ENTER A DIFFERENT WORLD

Welcome to Harrods — a different world for a million reasons. Harrods is the largest store in Europe with goods displayed in 60 windows and five and a half hectares of selling space. In one year over 14 million purchases are made in the 214 departments where you can buy anything from a pin to an elephant - if you can con­vince the manager of the Pet Department that you are a suitable elephant owner, that is! It is Harrods' policy to stock a wide and exciting range of merchandise in every department to give the cus­tomer a choice of goods which is unique in its variety and which no other store can match: Harrods stocks 100 different whiskies, 57 single malts, 450 different cheeses, 500 types of shirts and 9,000 ties to go with them, 8,000 dresses and 150 different pianos.

Harrods also offers a number of special services to its customers including a bank, an insurance department, a travel agency, Lon­don's last circulating library, a theatre ticket agency and a funeral service. £40 million worth of goods are exported annually from Harrods and the Export Department can deal with any customer purchase or order and will pack and send goods to any address in the world. Recently, for example, six bread rolls were sent to New York, a handkerchief to Los Angeles, a pound of sausages to a yacht anchored in the Mediterranean, a Persian carpet to Iran and a £5,000 chess set to Australia. Harrods has a world-wide reputation for first-class service. It has a staff of 4,000, rising to 6,000 at Christ­mas time.

Harrods sells 5 million different products, not all of which are actually kept in stock in the store itself. To handle this enormous range, a new computerized warehouse is being built. It will be the largest warehouse in Britain and the second largest in Europe and will deal with a wider range of goods than any other distribution centre in the world. Thanks to its modem technology a customer will be able to order any product (for example, a dining table or a dishwasher) from any assistant in the store. The assistant will be able to check its availability immediately on a computer screen, de­cide with the customer on a suitable delivery date and time and then pass the order directly to the warehouse through the computer. The time of delivery will be guaranteed to within one hour.

For many of London's visitors Harrods is an important stop on their sightseeing programme. Henry Charles Harrod's first shop was opened in 1849, but the building as it stands today was started in 1901 and it has become one of London's landmarks. It has many items of architectural interest: the plaster ceilings are original, as is the famous Meat Hall with its Victorian wall tiles, and the light fit­tings on the ground floor date back to the 1930s. A morning spent strolling round Harrods is guaranteed to give any shopper an appe­tite, and to feed its customers Harrods has six restaurants, ranging from the Circle self-service restaurants offering delicious food at reasonable prices to the famous Harrods Restaurant, where queues form every afternoon for the "Grand Buffet Tea", which fora fixed price allows you to eat as many cream cakes and gateaux as your greed will allow while waitresses serve you with India or China tea. If you feel like a drink you can choose between the pub atmosphere of the Green Man Tavern and the sophistication of the Cocktail Lounge. Harrods truly is a different world.

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