Graeme Bell
Recent activity
Comments (4)
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Comment on: Broker attacks M&S strategy and management
M&S management is too frequently careless with its brand heritage. Take out the enormous and unique feeling of warmth which millions of customers have for M&S and all you're left with is another unfocussed mid-market retailer. Some of the tacky nonsense sold in the Christmas gifts category in recent years (e.g. the infamous pole-dancing dolls) has devalued the brand in relation to gift purchases, while more recently drastically and surreptitiously reducing the returns acceptance period from 90 to 35 days might make a marginal difference to the bottom line, but (like the end of UK-sourced fashion some years ago) wipes away another part of that 'warm feeling'. The management has a duty to explain clearly to shareholders that the business can't necessarily respond to the downturn in the same way as competitors, without inflicting serious long-term damage to the unique qualities of the brand.
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Comment on: Retailers renege on VAT cuts
Clearly 'anonymous' in Yeovil still doesn't get it - presumably that's why he/she wants to stay anonymous. Get out of this victim mentality - the world doesn't owe retailers a living, and to repeat what I said before, right now retailers need customers far more than consumers need retail. Failing to pass on a VAT cut is no less dishonest than the banks failing to pass on interest rate cuts. It's not illegal, but it is immoral. If it's too much work for the poor wee diddums to change their prices, then frankly they shouldn't be in business. The problem for much of 'bricks and mortar' retailing in the UK is that too many people have had it too cushy for too long. Levels of proper customer service, imparted smilingly by well-informed, empathetic floor staff, are a fraction of those in countries like the US. There are too many thick, apathetic, surly and badly-trained people working in the UK's shops - I've lost count of the number of times when my limited knowledge as a customer of a particular product area has clearly outshone that of the spotty youth supposed to be selling the stuff - it's truly pathetic. Retail is full of far too many self-important people who aren't nearly as clever as they think they are, and whose continuing employment prospects rest entirely on them truly embracing for the forst time the concept of putting the customer first.
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Comment on: Retailers renege on VAT cuts
How exactly do retailers expect the slightest sympathy and support either from hard-pressed shoppers, or the Government, when the second they're given the opportunity they shamelessly rip off their customers? Rarely have I read such weasel words as those issued on behalf of House of Fraser - I think we can be 100% certain that had the VAT rate gone UP, HoF would have found a way to re-price "every single item" within 24 hours. There's word for their behaviour in this case: dishonesty. Retailers need to get it into their thick skulls that they need customers far more than consumers need them. The average person wandering down the high street would not bat one eyelid if half the familiar names on the fascias disappeared - customer loyalty, especially in these straitened times, is a concept whose reality rarely matches the marketeers' self-serving claims.
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Comment on: Comet presses suppliers to pay for shopfloor displays
So let's see if I've got this right: Comet takes a massive margin on the products it stocks - this margin designed to cover its retailing costs plus provide a healthy profit - but then wants to add a SECOND margin in the truly childish guise of 'stock listing fee'. Are we dealing with grown-ups or eight-year-olds here? Does Comet's management think everyone else is as stupid and greedy as they clearly are? This isn't business: the definition of business is everyone (supplier, retailer and consumer) getting a good deal. This is naked, unabashed greed. The answer's simple - suppliers should stand up to this piracy and refuse to supply Comet on these terms. They'll soon return to civilsed norms of behaviour if their already sad stores have runs of empty shelving, or shelves full of desperate unbranded tat.
