Sports Direct

This location has moved recently. I’ve been to the old one a few times and had mostly unremarkable service.
I went into the new store today to buy a ball pump for a football. I wandered a bit at first, to have a look around, but didn’t see any ball pumps. No one asked me if I needed any help for awhile so I found an employee who was helping someone and motioned to them that I would like help after he’s done with that customer. He finished and then just walked off and started putting clothes back on the rack! Er, hello?!?
I found someone else, since that guy couldn’t be bothered, and this girl just pointed to the checkout counter and said the ball pumps are up there. Just ask someone behind the counter. Um, okay, couldn’t you walk over there and just show me?
I walk up the checkout counter and nobody acknowledges me or says can I help you. So I finally just speak up, where can I find a ball pump? Nobody even looks up! Ha! So I wait for someone to look up and she says, next! Didn’t know I was in a line, because there isn’t one single line. Read any statistic on queues and they all say one line feeding multiple registers is the best way. But that’s another topic.
So I ask her where can I find the ball pumps? She looks at me and says, «I know we have them, but I don’t know where they are.» Then there was about a 5 second awkward silence where I thought she might ask someone, but no she just stood there staring at me like it was my turn. I finally said, well… can you call someone to help me find them? She looked at the person next to her and that girl points to some balls and said they’re over there by the balls. There are balls all over the freakin’ store! Which ones? Well the balls with the ball pumps were close by so I grabbed one and then I start walking back to the til. As I get closer I hear the first girl talking to her coworkers in a slightly annoyed voice and she says, «I work at the til, how would I know where the ball pumps are?» Wow, how about an interest in being a decent employee? Customer service at its lowest I’m afraid.

Urgh.
I don’t know why I bother. It is what it is, its super cheap because its painful, and painful painful experience to shop at sports direct, and I will never go in again. I just can’t.
Service
I don’t think anyone in that place wants to be there, there sales knowledge is ok — but my gosh they are worked to the bone, and you can here it in their boring radio chat, that customers are subjected to.
Store layout.
Screw you with your Mens trainers on ground level — with no obvious signage — men of course are default in sports wear — I have to trek around to find the ladies and the childrens section (size 5 feet) which are again — really far apart (just put all the shoes together?! — do you not think men and women might shoe shop… together?!) The running shoes are separate from the ‘fashion shoes’ I couldn’t even find any gym shoes. What a joke. I’m not going there again, too much choice, with little direction, its fine to have choice if you section off the shoes into categories.
Trainers: NO — just the very fact that I am subjected to pink in any sports wear because I am female is beyond me. How do my sexual organs hold any power over my colour choice. Pink/​Purple… seriously every shoe but 1 or 2 (and then its like… baby blue or something trite) just no! Not just the shoes — but the clothes — walking into the ladies section, felt like part of me had gone back 4 decades. what on earth, are you joking?!
Summary: It’s cheap — that is all.

Sports Direct is great place to find brand name sportswear at cheap prices. This store is in the basement off Oxford st next to the Plaza. It’s divided into sections but sometimes it’s not as easy to find what you’re looking for. They do have a large selection of clothes and sportswear and it’s great for finding items for specific sports.
The biggest problem is the queuing system they have in place, instead of one big queue and going to the next till available each till has it’s own queue and I always seem to pick the wrong one and it takes a while to get served which isn’t always ideal if you are in a rush.