The State of Independents

With all the doom and gloom surrounding our small, local independent shopkeepers here's a rather more uplifting example of what can be done. Based in the market town of Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire, local man Sam Clegg has been a purveyor of fine quality meat from his small shop for many years.

Offering a wide range of homemade sausages, home cured bacon and locally sourced meat Sam also provides expert advice to his loyal band of customers. On a recent, typical, Saturday he had no fewer than seven staff on hand to cut and trim meat to the customer's specification, but also just provide a speedy yet friendly service at the counter.

The shop window and internal counters are always invitingly merchandised.

Sam is shown here on the right with one of his many highly skilled and personable butchers.

No such thing as free?

I have to admit it but it appears there is such a thing as 'free'. When a close associate decided to purchase a new coat in the Glasgow branch of John Lewis Partnership on Saturday she was a little disappointed not to be able to get the colour she wanted. Having tried on the appropriate size she was then able to have the order placed in store, in the desired colour, for home delivery. By mid-morning Monday the right coat in the right colour arrived in Lancashire, beautifully packaged with a coat protector.

And the extra cost for delivery? Nothing, zilch. Yes, yes, yes FREE. [Perhaps there's a case for asking for a discount when purchasing something in store?]

Internet shopping

Just received one of our infrequent 'big shop' deliveries from Sainsbury's online. The product is picked and delivered from a store about twenty five miles away. Due to arrive in a pre-arranged slot between 3 and 4 pm, the polite driver turned up at 3.35pm.

Product brought to the front door - and it's blowing a gale outside, so that was good news - and the goods were in no fewer than ten carrier bags plus the items that were not bagged up e.g. large pack toilet rolls.

Bad news on the availability front however: 3 swaps/replacements and 1 non-available. But did we really mean to buy three Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate? Hope they have a long sell-by date! Wonder what would have ha penned if we had ordered 30?

This week I was on Radio 4's "You & Yours" (16 November, 12.00-1.00) providing some comment on internet retailing by small independent food retailers. The radio programme featured http://www.beelocal.co.uk/ a new venture in the south Lake District. I subsequently found out about a similar scheme in Somerset: http://www.localfooddirect.co.uk/. They have interesting business models.

By the way as I was writing this blog I got a call from the person who placed the order in the household: no she (whoops!) did not mean to order three. Any one for a drink?

Small retailers and internet retailing

Here's a good feature on a fledgling internet retail business: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00nsp6q.


Go to 36:18 in the feature. It lasts until 45:29. (I 'appear' between 42:39 and 44:05)

BT Care: do they?

So, it was time to replace my five year old Dell PC at home. I was now on my third Dell and had also purchased laptops from the company for one of my sons and my mother-in-law. Service from Dell has always been spot on, even when my machine and accessories have been out of warranty.

I ordered my new PC - without monitor as that still works well - by a combination of on-line selection and telephone confirmation. A delivery date of 4 November was given. Dell being Dell deliver way ahead of that. Nothing like under-promise over-deliver for customer delight. Their third party delivery partner company phones me to find out a suitable time for drop-off.

My new PC comes with Windows 7 pre-installed - I was fortunate to miss Windows Vista altogether by the sounds of it. I connect everything up and all is fine. My Internet connection works but I'm a bit bemused as to where my BT Broadband icons are and if I'm covered by the integrated McAfeee package that I pay BT for.

I can't figure this last bit out and whilst I have a free month trial of McAfee virus suite with my new PC I want to make sure I'm still able to access the virus software I'm paying BT for. So I spend some time searching BT's web site to no avail about Windows 7 and BT's virus package. Their "Ask Emma" area just sends me round in circles. Exasperated I resort to a phone call to BT. Priya, obviously based somewhere in the Indian sub-continent, answers.

It transpires that it is not recommended to download the McAfee I am already paying for because of compatibility issues. First of all she blames McAfee then Microsoft for this. Priya has no concept that I am working with a new PC and keeps suggesting I revert back to Vista (which I don't have).

Ten minutes and I get nowhere with her and she cannot pass me onto anyone else. I write something in BTs web pages but they don't answer direct questions. I moan about the frustrations of my experience.

My Facebook rant sees friends say I should be buying an Apple Mac anyway, another slates BT and a third states that McAfee is useless and I should go for the free suite by AVG. So no sympathy there.

