping.

Shopping for many now entails going out of town to a complex. My local council recently , along with tfl spent 6.6m pounds on changing the high street. What a waste.

 

Six weeks later, and having some time to kill whilst our daughter had a couple of test drives, went back to our local The Range to see if it had improved. Their DIY stuff I'd just been looking at in Tesco was about doublev the price, and as with their plants on my last visit, loads of items didn't have shelf edge price labels.

Next I went outside to check the quality of their plants, but the first thing I noticed that their Jack's Magic @ £6.99 or 2 for £11, was far more expensive than Blue Diamond @ £6.99 + BOGOF, a whopping 57% more expensive, plus BD give a further 5% back in reward points.

And many of their plants were in an appalling condition:







And once again there was no price on that diseased apple tree, nor on lots of the other dying/unhealthy plants that Homebase would have either binned or given away for free to those that might be able to use some TLC to nurse them back to health.

 

With ours being a new store @Scrungee at least the initial plants should be in good condition. I'll report back when I've done a tour.

 

But those images were from the new The Range store that replaced my old local Homebase, and that is their new stock. The entire Homebase stock was sold off before the shopfitters moved in to refit it for The Range.