Waterstones Reviews Summary

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "Staff great and very knowledgeable."
• "The staff are exquisite and like to help out."
• "Excellent customer service, always go out of their way to be helpful."
• "The staff are always helpful and happy to chat about your purchase."
• "The employees are so friendly and helpful."
• "Staff are very friendly. So many floors plus a café at the top."
• "Staff are always really friendly and helpful. Well laid out with handwritten recommendations on the shelves."

Cons:

• "Service in the new cafe is awful."
• "Then went to the cafe, Big Mistake! Overpriced and underwhelming selection of food served by a miserable girl."
• "It can get busy and it's not always easy to find someone to help unless you go up to the till."
• "Aside from one lady on the downstairs sales desk, who is constantly flustered and snippy, staff are super friendly and always helpful and willing to offer recommendations."
• "I couldn't find any and there was only two noticeable staff members who just ignored any attempt to answer questions so left and won't be rushing back anytime soon."

Store Layout and Accessibility

Pros:

• "There's escalaters and a lift to the floors above."
• "Although the shop is spread over multiple floors, there are escalators to minimise the disruption."
• "There's also a cafe near the top floor for those wanting to eat, and both stairs, escalators and lifts to use :)"
• "Such a great store, many levels, but lots of escalators and lifts available. Well laid out and as always with Waterstones, great staff and wonderful ambience."
• "For the accessibility aspect, the shop has the escalators, stairs and also a lift."
• "There are escalators up to the top floor and a lift to take you back down if you have mobility needs or lots of shopping!"

Cons:

• "Large selection of books and helpful staff, it is quite a tight shop tho and people with pushchairs and in wheel chairs might fond ot a bit tricky."
• "It is quite a tight shop tho and people with pushchairs and in wheel chairs might fond ot a bit tricky."
• "A large store with great ambience (especially in the cafe) but the layout can feel cramped at times."

Book Selection and Variety

Pros:

• "A large bookstore with four storeys. Different types of books can be found, both classics and recent publications are available."
• "Awesome book store. 5 floors! Massive collection of literature."
• "Huge fiction selection, massive store, friendly staff. Great for gifts, have a whole section for 'Nice prints'."
• "Biggest Waterstones I've ever visited, large range of genres."
• "Has every book you could think of. From best selling fiction to unknown new comers."
• "One of the biggest book libraries I've seen! 5 stories tall full of books."
• "They've got books for nearly every subject."

Cons:

• "Non fiction is somewhat limited for specialist subject - this is quite picky - I was looking for C# programming books, books on arduino projects, and books on OOP."
• "Apart from the store in London this Waterstones is the biggest I have seen in England. It's not as good as it used to be in my opinion; too many gifts and nick-nacks, not enough books."
• "Disappointing visit, range of books is limited and many books sealed up so you can't flick through."
• "Just a shame that their stock of 'fly 🎣 fishing' books were extremely limited, ie 2 😟."

Cafe and Amenities

Pros:

• "The cafe is great too. I could sit there all day drinking coffee and reading books."
• "Lovely cafe on the top floor, though I must admit a bit over crowded with students who seemed to be using it as a warm zone."
• "I love the cafe at the top floor because it has a nice atmosphere of academia and cultivated people."
• "Love the team in the coffee shop too... it's always busy and they're always pleasant."
• "There is a lovely little café on the top floor serving drinks and cake."
• "It's wonderland for a bookworm. There are several floors and a cafe inside."
• "Loved this book store! Best place to be, reading a book with a cuppa tea! Café superb, good food snacks and drinks, too!"

Cons:

• "Service in the new cafe is awful."
• "Then went to the cafe, Big Mistake! Overpriced and underwhelming selection of food served by a miserable girl."
• "It's a great place but tables become hard to find on Saturday especially when it's cold outside and they run out of sandwiches faster than expected."
• "As for the caffe part they gave me a piece of cake as if it were a piece of stone!!!!"
• "The one sore spot for me is the Costa coffee upstairs, which has awful toilets, takes up a lot of space and seems unnecessary considering the amount of coffee shops nearby."
• "Shame about the café, it's good that the area has been enlarged with nice furniture but the choice if food is not very good and there doesn't seem to be any provision for people with allergies."

Pricing and Offers

Pros:

• "The Waterstones card is fab especially when the assistant lets you know you have ten pounds on it to spend!!"
• "But of course click-and-collect in-store is a good option, and oftentimes a bit cheaper."
• "Great bookstore with a wide selection of books on every topic you can think of. They had some nice holiday discounts as well so go there to stock those socks!"
• "Prices are competitive and in some cases have found a better deal."

Cons:

• "Anyone who enjoys books knows that waterstones is very expensive."
• "There's also a small section of board games and other nick-nacks. But they're extraordinarily overpriced."
• "However they are not doing themselves any favours by failing to mark the price on books that are sealed in cellophane. That's one of my pet hates."