My Twitter entry returns something a little more interesting; a direct message from BT Care with a link to a web page in BT's help area. No use - I've been on these pages before. I respond back to BT Care and they reply stating the problem has been fixed. Not a direct message mind you just one in the stream of my Twitter feeds.

If BT Care do care then a more direct and sympathetic approach for a long-standing customer would go some way to alleviating this. Word of mouth is such a powerful force these days and whoops I've just tweeted the link to this blog.... Ignore customers at your peril.

GIVe give up on that idea

Followers of this blog will know I have reported on the launch of George Davies's latest venture - GIVe. (You will find early entries lower down in this blog -13 October). One of the layout techniques being used was that of setting product out by size*. Well it looks as though this technique has been ditched already. My good friend Mrs Mole an admirer, and indeed purchaser, of GIVe product reports on her recent trip:

"While passing through Boothroyds this afternoon I noticed that the Roman numeral signs have been removed from the display stands. Queried it with the department manager who explained that the garments are now laid out by style rather than size but they are sticking with the I, II, III & IV sizing system. Apparently, although generally doing very well, larger sizes were not selling well because ladies showed resistance to browsing through the IV racks."

* One of the innovations was to introduce a new sizing system. Size 8 is a I; 10 is II, and so on.

I wanna be close to you

Bridal wear shop and cake decoration shop in Bold Street, Southport.
On a recent shopping journey I was rather taken by the clever siting of these two shops where a certain complementary approach can be discerned. No doubt that bridal wear shops are sought out. The next shop in the parade is a jewellers, which makes this somewhat secondary location a destination in its own right. This means that retailers can operate from here without incurring the high costs of a much more prominent location.


Spot the difference: Hampsons (part of Lyndale) and Greggs - both bakers.
This is a rather unusual set of adjacencies made all the more peculiar by the almost identical use of colours in the fascias. Odd that convenience goods retailers offering almost identical goods would locate so close together.

GIVe Part 2

Well my good friend "Mrs Mole" has returned to her local GIVe concession to collect her free altered garment, as I wrote in yesterday's blog. This is what Mrs M had to say:

"I bought the top & it was sent for alteration on the 6th. Told it would take about a week and sure enough it arrived back yesterday (13th). Beautifully done."

Enough said.

GIVe hits the high street

Retail supremo George Davies has come up with yet another retail concept. Following on from Next, George at Asda and Per Una this living legend has launched a women's chain across Britain. Affordable luxury is the thinking behind the concept.

But there are a couple of added value elements such as free alterations, and a new approach to sizing and layout. No longer are ladies categorised in the normal UK sizing system but a size 8 is now I; 10 is II and so on. Product is laid out by size and not style. So, ladies go to a stand labelled with a large roman numeral with the UK system in smaller typeface underneath. Cunning plan.

However, these two concepts of setting out products by size and giving free alterations are not new ones. Ralph Slater, the menswear retailer who started in a disused warehouse in Glasgow, has been doing both these things for over thirty years. A major challenge is ensuring that the free alterations live up to the excellent standard already inherent in the products. One of my contacts has already purchased an item and is awaiting the return of the altered garment. I will report back on her experience.

Another interesting development has been in the taking of space in Beales' department stores (http://www.beales.co.uk/). This has a ready-made client base and should suit both the host store and Davies. Alongside this GIVe is represented in a number of standalone higher order centres. Davies has certainly learned about the importance of location from his days at Next when he lamented:

"The day got off to a bad start, and somewhat discouraged, we motored on down to Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire. My first thought as we arrived was, 'This is not a Next town'. And sure enough, we entered the shop to discover that although it was gone midday, total takings were a mere £16".

Davies, G. and Davies J. (1991) What Next? Arrow Books page 65.

Given that Davies has reportedly put in a lot of his own money this is a venture that I would not bet against. It will be interesting to see if fortune has favoured the brave as Davies has entered the market when things have never been tougher. No doubt he has secured some good deals on his locations to help the launch of George's Fourth Enterprise ( G IVe).

You can read more about the planning and launch of GIVe at the following sites:
http://www.give.co.uk/

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article6832158.ece

http://www.drapersonline.com/news/multiples/news/george-davies-kicks-off-give-retail-roll/5005117.article

http://www.drapersonline.com/news/womenswear/george-davies-revives-give-plans/5003552.article

How to entice customers?

