Dear M & S, this is I want.

[Bombinate]

I want to spend with you but your offerings are so sore. You can still do your trendy flash in the pan shit, but you would make lots of money if you did:
Cotton round neck cardies in all the colours.
Cotton thick leggings in all the colours
Cotton jersey dresses in different styles in all the colours
Comfortable leather ballet pumps in all the colours
Matching vest and knicker sets in funky patterns
Big boob support nighties and pyjama vest tops.
Go back to having good quality opaque, cotton mix and wool mix tights, I have tights from you that are 5 years old, but this years only lasted 3 washes
I'm your core market, I have money and could be shopping with you for fifty more years.

Apparently if your over size 18 you cannot possibly want to wear longer length trousers. (Next, this applies to you too).

You're not your.

also decent fitting tops not just one you pull over your head so it is all sloppy, some darts and buttons or zip maybe.

I do buy per una but only as the trousers are comfortable and I am long waisted so most trousers do not fit me well. But please no silly embellishments or leather tag trim on pockets of perfectly reasonable trousers, won't buy.

I think they have lots of lovely things. Unfortunately I can't get most of them, so my requests.....

1. Size 6 in the store is rarer than hens teeth. Whenever I see anything I want. It's never in my size do I move on. Pity because it's pretty much the only shop I walk through each week.

1. Your bras. I wear a 28. I apparently don't exist in m&s world.

1. Even when I can be bothered to go online to order, your website is crap. John Lewis is much so I spend more with them.

1. Your deliveries take too long and you ought to be referred to trading standards for claiming that you can click and collect the next day. Because you really can't. Again if I need anything in a hurry I order of john Lewis as I can collect from Waitrose the next day.

4 really simple things but 2 of them are why john Lewis is s telling your customers!

I see quite a few nice things in M&S (although you have to hunt them out...I found lovely, slim fitting, Italian wool trousers by accident) but things I would buy more of are:

Proper cotton knickers. M&S should OWN cotton knickers, so why are they so hard to find amongst the sodding microfibre? What is wrong with their lingerie design team?

As others have suggested, classic knitwear in merino wool, cotton and cashmere. No stupid embellishments or 'cashmilion'.

Classic t shirts that aren't so thin as to be transparent or made of bloody viscose. How hard is it to get this right?

I'm seeing improvements, though. I got a lovely printed pencil skirt and a really stylish sun visor (optimistic) this week.

Picking up on what a few of you have said now, I do think a big part of it is it's impossible to find anything. Marks really uses quite an old fashioned/90s solution for finding "your" clothes in its shops - brands. The idea being that they work up a range of shopper stories/identities and conceptualise each shopper type's clothing choices as a brand. You the consumer then identifies with your brand and shops only/primarily from there. The brand is an important part of your identity performance and it communicates meaningful (and positive and affirming) things about your self. I'm a Charlie Girl. I'm a Per Una woman. etc.

But post-internet and post-search-term/filter UX we don't shop like this and the brands are so numerous as to be almost impossible to identify (and therefore identify with). Shoppers switch to, I guess, conceptualising their own personal brand and giving it parameters (mediated by class, culture, fashion, aspiration etc as usual). So here we're all setting out our brand parameters: no polyester, no embellishments, hip length, whatever, and there's no way to translate that into actually finding those clothes/meeting those criteria in the store or online. So we get the impression of a sort of cacophonous, chaotic jumble sale of a store as the filtering systems of the shopper and the retailer have become mismatched.

We are used to getting our search results tailored to our preferences, our facebook feed, our news bubbled, our purchases heuristically recommended on Amazon...

If Marks were smart they'd whip their database into shape and offer a sitewide filter. "My M&S" only sells cotton knickers. "My M&S" is always in a size 12 (and if it's not in stock in a 12 I don't see it). My M&S does not stock polyester... &c

It's totally possible to set parameters like this - eBay does it.

I have just tried the a line denim skirt that lots of mumsnet texts have been raving about. The light colour is way too light and there's too much stretch. I would rather pay an extra ten quid for pure denim. I am sure it would be more flattering

Yes to a decent Plus size range.
With well cut good quality fabrics in classic shapes.
Just like the standard range should be

We will pay.
And return.
For decades.

can you hear us???

lolo thanks so much for that - you've just articulated exactly what I find so frustrating about M&S and have never been able to put into words!

