Review: Very.co.uk

::This is a sponsored post::

I've been given the opportunity to test the online department store very.co.uk. Interestingly, I'd never heard about them before, and now I see their banner all over the place, but I guess that's only normal as I'm not one to look out specifically for online department stores. Let me qualify this a bit - I do a lot of my shopping online, but it tends to be with the same limited set of retailers. I'm also not someone who enjoys browsing through online catalogues. Usually I look for something specific (or semi-specific) and then search for it. I find browsing online catalogues a bit tedious and much prefer a paper copy and I was apprehensive about how the very.co.uk catalogue would work for me, but as they've offered me to spend up to £50 on products of my choice, I was more than happy to give it a good shot.

Initially I browsed without much direction and then decided to look a bit closer at the search options and also the sections of the catalogue and found it worked rather well. There are a lot of ways to limit your search and make results much more manageable, in spite of the full catalogues being rather big and ranging from clothes to furniture and toys. So I had to admit that there are online department stores that do work for me and where I can in fact find what I'm looking for. It was also an eye opener in the sense that very had many articles that were of interest to me which I'd never expected to find there - for example the range of children's / nursery furniture is quite impressive and also very good value for money.

As for my trial, I decided to go for clothes for Cubling - being pregnant didn't inspire me much to look for myself (who knows what size I'll be!). I found some very nice clothes for her - such as the Nordic Smock Top (pictured above) and some of the prairie range, such as the Prairie Trousers, a two pack of lovely Prairie Tops and the cute Prairie Embroidered Top. and a top bargain of two jeans. There is definitely a lot for any taste and I had no trouble finding lost of interesting items (in fact, decision time was rather difficult!). When the items arrived, I was pleasantly surprised - they actually looked better in real life than on the website!

I'd chosen size 4-5 because I have quite a lot in Cubling's current 3-4 size and she's tall for her age. The clothes are still big, but I can see that she'll probably be able to wear them within 6 months. So the sizing is definitely not on the small side (as you get with some brands) but spot on, and only one of the items appears to be rather on the large side (but is a style where this doesn't matter so much).

I was also pleased with the bright and unusual colours of the items I chose, and the quality of it looks good to me. There was some hickups with delivery but it was sorted very quickly through a reminder and the clothes were then delivered almost on a next day basis (and my experience with a separate order of furniture was that the delivery was quicker than the time scale given, with excellent communication from order to receipt of item).

The one negative comment I have is on a totally different line: The website markets a credit account which will give you a certain percentage off your purchase. However the APR is extortionate at just under 40% and with such an interest rate the only advise can be to drop it like a hot potato. Of course you don't have to take out the credit account, however I feel that the APR is unexcusably high and may trap a good few people who are looking to spread their costs.

The company trades under different brand names, which I assume may be targeted at different groups of people.