Window displays - the silent salesperson of retailing - can play an important part in grabbing potential customers' attention. So I was struck by these two contrasting examples of how two retail companies are using their windows.

The first window shown is that of the charity retailer, the British Heart Foundation in Cleveleys just outside Blackpool in the north west of England. The window shows a good use of colour to tie the whole theme together.

The second example is that of fashion retailer All Saints, in Manchester. No evidence of the merchandise sold is on show in the windows. However, the use of a large number of sewing machines certainly is eye catching and, dare one say it, thought provoking?

To the left or to the right?

I was interested in this article in today's Guardian about fridge doors in supermarkets http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/oct/01/greenwash-supermarkets-fridges. Only this week I posed the question to my first year students about freezer cabinet doors: "Are the doors hinged on the right or on the left?"



My observation of customers opening freezer cabinet doors is that there is a difference in the way people hold open the door and in some cases may prop the door open against their backs. If they have to open the door with their stronger right hand and try to grab goods with their weaker left hand they sometimes prop the door against their backs and end up with a cold back. Alternatively they cannot grasp as many goods with their weaker left hand.



It is clear that cabinet doors do create a barrier between customer and product, and can sometimes get a bit steamy. So it's a classic trade-off between sales and costs. As The Guardian article points out the doors are fairly cheap and would lower the carbon footprint but at what cost to sales given my rudimentary observations?

Head-to-head competition

Here's a picture of two retailers of headstones for graves. The two are sited opposite a large cemetery in Layton (on a busy road), on the outskirts of Blackpool. I'm not really sure if people shop around for tombstones but it does underline the importance of location. We can see how retailers can benefit from being clustered together. Other examples of this would be retailers of shoes, jewellery and clothing where customers certainly want to compare products and prices.

What's it all about?

I have recently been up loading some pictures onto my Twitter account. If you don't yet follow me on Twitter why not try me out at:
http://twitter.com/johnwpal.

One of the last pictures I uploaded was this one whch shows a vending machine for DvDs in Manchester Piccadilly railway station. I have yet to see anyone using it.

Train your customers

I remember the days in the 1970s when, as a part-time warehouseman at Marks & Spencer in Leeds, I witnessed how customers used to blame themselves for not getting to the food hall early enough i.e. 3pm, to buy products such as chickens and fresh bread. Those two lines invariably sold out by then. The M&S approach to have a full sell through on a Saturday (pre-Sunday opening) was good for keeping write-offs down but did leave some customers a little unhappy. In fact, such was the M&S customer education programme that the company got away without offering fitting rooms and alternative means of payment to their own charge card, cash and cheque for many years.

Well, customers will only put up with such disregard for so long before a retailer gets punished. And now here are two recent examples of customer dissatisfaction with retailers' self scanning service. A colleague of mine, in the midst of renovating his recently purchased home, was in a busy B&Q. Taking his items to the bank of four self-service tills he witnessed two customers grappling with the technology before abandoning the transaction (the details were still on the screen when he got there) BUT still departing unhindered with the items. In the space of five minutes he tells me that about £150 went out of the store in this manner.

For my part I was in the Sainsbury's store in Piccadilly railway station in need of a grab and go lunch. The meal deal enticed me - a sandwich, drink and crisps offer for just £2.50. I self-scanned the items to speed up my journey, or so I thought, until the dawning realisation that I had scanned the sandwich twice and there was no way to get out of this. I paid for the items to get the queue going and then had to search out a member of staff who then went to search for the supervisor. Said supervisor turned up after four minutes (I know I'm sad timing these things..) and then had to refund the overpayment.

So retailers need to be helping their customers rather more than they do if these incidents are anything to go by.

Race to the bottom?

Cleveleys is a district centre sandwiched between Blackpool and Fleetwood on the Fylde coast in the north west of England. With one of the country's highest penetrations of elderly people it has also been home to one of the best discounter retail operations around. Locally founded B&M Bargains has gone from strength to strength and the once the originators sold out it has expanded. Such was the pull of B&M Bargains that one could get coach trips from nearby Lancashire towns to visit the store.



