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Harrods: Ultimate Shopping Experience
 

Photo: SXC

MIND MAGAZINE | The Harrods legend began in 1849 with tea merchant Charles Henry Harrod, who established a grocery store located on Brompton Road, south of London’s world-famous Hyde Park, in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea (the village of Knightsbridge back then). The store expanded in the late 1800s when many new departments were added, and since then Harrods is the only answer to the shopping question in London.

The world’s greatest department store has more prodigal products than any other store in the world. And even though it might not be the biggest, taking into consideration the location, construction and most talked about interior, Harrods is the most expensive store on Earth. On top of that, there are certain rules Harrods would like their visitors to comply with: no photos, no ripped clothes and no unaccompanied kids under 16.

Harrods, which takes an entire city block in central London, has become a must-see location on the list of every London tourist. In fact, it is so big that it has its own map. With, seven floors and over 115,500 square metres of selling space, thousands of employees promise to have any item on your mind. You can purchase absolutely anything – Harrods will even deliver if the item needs to be special-ordered for you. People have been quoted as saying, “this really is the world’s greatest department store – it was good enough for [Princess] Diana, which should be plenty good for the rest of us.”
 

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The Egyptian room and the Edwardian marble grandiose food halls are at the heart of the store and are not to be missed. Groceries are still the number one reason many people come to Harrods notwithstanding hundreds of fashion departments dominating the store. It is not easy to remain callous when exposed to such magical variety of food. There are around twenty separate departments for cakes, pastries, vegetables, fish, meat, fruits, cheese (over 350 types from 15 countries), bread (150 types) and more. Each department is again divided into sections. Take cakes for example. Here you’ll find sections for: birthday cakes, wedding cakes, regular cakes… The food market at Harrods is the place where you can buy any food at any time of the year – all in impeccable quality, - proven by holding four royal warrants, which come from the late Queen Mother and close family members.

While Harrods delivers an exquisite shopping experience, it does not come cheap. The best department store in Britain offers the widest range of luxury services from beauty salons or expensive jewellery sections, to valet parking, shopping advisors, corporate solutions, carpeted floors or dog coat fitting. The store truly lives up to its motto – “Everything for Everybody Everywhere.” According to fans of the store, Harrods is not for the “grab and run,” but more for the “born to shop” type.

Nevertheless, up to 300,000 customers visit the store on certain days. And if you happen to be one of them, people recommend taking at least two credit cards, as the “just visiting” strategy practically never works. You don’t have to worry about foreign currency as well – Harrods has a financial services department in its basement where it offers to exchange every currency imaginable to the British Pound Sterling.

Maintaining a good reputation is always a challenge to any store’s management. To the administration of Harrods, this results in constant and much bigger challenges. But as you may have already guessed, Harrods does it even better. Since the store was bought by Mohammed al-Fayed in 1985, Harrods has been responsible to deliver a series of memorable historic events, which helped Harrods to swiftly become the world-famous institution that it is today. One of the most memorable events was creating a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi al-Fayed -Mohammed al-Fayed’ son-, exhibiting the last wine glass left in the exact condition it was left in when the couple dined at Ritz Hotel in Paris and the engagement ring bought by Dodi shortly before the tragic car accident in 1997.

Harrods today is a network of hundreds of services under one name, one brand. More than just a store, Harrods serves millions of people as a corporation in many industries, such as merchandise selling, real estate, financial services, a casino, air travel and many others. It seems that there is nothing that Harrods can’t do for the people or businesses it deals with on a daily basis. So, if you happen to visit London, go in and get to experience the legend.


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