Monday 26 April 2010

Paul & Joe & Givenchy Warehouse Sale

The Prestige Warehouse Sale is taking place this Wednesday 28 April to Friday 30 April! It is at the usual location in Jalan Kilang. Prestige is the distributor of Paul & Joe and Givenchy in Singapore, as well as numerous fragrance brands which are listed in the pic below. You can read my earlier posts about the previous Prestige warehouse sales in December 2009 and November 2008. The sale can be quite chaotic, and you can expect long queues at the cashier. I'm skipping this one because I'm saving up for the Paul & Joe summer makeup collection :-) Happy shopping, everyone!

18 comments:

zhenling said...

hi haru,

im planning to go thanks for your info. based on your past experience, what time would you reccommend us to start queuing?

Haru said...

hi zhenling,
If you want to be among the first to get to either Givenchy or Paul & Joe, then you would probably need to start queuing about 1 to 1.5 hours in advance. At the last sale, the earliest customer was there at just after 9am. Also, there were many Filipinos there early (I believe they had friends working in the company as they were conversing with some of the staff through the gates before the sale started).

The problem is that even if you are the first few persons in the queue, once the gate opens, everyone just rushes to the Paul& Joe and Givenchy tables and starts vying for the SAs' attention. Usually, there are only two SAs for Paul & Joe and they are often trying to serve 3 customers at a time. So you can imagine how messy and disorganised (not to mention frustrating) it is, because there is no queue at the individual tables. Everyone just crowds around grabbing testers to try, and then try to get the SA's attention to let her know the items that you want. What usually happens is that they will write the item product/shade that you want on a ziplock bag, which they then pass to another staff behind to fill, and then you collect the bag from behind the cashier to make payment. There have been huge problems in the past with this system:

1. The staff cannot locate your ziplock bag.

2. You don't know which items are out of stock until you go retrieve the ziplock bag.

3. Sometimes you queue up at the cashier for a long time only to get to the cashier, and then get asked to go out of the queue to get your ziplock bag, after which you have to queue all over again. So go retrieve your ziplock bag from behind the cashier before you queue up to make payment (that is, unless they change the system this year).

You can read my earlier posts for the other problems that you are likely to encounter at the sale.

Lia said...

hi haru,

I want to ask when you say we must retrieve the bag before queue for the cashier,is it means you just searching for your ziplock bag then carry it to the cashier or just let the sales person in the ziplock bag area know that you will start queue for payment at the cashier so they can help to find it faster? I plan to go down to the sale but because this is my first time so need to ask you. =)
And from both paul and joe and givenchy,which one you think more worth to take a look first? Which one usually have more range of products? Thank you. =)

Haru said...

hi Lia,
At the two previous sales that I went to, after the staff has packed the ziplock bags for P&J, they will place the bags in a small room that is behind the cashier. They number the bags and you are given the number. So you have to go to that room and get your ziplock bag before you start queueing up for the cashier. For perfumes, all the stock is placed on the tables so you can just take those and put them in your basket. But for makeup products, the stock is all kept behind and that's how the ziplock bag system comes in.

Again, I don't know if they will change the system this year so it could very well be different this time round. Givenchy usually has makeup and skincare but it is the skincare which gets snapped up very fast. Paul & Joe usually has more makeup than skincare. For me, Paul & Joe is the brand that I always go for first because it's one of my favourite brands. For Paul & Joe, they usually have all the recent limited edition stuff (like lipsticks and face colours), plus recently discontinued stuff like the eyeshadow singles, foundations, primers, concealers etc.

AhCapp said...

Hi Iris,

I think I belong to one of those pioneers who who went to the Prestige warehouse sale. In fact, I met Adele there for the very first time! Just like I met you the very first time. =)

Anyway, I have retired from this warehouse sale. =D Goosh, it has turned from bad to worse for the past few ones (which I didn't go). For the few sales I went to, I remebered queuing up at like 10min before the gate opened, and I was still able to grab lots of fantastic deals. Like the P&J train case, P&J makeup pouch, $1 P&J sheet masks, $5 Givenchy samples, P&J brushes & pouches. <-- Most of these things are STILL untouched in my wardrobe! hahahahah =D

I love going to warehouse sale though. It's super exciting! ^_^ But time to let the new blood hit the scene... hehehehe

uneekunique said...

thank you for sharing. :-)

Haru said...

AhCapp!! Time to dig them out and use! :-) Yeah, the Paul & Joe and Givenchy often appear at Expo sales, or other sales so actually the items are all about the same after awhile. But given that they just revamped their line of single eyeshadows and some of the skincare like the whitening serum, my guess is that there will be plenty of these at the sale.

