Cotswold Outdoor Reviews 

Excellent, friendly, attentive and knowledgeable service helped me select the right pair or running shoes, thoroughly recommend

Bought items from this company. Wanted to return however their returns system did not work. Tried multiple times for alleged pick ups and no one picked up. Massive admin nightmare and then when I emailed, they did get back but I missed this - have now tried a number of months later - yes very late but as it was their system in the first place that would not work I would expect some help on this help on this - and now I have to keep them. Use companies with decent exchange systems!

Slowest click and collect ever!!! Six days!!!
Store itself reduced in size and stock considerably reduced.
No wonder store is virtually empty.
Used to come regularly - won’t bother again

Click and collect didn’t arrive at all! Enquiry required seven days to look into it so cancelled order!

Had a really great experience in the Betws-Y Coed store today with our 2 dogs, who were both made to feel very welcome. The staff were really friendly, especially Dan who helped my partner chose some items he was looking for. I would highly recommend visiting this store, the customer service was excellent.

Cotswold Outdoor use Evri, which claimed they delivered to me, which they did not. Costwold Outdoor is refusing to refund me unless Evri investigate. It is impossible to call Evri. Now I have reordered the items as I desperately need them for a safari but delivery is now past the promised date. How can a company operate like this? Seems to be illegal practices as my contract is not with Evri.

Absolutely abysmal company to purchase online from. Will NEVER again buy online again from this company. Would advise to shop elsewhere.
First part of order I discovered myself was cancelled, they didn’t have the courtesy to notify me.
Second part of order is now being held by the Royal Mail to not be delivered to me??
This is after 2 days of communications with customer services through the App. Please note, the customer services do NOT respond through email.
Their order system and shipping department, warehouses, canteen lady and customers services are a shambles. Nobody knows what they are doing. Save yourself the hassle and shop elsewhere.

Having looked at some of these bad reviews, I want to share my totally different experience.
I visited the Salisbury store yesterday at about lunchtime just to buy another pair of socks. They did not have the size and when I asked the very pleasant young man if he had any in the stockroom, he replied with “aren’t there enough on show for you”! Which indeed there were, but his sense of humour made me laugh. He immediately followed this up with the fact that he could order me what I wanted. I asked how long that would take, and he said 24 hours and no extra charge!! I was quite taken aback, but it’s now less than 24 hours and I have just taken delivery of my socks. Not only that but for some reason I got a 5p discount.
Thank you Cotswold.

Service is always ok in store, but ordering anything for delivery is awful. This is probably down to the courier they choose to use. Don't let the "order within the next (however long) for guaranteed next day delivery" draw you in... what an absolute joke. Never again, loads of other places to go who use good delivery companies and you actually get your order when they state you will.

Excellent knowledgeable, professional and friendly service from Charlotte and Ben at the Bicester store. They enabled us to get fully kitted out for a 2 week walking expedition on the Camino de Santiago.

The sales advisor in the Brighton store was knowledgable, friendly and genuinely seemed to care that I bought the right product - talked about how to care for the jacket and recommended a wash in water proofing - excellent service!

Whilst walking the coast to coast we had to visit Catterick Garrison Cotswold due to my wife suffering blisters.
Following a full assessment of the cause Jodie informed us my wife had the wrong size shoes! 🤦🏻
No more blisters and my wife finished the coast to coast in comfort.
Not sure we’d have done it without Jodie and Cotswolds professionalism.
Excellent.

I've already posted a review on 11th July and I'm still waiting for my refund of £137.
Numerous emails back and forth to no avail.
How do I get my refund?

Do I do charge back??

Will never purchase for Cotswold again!

They are useless.

Visited the Stirling store yesterday. Great selection of quality outdoor clothing and other products at a good price. Knowledgeable, friendly and helpful staff.

I ordered a stove and gas cylinders for a click and collect order on the 14th June, I was advised of the collection window upon ordering. Both of the items were delayed which meant I couldn't use them for a trip I had planned. I ended up buying from elsewhere. I emailed their customer service and asked for a refund/cancellation, they then told me that the gas cylinders were still in transit and therefore they cannot cancel the order or process a refund. It is now the 20th July and they cannot tell me when the gas cylinders will even arrive. This means that I've spent over a month having paid money with nothing to show for it, and no assurances of a refund. They haven't escalated the issue and have no contingency for items that may be lost in transit or exceed a certain amount of days being delayed. This is by far the worst customer experience I've ever had. I won't be bothering with Cotswold outdoor whether it's in person or online ordering again just to avoid any more headaches.