But now B&M faces increased competition in the centre: Wilkinsons and Home Bargains, the latter occupying the former Woolworths store. So what's to choose between them? On a visit earlier today, not a lot seems to be the answer. What appears to have happened is that the trade has been spread between the three where B&M once used to be the king pin.



So where to now for these three? Price wars result in customers becoming ever cannier, and all retailers destroying their margins until the last man is left standing. Then the survivor can raise prices. But retailing has low barriers to entry so a new retailer may join the fray.



Interesting times.

Keep on digging

No this is not a reference to the current craze for growing one's own fruit and veg. And boy, oh boy is my local independent garden centre (the Plant Place) doing a roaring trade in plant plugs to get the gardener on her way.

I am of course referring to the landscaping of Blackpool town centre. Whilst there is never a right time to dig up the road, divert the traffic and create mayhem, with the increase of domestic visitors to our seaside resorts due to the Credit Crunch, parts of Blackpool could be looking a little better.

The area in front of the iconic Winter Gardens is having a new surface laid - and good it looks too - but it better be ready soon, what with Her Majesty visiting for the Royal Variety Performance in December. Yes the Opera House, located within the Winter Gardens hosts this year's event. And the council have taken advantage to showcase the world famous Illuminations to Her Majesty when she comes.

So Blackpool is fighting back. The opening of the revamped and expanded Houndshill Shopping Centre has brought new retailers to the town yet has seen a shift in the gravity of the town centre as retailers relocated into the new centre. This will create a new set of challenges in avoiding long term vacancies.

Having managed a large store in Blackpool (way back in the last century as I am wont to say to my students) it is great to see some long overdue improvements to the town centre.

Smile? We're too busy

Yep, the reason that store assistants don't smile in many stores is because they are too busy. research going back to the 1980s found that in the busiest stores the staff were too pre-occupied dong their jobs to make contact with shoppers. And we can see that in the likes of Morrison's and the like where the staff work incredibly hard and their companies have the results to show.

Mind you I was in Apple's Manchester Arndale store again this afternoon eyeing up the iphone where all the staff were busy or willing to help and were enthusiastic to boot. And that's having to attend to time-wasters in there too (ahem!)

Next please!

Great news - there are retailers who do care and empower their staff. At the large Next store in Manchester's Arndale Centre this week I was on my latest mission. Armed with the details of a swimming costume (full SKU no less), for my daughter, I couldn't locate said item. The front door greeter directed me to a till where they would be able to help. Sure enough the polite, and well turned out young female assistant checked the inventory file via the till. Then she asked if it would be OK for me to wait while she retrieved the item. It certainly was and in no time I was on my way with the product.

Service please

Can it get much worse? Bank Holiday weekend and I was expecting the worst when my better half decided she needed some tracksuit trousers. Having already made a visit to the nearby factory outlet centre and deciding to return her sole purchase, a trip to town was now called for.


So into the local town centre in mid-afternoon. Parking was easy, despite signs saying the car park we normally used was full. That's a guarantee to turn shoppers away for a start. But a little local knowledge meant we knew there would be spaces.


A trip into the local M&S en route to some other shops did not offer up the required items in size, colour or style. Off to JJB.


Recently refurbished, much better clarity of merchandising and with air conditioning that now works this all looked hopeful. Plenty of staff on the sales floor. But why, o why, o why, have them if they are not going to help potential customers? Why have unstaffed fitting rooms with signs that exhort customers to approach staff if they want to use them?


Just how many sales are JJB missing out on when a potential customer has gone to the extent of getting undressed only to realise they need a different size? A hopeful husband searching through racks of seemingly similar black tracksuit trousers is a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile staff chatted on, and at 4pm on a Saturday one member of staff was sweeping the floor!


En route back to the car and a visit to M&S (again). A new bra was the next sought-after purchase of my wife. She knew what she wanted and self-selected from the vast range. But one woman came in armed with a receipt from a bra purchase made some time previously. The two assistants who helped the customer were efficient and the customer, despite not being furnished with the sought after item, was visibly pleased with the service.


So some differing experiences but it really is up to store management to make sure they and their staff are focused on customers because we are out there but can, and will, go where we are wanted.

More reasons to shop.

Whoppee! After a couple of months of filling up with petrol at my local Morrisons I have now collected the requisite 5000 points to enable me to claim my £5 shopping voucher. As Morrisons is my nearest garage, and I'm not particularly price sensitive to petrol prices, collecting the points was a simple task.