Anonymous said...

Since it's a weekday & I am not able to get off, I will skip this too.

Herbie Sammi said...

Hi haru, thanks for the wonderful info once again. Am looking fwd to P&J sale!

rosebutter said...

hello,
I just came back from the sale. Reached at 10.20am and there's about 20 ppl infront alr.
As usual, ppl rushed to the Paul&Joe counter. I reached about 10th person. Queued 50mins, and ordered my stuff in 10 mins.
Then I went to Givenchy counter. IMO, Givenchy SAs are so much better, and much more efficient. The prisms are lippies are pretty =D
Here's the horrible part: QUEUEING to pay. In total 2hours+++, and for my Paul & Joe, the whitening emulsion and other skincare and lipsticks are OOS. I only knew when I went to collect the zip-lock bag. HORRIBLE. And when queueing, then I knew why the traincases are OOS when I'm 10th person at Paul&Joe counter. Someone bought like 3 huge boxes = 20++ traincases.. -.-

Haii.. Totally nearly 4hours there. Only good thing, I got my Givenchy Blush and lippies.. Wasted my time at the Paul&Joe counters..

Unknown said...

Hi Gals,

I suggest stop going for this warehouse sale anymore. I bought a few item today and all either broken (the cake got smash really badly) or expired. I went back again all the way from Hougang and they told me that it's my fault and refuse to exchange for me. This is so unfair and I even call to check if I can exchange with them and they say YES.

feiii said...

Thanks so much haru! btw, do you know if they restock each day? am wondering if i should go down thursday afternoon or morning on fri.

based on your past experiences and knowledges of these sales, what do you think?

Lynn.TrinketsLove said...

Hi Haru!
Maybe it's a good thing you gave this sale a miss! I was at the sale this morning, though i got some items from P&J and Givenchy, they are really nothing to shout about :) Everything was like you have mentioned about the ziplock bags, the queues at the cashier etc. I was really disappointed that quite a number of items I've selected at P&J turned out to be OOS when I collected them at the room behind the cashier even I was one of the first few who arrived at P&J counter when the sale started..arghhh....the cashiers/payment was a total flop & mess! Item prices were not found in the system as such the staff cannot scan & had to key in prices manually...I wonder why the management/organiser did not look into this when they had these problems in previous sales...sigh...I dont think I'll go to Prestige sale again.

Haru said...

hi Trinkets Love,
When I was at the previous sale in November, I overheard the staff telling one customer that even though they themselves (the staff) have given feedback to the management about the various problems at the sale, the management did nothing about it. So despite all the complaints every time they hold a warehouse sale, there's no improvement in the management of the sale. Perhaps it's because many people still go for the sale despite all these problems.

hi feiii,
Sorry, I don't know if they will restock so it's probably best to go down as early as you can.

hi behappy,
Sorry to hear about your negative experience. Another reason to skip this sale...sigh.

hi lalala,
The cashier problems and pricing errors at the Prestige sale are a perennial problem. That's why the queueing time is also so long, and frustrating.

Anonymous said...

Hi all,

I would advise all ladies planning to go to the sale to skip it. Not worth going there.

I'm totally frustrated over the whole experience at the sale today. Agree with those who went, the items either cannot be found or had expired/become cakey.

I'm also one of the firsts to get into the P&J queue and when I went to collect the items, they cannot be found. I had to get the staff to help me search and in the end, they cannot find them and I can't get those "hot" items. Wasted my time coming so early yet cannot get the stuffs i want.

Waited very long at the cashier too. The cashier either key in wrong pricing or don't know the price at all. The situation there was very chaotic by noon and someone broke a bottle of moisturizer accidentally.

The sale is indeed getting from bad to worse.

BeautyOnTheWay said...

I went to this sale yesterday and posted some items I got last night. I think I'm not going next year also, I was so tired and it was so messy down there. But I got sth I want, lucky!

psalmelody said...

Hi Haru & all

I'm here to gripe about Givenchy. Placed my order for 2 Givenchy limited edition Pop Gloss Crystal Lip Gloss #421 Golden Chantilly & #444 Plum by Night but I realised that they have swapped #414 Glitter Orange & #04 Rose Taboo instead only when I reached home!

Totally thwarted my efforts.

Anonymous said...

Hi ladies, i just came back from the sale. i went today at lunch time.
I expected to be packed but had a present surprise that its not. Had a great time shopping there with my friends ;)
but some of the nice things are of course gone by today but i'm still happy ;)