The General Trader

The General Trader has own brands and top brands instore offering a homewares shopping experience which can be kind to the budget but also allow a few splurges on a really nice skillet. The General Trader is excellent when filling your pantry from scratch with quite a lot of gizmos and whats-​its to jam your utensil drawer and even stock tableware to pop on your table. That said though, the General Trader is all about the tools and those looking for glassware and top quality tableware is scarce so I’d advise to head elsewhere for those looking for fine china and crystal.
Staff are very helpful here and will offer advice about product selection and the best item for you.

I’m a big fan of The General Trader, especially during their sales periods. (I also love the logo but that’s irrelevant I guess) This store is not the biggest one but offers a great selection of kitchenware, ranging from pots and pans to knives, cutlery and other kitchen utensils.
They stock the usual famous brands like Scanpan, Anolon, Maxwell & Williams, Salt & Pepper etc. and usually at good prices. However, their sales are unbeatable. Do look out for them as you can save up to 50% or more on selected items.

Great bargains during sale time, I got myself a wonderful French skillet for a quarter of its usual cost a couple of years ago so I always have a poke around this brilliant kitchen shop to see what else they may have. The staff are always up for a little discussion about what is new and what is on special so it is a good place to get a bit of kitchen information. Why is this product so sought after? What do you use this for? Why is this so hard to find? All of those sorts of questions can be addressed with the right staff member. It is a good place to bring someone who is starting their own pantry or kitchen as well, to help them get things moving.
They have other incentives to purchase here and bring your friends, with rewards offered once you have made a certain amount of purchases; and they have additional information about products at their website along with useful links and insights to things as well.

Despite the cluttered appearance and narrow walkways through the store, it does have all you may want for the kitchen but the only items they don’t stock are electrical appliances. It has a industrial look and feel about it with all the steel from the lighting to the metal bins housing items for sale and also a large amount of square blue tiles.
I don’t tend to favour one kitchen store over another as I like to flutter from one to the other but the prices here I think are on parr with other stores. The last purchase I made from The General Trader was at their Marion store, which was a Baccarat stock pot and on sale, it was the cheapest 9ltr I could find even by Harris Scarfe standards. This made me very happy indead… mission accomplished.
A great place to buy gifts as there are quite a few boxed items such as glassware and the like, which you don’t need to buy individually simply just wrap and give.
The store offers a rewards card whereby for each dollar spent you earn a point and once that has accumulated to 500 points, the reward will be a $ 25 voucher to spend in store. There is an online store for browsing and purchasing plus I found their recipe section very helpful and reasonably comprehensive.