Brilliant post lolo. If ever M&S need to take anything on board it is that

iHAVE When the Plus range was discontinued I was told that all I had to do was look around the store to find items I liked and a small tag on the hanger of the largest size would denote if I could order that item online in a bigger size. It had totally escaped them that:
a) I might not want to comb the entire store for items that were not even stocked for me to try on
b) What if the item with the tag had been taken to the changing room? What if the hangers got mixed up?
The staff told me they were deluged with complaints which were all passed on but their Head Office were determined they were right.

Yes, another vote for decent range in larger sizes. There are plenty of stores selling tat - Evans, Simply Be, etc. M and S should be catering to those who want stylish, unfussy clothes in decent quality fabrics. Would be very happy to pay Autograph prices, or more.

Yes very good post lolo. Very well put and sensible suggestions.

Agree re the larger sizes. And for taller women too. Petite is everywhere but not for tall.

I have to say I was wondering if I'd ever ever find some decent jeggings to fit properly. Got a couple of pairs of the 5 pockets ones today and I'm delighted. Thanks for the nudge in that direction Mnet and thanks M&s (But why are you running out of sizes and colours even online?! Not helpful)

Agree - superb post Lolo. M&S should hire you as a consultant. Totally agree about putting those filters on their website.

Weirdly I have bought about 5 things from them this spring, not having bought anything for a decade. So from that point of view I think they have improved.

However, I think it's so hard to find anything on their website, and they are always a lot of sizes out of stock. Sizing seems random and I had to kiss a lot of frogs to get those 5 things, probably 20 sent back.

And please, please ditch the plastic shoes. I often see something I would buy only to find its plastic.

I worked on a project last year in the games industry and spent a lot of time thinking about attention and reward. They have some very interesting ideas, those guys.

I suspect Marks wouldn't go for it as they are using this sort of rat-run model. It seems like they are actively trying to get you to go around the whole store, or look around the whole website. They want you to browse and impulse buy. (IKEA are the masters of this. They lead you around a maze where the only way out is through, and past ever cheaper brighter smaller ) But IMO it's a mistake and they should look to Tesco to see how quickly and completely shoppers can tire of a cornucopia model.

Browsing and impulse buying requires one is frequently delighted in discovery, so it's harder to do this with clothing in a store for all ages/sexes/etc as so many things will necessarily be the wrong thing. Too much noise, not enough signal.

Lolo I really wish places like Rightmove did this as well, it would make looking for the right property so much easier. Personally I'd like the settings to stop showing me places that I have already completely discounted for whatever reason, unless it suddenly drops massively in price, but they won't, and M&S probably won't for exactly the same reasons.

It's like when you go into a shop and the essential items are always placed at the back somewhere, so you are forced to wander through the non-essential frippery to find it. Otherwise people would dip efficiently in and out, buying only what they need, or think they want, and bypassing everything else.

Great for us, crap for the shops and the websites. They need easily led and suggestible customers and they live in hope that is they keep presenting us with stuff that we don't really like and don't really want, eventually we'll become so ground down or brainwashed that we'll buy it anyway.

There are a lot of requests here but it certainly sounds like it would be very worth their while having a 'natural' collection that only has clothes that are entirely or nearly entirely (save for stitching maybe) natural materials. Especially if it included longer length tops.

I wish they would display clothes by type rather than brand. If I want a pair of trousers I want all the trousers displayed together. I don't want to walk all around the store looking at all the brands of trousers.

Yes yes to longer length tops, that don't bag and shrink at the same time so they become shorter and wider after washing.
Conformity of size.
I am an m&s 8 long. So when 8 longs don't fit, I go elsewhere. Ditch the adornments and the cheap belts on jeans. I have been known to hand them back at the checkout.
Knickers ad bra's that are the size they say they are. If I buy size 8 pants they should bloody fit.

I lose the will to live in M and S. The Meadowhall one is so big. I just can't be bothered. I get exhausted after one circuit of it

The Metrocentre one is even bigger.

The one in Birmingham is awful for a major city. Only 3 loos. And dark.

I essentially want the white company, but cheaper and in more colours.

Wrap usually get it right for colour palettes. The basics - black, white, navy and neutral with a few seasonal shades - dusky colours, silver and charcoals for winter, aquas and tasteful warmer colours for summer. Nothing garish.

Simple workwear - suits, well cut jackets, blazers and coats. Tailored trousers in neutral colours. Yes to simple court shoes, ballet pumps and leather sandals.

Natural fabrics, classic styles, it should be the go to place for quality basics. Nobody goes there seeking high fashion, they should give up on trying to tap this market.

I love lolo's idea - my m&s - you could have probably charged thousands for that as a consultant..