Despite being busy, staff were able to assist, complementing one another. Very helpful and knowledgeable, unlike my experience the same day at Ellis Brigham. Not 5 stars, as paper bag was not free, even on my purchase of £200+. Company policy, apparently. I declined the bag. Not the best way of keeping customers happy!

Went to the store near South Cerney with some old shoes for recycling. The Cotswold Outdoor website makes a big thing about taking outdoor kit for recycling, which I was very impressed with.
Walked up to the counter and spoke to an offhand, unfriendly woman. She told me that they are not taking recycling at the moment. I suggested she get the website changed to say this and she said 'I tried that. Didn't go anywhere' and walked away from me.
I work front of house in a shop and being polite and friendly is part of the job.
Also, the webite should be updated to say that store is not taking recycling (or maybe it's all of them ?). I drove several miles to get there, feel very disappointed all round.

Absolutely appalling company. At this point I have been pursuing a refund for over 10 weeks despite their claims of 7-10days which is in itself very poor in an age of faster payments. I have sent multiple unanswered emails and spent over 7 hours on the phone across a significant number of calls. All you get from their inept and moronic customer advisers are hollow insincere apologies, broken promises and outright lies. Despite telling them at the very beginning that my original payment method was no longer active, they continuously try to use it regardless. Their despicable customer service agents won't connect you to their woeful, inept and ignorant finance team. Please do yourselves a favour and do NOT buy from Cotswold Outdoors. Aside from they below standard products, their customers service is disgusting. Thoroughly unprofessional organisation who have nothing but utter contempt for paying customers.

Meindl Mens Baltimore GTX Boots were purchased specifically to do the Overland Track in Tasmania during April. This walk takes 6 days. The weather was cold, snowy and wet as it was the end of autumn in Australia. The Meindl boots shrank in the wet conditions. I was in a wilderness and could do nothing but grit my teeth and carry on. I have subsequently lost 4 toe nails and had severe blistering around both my heels at the end of the walk. On my return to the UK, I took the boots back to the Bury St Edmunds store. Only to be told I shouldn’t have got them wet so the warranty is invalidated. How ridiculous is that! I am not amused at all as apart from the £186 the boots cost, they also caused me extreme pain and ruined my holiday. I am especially annoyed as the team in the shop knew exactly what type of walk I was undertaking and recommended those specific boots, incorrectly as it turned out. No compensation was offered and there was a total disregard for the situation this left me in. After sales customer service level was zero. Really poor and disappointing since I spent a lot of money in this shop! I will never shop here again.

I spent ~£400 on a recent order with Cotswold Outdoor and went for next day delivery as I was soon to go on holiday.
Part of the order didn't arrive within the timescale provided at purchase, before I went away.
I received an email while I was on holiday that the rest of the order was delivered(?) I live alone, so that was interesting.
I arrived back home and the order was nowhere to be found, neighbours hadn't seen or taken delivery.
Instead of processing any refund, Cotswold have taken a month to send me an email asking me to fill out forms - I am still awaiting a refund. The time between correspondence is bordering on absurd, and good luck if you try to ring them! I wouldn't use them again, not to be trusted.

After spending £ 550 at Cotswold Outdoor on various items for an upcoming hiking trip this Summer, I went back within 3 months because of an issue with a pair of Meindl hiking shoes I bought.

The description of these shoes on the Cotswold Outdoor website boasts of "all day superior comfort" but nothing could be further from my experience.

They are the perfect size and not too tight or too big but they nevertheless become incredibly painful after 20 minutes of wear.

As an experienced hiker who's used plenty of brands including Meindl, I knew that this wasn't normal.

In the shop, they didn't even look at or touch the shoes before telling me that there was nothing they could do. When taking the matter to their online customer service, they "assessed" there was nothing wrong with the shoes, based on a few photos of the shoes' exterior (not the interior).

They didn't even want to consider exchanging them for another pair or a partial refund.
The shoes are useless so that is GBP 234,- down the drain.

I was will never buy from Cotswold Outdoor again.