M&S + John Lewis - your poor Christmas sales will be due to the contempt you've shown your female customers

I would imagine in a difficult trading time for retail alienating a chunk of your loyal customers is pretty dumb.
I don't 100% boycott m&s but neither did I do any Christmas shopping there this year either.

I usually shop at both JL & M&S but I haven't for a couple of months now including over Xmas (a deliberate choice re my GC beliefs being in conflict with JL/M&S policies to allow men into womens changing rooms) - so they lost out on my sales.

Until another supermarket exercises the same quality control over its fruit and flowers I'm sticking with M&S.

M&S fruit is much nicer than the others and their flowers outlast other supermarkets and high street florists by a considerable margin.

I never buy clothes at M & S so I really don't care about their changing room policy.

I'm sure it's a compunt affect but I didn't set foot in an M&S or JL all of December (first time since I left home I think) for this reason. Not juts because of their changing room policy and publicaton of it - I am generally more of an amazon shopper these days anyway, but it was a final nail in the coffin for me. I thought, nah, shan't bother because you don't value me as a female customer. The only thing I would really still get there is a particular pair of black pants from M&S. Normally buy 2 packs a year, which, isn't keeping anybody afloat (except me!) but, still, these things maybe magnify out.

Perhaps where you live. However I suspect in urban areas...I live within walking distance of probably a dozen M&S food outlets, there is a huge choice and it is very easy to walk past M&S.

I do. Others posting do. I just don't want to spend money with a firm that supports an ideology that advocates mutilating children. It may only be a proportion of their lost sales. But lost sales they are. And M&S can't afford to lose them.

They have reduced sales due to people spending less. The numbers not spending due to changing room policies is tiny. No men in my JL changing rooms! Or M&S ones.

wibdib - some branches of TKMaxx have a good range of larger sizes, Brixton is one. Or the website. Please don't anyone test their policy, as I don't waznt to boycott yet another store. I find the changing rooms are usually well organised with helpful attendants.

What @snowblight said.

I think if people (Women) think about it, then of course the erosion of female rights is dreadful, but to be honest in the real work it’s not something I think comes up much.

Of course it’s not the only reason. But it would certainly have made quite a dent in their profits in the most important quarter of the year.

I’m sorry for the staff (for many reasons - a couple of which being that the mostly female assistants from now on will be compelled to fit bras for potentially overtly sexually aroused men if they demand it, plus apparently being responsible for challenging any predatory men who might be acting inappropriately in the women’s and girls’ areas and fitting rooms), but as for the company itself? Nah. They deserve everything they get.

I usually pop into M&S a couple of times a week, I use the local food hall as most use a local shop (it's most convenient for us- new estate without a shop in it!) Usually spend maybe £40ish a week in the local food hall on odds and sods
Since I first read about this I haven't used them.
We usually buy a lot of food over Christmas at M&S too, and birthday cakes, presents for the neighbours and bras for myself and DD.

I decided as a woman who's concerns dont matter that neither does my money, and took it elsewhere

The penis owner in our household prefers Asda.

I hadn’t realised that JL were being boycotted as well as Marks - but it wouldn’t have made any difference.

I tried to do a shop in JL for an outfit to wear to a wedding. Close family, wanted to look nice so would have bought shoes, hat, bag etc if needed as well as the main outfit.

But it turns out that they don’t actually want me to spend money any more in store - I’ve put on weight and needed something larger than a size 18 - and whereas they have always had a small plus size area that had both everyday and special stuff, now there’s nothing.

There is now just one small plus size shoo in the shopping centre (a ‘yours’ which doesn’t have a great selection, much of which falls in the cheap and unflattering category. House of Fraser and Debenhams both have the same ‘size 18 or under’ policy although occasionally the odd 20 slips through in Debenhams -albeit you can’t rely on finding any as they all sell out quickly.

