I suspect I am not alone in thinking that none of those shops have any appeal whatsoever. That's a large part of the problem. High streets and town centres stuffed full of shops trying to sell stuff that no one wants or needs.
SWMBO bought a lightweight coat from M&S in June last year. By end of July, one of the buttons had cracked in half. Took it back for a replacement, and was astonished to have the *manager* (not assistant) looking all over till she found the little bag with supplied spare buttons. She said "it's got a spare". It took me a second to realise she was suggesting I should replace it myself. Keeping my temper I asked for a replacement, which she actioned with bad grace. We ended up having an argument over quality - she said that the button cracking wasn't a manufacturing or design fault. When I replied that she was effectively saying it was a user fault, she tried to say SWMBO must have used "excessive fault". I got my revenge when she got on "the system" and announced that the particular style in question was no longer on the shelves, and she'd have to source one from another story - I told her (and the queue behind me) that it was probably because the buttons kept breaking. Quite apart from their pisspoor range of cloths (according to SWMBO - not a fussy shopper) attitudes like that aren't going to help them.
My current bugbear is the coat hanging loops. Every coat SWMBO and I have bought in the last 10 years has had the loop pull away from the coat. We've given up complaining now, and I just sew a little metal chain in before we use the coats.
Certainly shops like Millets had specialist appeal, but they used to be in secondary locations that people who needed the stuff that they sold would seek out
It was perhaps a mistake to move to the high street and "dumb down" their product to compete with fashion stores.
The one I remember from my teenage days was Frith's in Fife Road, Kingston, Surrey. Used stock items that had been around for a while were displayed with a price that decreased by a set amount each day until sold, a sort of shop window reverse auction.
This seems to be a common tactic. Blame the customer for the shit quality of the product. The trouble is that it probably works with the majority of customers.
I can't remember the name of the shop where I bought my first SLR. Unfortunately the price did not drop and I regularly walked past the window hoping that it would still be there when I had saved enough cash. It was & I kept that camera for so long and have only recently sold it.
The problem is, M&S *used* to mean quality - the garment equivalent of buying IBM. If they lose that, they're just another clothes shop - and their range ain't that great, and their prices are a touch high.
In the same mall on Sunday, Primark had a queue almost out the door - I had to stand in line 5 minutes to be served. And they had 5 people serving.
On Tuesday 15 January 2013 09:47 Mark wrote in uk.d-i-y:
RIP HMV now...
But crap music on expensive CDs is very much a dinosaurs' game so I'm not remotely sad. I wish the RIAA would drop dead with them along with every record label that continues to peddle overpriced crap.
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