Mountain warehouse

[Humakt]

Erm...yeah...well, you've not just had a top-end outdoor equipment shop open up nearby.
I'm not going to be too down on Mountain Warehouse though.
It's definitely aimed at the mass-market/casual outdoor fashion end of the market though. I would suggest that no 'serious' outdoor participant shops there.
But it's OK for bits and pieces. Don't let people totally dismiss it for you.

My only serious word of caution is that the zips on their clothing are poor. I certainly wouldn't buy any.
But T shirts, bottles, odds and ends in their '2-for-1' range, and my father swears their base layers are good for the money (when on sale), and other things like that are fine. A fleece is a fleece, so I reckon you'd be OK there. I just wouldn't touch their jackets with a barge pole no matter how good a bargain they seem - I (and I know a few others) have had nothing but problems with them, and it's nearly always the bloody damn zips.

A lot of their stuff is aimed at selling you a lifestyle rather than a practical outdoors item. Example - t-shirts with VW beetles and camper vans on them (because, hey! Camper vans are, like, you know, totally cool, yeah?!). So, fashion stuff rather than decent outdoor stuff.
Like I say, it's the kind of place that people who walk around town in outdoor gear or only experience the countryside when taking the dog for a walk shop at (not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that), but not the kind of place that anyone doing anything 'serious' outside goes to.

A good example of the kind of shop it is, and the customer base they expect - earlier this year (about February/March time) I went into our local store because I wanted some tent pegs. I looked around and couldn't see any. So I asked a sales assistant where they were. 'Oh, we don't have any on the shelves at the moment until the camping season starts in a couple of months.' That's what they're geared up for and the kind of customer they aim at. So long as you go in there with that kind of expectation then you'll be fine and won't feel let down.