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.