They need to look around - there are loads of size 20+ customers who would love to be trying on clothes in their stores and who have traditionally always found something at them that are now struggling to find clothes. It’s not good enough to say they stock larger sizes online - I can’t afford to order several outfits to try on, especially if I’m not sure of cut or relative sizing for the brand or how accurate the coloir is or if timescales are short.

In the end I bought a brand new Studio 8 dress of eBay for less than a quarter of its real price, taking a punt that the sizing would be ok based on a dress I had tried on before and luckily it paid off and I was able to wear it. But JL were selling the smaller sizes of the dress so lost out on my purchase.

Given the size of the population, especially as people get 30 and older, can they really justify not having anything bigger in store than a size 18?

Treestumps I recently went out with half a dozen ex colleagues who all work in either a reportedly very 'woke' university or the NHS and I know one of the places has a very vocal transwoman manager and a very lively LGBT society, and all of them were quietly appalled by the trans narrative but in fear of speaking out. All of them were also astonished at the speed of change of language and policy in places most of them had worked for years.

It was never discussed or even mentioned when I worked with them less than 18 months ago. More people are indeed becoming aware. And in my experience are not at all happy with the changes.

Aldi and Lidl have had a a Merry Christmas....

I'm wondering how Flora are doing....

I think retail has struggled in general this Christmas, so there's that.

I'm with MorrisZapp. There are a lot of more likely reasons for poor Christmas sales

All supermarkets were affected.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/09/tesco-sales-win-out-in-subdued-christmas-for-uk-supermarkets

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/07/supermarkets-christmas-sales-boris-morrisons-brexit

I'm hugely GC but exactly as I know that the vast majority of the population don't even know that trans etc is a thing, the vast majority of department store shoppers don't either

I think more and more do - in the last week, I've had conversations with 3 women and it's come up! Not fellow feminists who share my views, just another mum from the school gate, a woman in a cafe, and my mother (who I speak to perhaps once every 6 months).

Women certainly are noticing, and becoming informed, and holding opinions (and all the women's opinions above were GC)

Yes and those lurkers have friends and family... just sayin'

For every one person who posts on Mumsnet there are about 20 lurkers. Women are 51% of the population, and they do the majority of the shopping.

I wonder if they will be more interested in listening to their female (ex-)customers now.

Sadly, whilst the shareholders allow the same people to run the company who won't listen to anybody else but still keep taking massive salaries and bonuses, they won't.

I wonder if they will be more interested in listening to their female (ex-)customers now.

Another one who has maintained my boycott - food & flowers at Christmas, clothes, their cafe and an M & S account cancelled. And interestingly haven't missed them at all.
One of their USPs is lingerie sales and bra fitting. To insist that women must receive this service in the company of males is to treat women with contempt. No women anywhere are demanding to share facilities with men - this is a male led / Stonewall etc led demand and if they want to piss off their women customers - that's up to them. But this woman customer won't be returning.

I didn't shop in JL this year, everything was laid out too haphazardly.
I didn't shop in M&S at all this year - and I always buy Christmas food and some clothing there - because a) the products are awful and b) they allow men into women's changing rooms and won't give any woman a decent reply. They show me contempt, I'll return it.

I emailed M&S about their polices after one standard email they ignored the rest of my emails well guess what I don’t shop there anymore.

Same, and neither do four other members of my family. Between us we would usually have spent somewhere in the region of £1,000 in M&S over Christmas in food and presents. We all went elsewhere.

To dispute that their policy change had at least some impact and not to acknowledge that it has contributed to their drop in sales is ridiculous, the retail equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la we can't hear you uppity women."

Much shopping behaviour is borne of habit. The one thing retailers in a hostile economic environment should not do is piss off even a small percentage of loyal customers to the extent that they break their habit. Like I said - the quickest way of losing customers for good. They make new habits and they never go back.

The Red Wall of voters didn't crumble overnight. But by the time the complacent Labour Party noticed it was too late. Same principles for voting and shopping.

I would suggest M&S loses the complacency.