To be really annoyed by M&S’s LittleShop?

[CraicMammy]

www.marksandspencer.com/c/food-to-order/little-shop

It’s such a waste of plastic and the cardboard shop costs £10!

No one needs this and it’s such a waste.

M&S say you can return the plastic toys in store to be recycled into playground toys, but that will ultimately end up in landfill presumably. And it assumes all items are returned for recycling, which with the best will in the world is overly optimistic.

You receive a collectible for each £20 spent, there are 25 items to collect. So you will need to spend at least £500 to get them all!

When the World is unable to safely dispose of the plastic we have created already, we don’t need more. Poor show M&S!!

It’s shit, but probably better than the little tykes shop that SIL spent a mint on, or the one that my gran got my neice from wilko that lasted a week

It’s all destined (eventually) for landfill.

In annoys me that M&S have launched this marketing campaign, despite their commitment reducing unnecessary waste. Their own sustainability policy states 79% of plastic goes to landfill

There is no consumer demand for this “product”, it’s marketing, and as such suggests M&S prefers profit to planet ☹️

I saw this the other day and had similar thoughts.

It reminded me of a program I watched recently in which a recycling plant had a huge mound of "recyclable" toys, mainly from McDonalds, that they couldn't actually process. It was all going to landfill. We should be cutting down on plastic, not introducing more.

Besides, do they really think most people will return them to the store to be recycled? I bet that unfortunately it will only be a tiny minority that do this.

YANBU I thought exactly the same yesterday. Plastic crap.

Me too. Walked into M&S food hall this afternoon and it immediately hit me how out of touch they are to do something like this when most of us are trying to minimise the amount of pointless crap going into landfill.

YANBU, I saw one in my local store today and thought what a bloody rip off it was! I suppose you might pay a tenner for the shop if you had plastic food at home anyway and at least that's recyclable. But the little plastic thingies at £25 a pop, no thanks!

I had an email from M&S about this - and thought the same. It goes against everything in the news about the environment - just as so many other organisations and people are waking up to plastic waste, landfill and pollution.

They've really misjudged the climate imo

I agree, thought the same when I saw this. It just doesn’t feel like something that fits with the sustainability message that M&S have been trying to convey for ages now. And until this I felt they were doing a good job. My impression is that most M&S customers are mainly quite well educated, middle class, and agree with PP that they have totally misjudged the current climate amongst that audience.

Massive fail.

www.thegrocer.co.uk/marketing/mands-giving-away-plastic-toy-collectables-in-little-shop-promotion/595425.article
It seems very odd and confusing timing, given that so many people are actually trying to reduce their use of plastic. The products featured are such an odd mix...salted popcorn, and ‘Plant Kitchen’ cauliflower popcorn too...mmm.
I was in M&S today...staff were offering them at the checkout...most people said no. I do agree OP and I think it shows that M&S are out of touch in so many ways...hopefully customers will comment, and negatively.

Absolutely agree : pointless, gimmicky, and a rip off to boot. Seriously out of touch move on their part.

Article from Times...
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m-s-under-fire-for-plastic-tat-freebies-xz3jt8n3s

popehilarious

They've really misjudged the climate imo

🤣🤣🤣

Yabu. My dd would love this. Shes playing with my plastic toys over 30 years old and still going strong.

Apart from the plastic/environmental considerations which was my first instinct, i thought it was quite cute at first like the Lidl space collectibles from a few years back, but £20 spend & extra cost for the shop/shopping basket etc. Someone's having a laugh somewhere....

I was in M&S yesterday and the woman in front of me didn't know what they were so the cashier explained. Neither she nor I could grasp it - random plastic with your shop that you can use with a cardboard cutout?
It's a huge miss from M&S IMO. Not in line with their brand and terrible for the environment.

Yes, a bad plan all round.

It's all awful but £3 for the cardboard shelves?

I’ll have to say I saw the stand advertising it and thought “I wish they’d had this when DD was younger- she would have loved it.”

Also I got to the checkout and hoped to get something, but they all seemed to have gone anyway, so it can’t be that unpopular, at least in my neck of the woods.

I also liked the mini trollies, which I thought were a bargain for £3 and really cute

We got a couple today. They come in a paper recyclable wrapper. Ours was a cardboard box designed to look like a mini Colin the caterpillar cake. It kept my four year old happy and busy for the rest of the day. She is now turning the Wendy house into a shop.

I think they've tried pretty hard with the recycling element. They are clearly trying to get a share of the family weekly shop, esp with the new ocado contract.

londonrach

. My dd would love this. Shes playing with my plastic toys over 30 years old and still going strong.

But it’s arguable that children don’t need more. And realistically I don’t think the tiny models are going to be that good / easy to play with

They were getting a bit of a pasting about it on their Instagram advert.

Years ago you must have been able to buy a pack of plastic m&s food from somewhere because there's a bunch in my kids toy kitchen! It's lasted well (except the card pieces)

I do agree though, free toys is not the way to go these days, and very misjudged for m&s' usual customers.