To collect 5000 points requires quite a few visits. With 15 points for every litre, and the current cost at 94 p a litre, I have had to spend over £300 to get my fiver. So I thought I'd do a bit of top-up shopping yesterday (Sunday) in the local Morrisons.


Now don't get me wrong, Morrisons is really a very impressive operator and has the results to show especially since it has managed to integrate the Safeway stores. But yesterday the staff had a shocker - as Alan Hansen, one of the voices of the company's TV advertising, would say on BBC's Match of the Day about a Premiership defender.


So I took my place in the queue behind two other shoppers. Having unloaded my basket of goods onto the conveyor belt ready for processing I waited my turn. The young male checkout operator was having trouble with his till and called over one supervisor who in turn called over another one. No apologies for the wait and once the three of them had decided to close the till the person in front of me had already taken his two items to another till. The customer at the head of the queue was told to go to another till and the three of them got back to trying to sort the problem.

"What about me?" I queried. "You'll need to go to another till" was the reply. No sorry; no offer of help to transport the twenty items already on the conveyor belt to another till.


"Tell you what I'll just leave it" I said. No hint of any effort to help.


I then went to my local Somerfield, got round in half the time and purchased £35 of goods.


Can any retailer afford to turn away £35 of sales just now, never mind the additional costs of re-shelving product and throwing out items such as the yoghurts, cooked meats and chicken thighs which would have been out of the cold chain for twenty minutes? Staff really need to be empowered to go that extra yard, not even a mile, to put things right for customers.

The genius of Apple?

When my son's Ipod Nano stopped working after 14 months I feared the worst; out of guarantee and that's the way it goes with what has come to be just another disposable electronic gadget.


So on Monday 23 February 2009 first stop was the Digital Store in Manchester's Piccadilly. I presented the item to one of the staff who had a cursory look at it and had a quick fiddle declaring that the battery was done and what did I expect after 14 months - but he could replace the battery for £65. I almost hit the roof but kept calm and said that if that was the way Apple treated its customers then they had a problem. He retorted by saying the store was not Apple. As it turned out the store is a third party reseller. I said I'd go to the Apple store in the Arndale Centre but the young man confidently said they would tell me the same.


So off to the Arndale. despite being called 'mate' a couple of times an assistant booked me in for a session with one of Apple's Genius operatives the following day at a time convenient to me.


When I arrived the next day my name and appointment time was on the display above the Genius Bar. A young lady was having her IPhone sorted - which resulted in a no-fuss replacement. This looked hopeful!


Having handed over the Nano my Genius (Dave Johnson) proceeded to undertake some diagnosis of the non-working item. He reached for an instrument that looked very similar to an ear scope and informed me that there was some fluff and chocolate in the ear phone socket and the port. He told me he would be back in a short while as he would pass some compressed air over the item to remove the offending debris. True to his word he was back quickly and then told me he would update the software. Before I knew it, the item was back in full working order.



So well done Apple but you need to keep an eye on your third party sellers who could have done real damage to the brand.

New kid on the block

What is it about the Nordic retail offer that has style written all over it? I'm just back from my first visit to the recently opened clas ohlson store in Manchester's Arndale Centre. Only its second UK store, the other being in Croydon, the company has been in existence for 90 years. According to its smart A5 catalogue the company claims to offer competitive prices, a broad product range and convenient location.

Sited next to Argos I was half-expecting to be confronted by an Argos-like experience given the piles of catalogues at the entrance to the store. Instead I was met by clearly merchandised product over three floors, although I have to admit I was a bit confused by its somewhat eclectic product mix: garden shredders, tents, pens and paper, light bulbs, tools, door handles, watches, kitchen gadgets and so on. The five categories go under the sections of hardware, electrical, multimedia, home and leisure - a mix of Woolworths, IKEA, Wilkinsons, B&Q, Currys, Argos, H Samuel.

Plenty of staff around, all smartly turned out but can't quite get a feel for what the compelling reason to shop there is. Is variety enough? Certainly just about all the products are portable but are these two factors enough? I mean a plastic box is a plastic box isn't it?

And when I tried, their web site wasn't working.

I'll watch with interest as another Nordic entrant to the UK scene, ILVA, did not last long.