Do you shop both Ross and TJ Maxx?

I’m in the U.K. and I shop at TK Maxx very often as they are in every major town. There are far fewer Homesense stores so I make a special trip to the next county to visit occasionally. We don’t have Marshalls or Ross over here:)

I shop at TJ Maxx, but I’d never heard of Ross before today. I googled and saw that the nearest store is 90 miles away in another state.

I have been to several Ross stores when visiting Sol Cal and Florida.  None are close to me in Western NY.  

I go to TJ Maxx & Marshalls in the USA.  I don't go to them or Winners in Canada.

I have compared prices and even with the exchange rate, the cost and the selection is much better in the USA than Canada.

Neither because I hate to shop. The last time I bought any clothes for myself was at Costco. I bought two short-sleeved tops which are a bit longer than the tee-shirt types that Target has. I also bought some black jeans online. 

Stores? nope. 

The TJ Maxx stores near me are pretty nice, as are the Marshalls’. Nice selection of clothes and home items. On the other hand the Ross stores are pretty much at the other end of the spectrum—messy, dirty, and picked over. They make the Big Lots look like Saks.

Both of those stores give me a headache. I think it is from the chemical smells on the clothes. I think they are treated to prevent pests in transit.🤮

I like both. I like the hunt of Ross. The two closest to me are both pretty well kept. One of them can get messy quickly, but I love a bargain! Since I’ve been losing weight I don’t like to drop a lot on any articles of clothing because I’m having to buy all new stuff each season. Ross and Old Navy have been a budget saver!

Yes and no. I like to, but I won't buy shoes at Marshall's any longer because they are old and falling apart at my store.

I have seen great home decor things that I like at HomeSense.

I loved Winners back in the day and bought a lot of clothes there. They used to have great things that I needed and I shopped there frequently.

Now I only go if I need something specific. The quality isn't there anymore i.e. old stock so elastic in merchandise is fraying.

the only thing I ever look at in TM is the scrapbook and craft stuff... !!! and the food aisle, in case they have any unusual finds, like the extra-hot German mustard I've found there a few times.

Interesting...I always thought it was just my local stores: Our Ross is always a disorganized mess and not welcoming at all, while there is a clean and organized TJ Maxx just a couple streets over. I mostly shop TJ Maxx for small gifts. I just get too overwhelmed shopping in these type stores. I never go looking for a particular item; I just browse and occasionally find a top or skirt. But then...I don't like clothes shopping. Online shopping and Stich Fix are my salvation.

I shop at both of them occasionally, usually when I'm in a browsing mood. The quality and cleanliness of Ross seems to always be related to the part of town. I prefer to find seasonal home decor at These type of places including Tuesday Morning, because it irritates me that places like Hobby Lobby gets items in and then has half off sales. TJ Maxx, Marshalls,Ross and Tuesday Morning have more reasonable prices on the label without sales.

When I shop, I pretty much have to shop at discount stores. So I am familiar with all of them.

Ross Stores vary by location and size. The smaller stores are well kept and organized. The bigger they are, the less that is true.

Working in retail, I can tell you why -- corporate does not add payroll equivalent to sales/product on shelves. So if say, a store makes $1 million/year and another store makes $10 million/year, the $10 mill store is not getting payroll for 10x the associates. At most they are getting 4-5x the associate hours. Most of the time, they are only getting 2-3x the associate hours. Therefore, the larger store will inevitably fail at keeping itself neat and organized. The second reason is that the issue with keeping a store neat and organized is largely due to the messes customers make. If you have $10 mill in sales, you have 10 times the customers making ten times the mess. So it's a spiral downward when you have 10 times the customers but only half the staff needed to pick up after them.

I used to love TJ Maxx and Marshall's, but it's been years since I found clothing in them. They never seem to have what I want or need. I guess it's because since I'm on budget, all I am looking for is basic stuff and they stock trends. The Marshall's closest to me is 1/3 the size of the Ross, but they have at least as many employees as Ross does -- that is why they look better. OTOH, their prices are higher than Ross. Staffing comes with a price, of course. The closest TJ Maxx is okay, but I have been turned off by their clearance area which is a jumble of broken merch -- including broken glass. Twice I pointed out broken glass in the clearance area to the manager on duty and when I returned a week later, the broken glass was still in its original position.

I'm in Canada where we have Marshall's, Winners and Home Sense.

I never find anything in Marshall's or Winner's, but I love Home Sense!

We've had Winners and Home Sense in the city for years and just got a Marshall's. Our Winners just upgraded to a bigger store. They are all clean, organized with good staff. I like shopping for non-clothing items at these stores. My teens seem to have good luck finding clothes at Winners.

I'm not a big fan of digging for clothes. In theory it should be the ideal place to shop short sleeved tops on this rack, denim pants here, long sleeved tops there. All organized by size. But since it's such a variety of brands and I know in my closet I have sizes medium to XL. How do you shop in these stores? If I find a large pink top do I also now have to go to the medium section and dig for a medium pink top to try both on? In a regular store I'd grab a medium and the large from right behind it if it looked like it would be a bit small.