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

[Sunkisses]

It's all over the news that M&S and John Lewis have had terrible Christmas sales. I am absolutely sure this is due to the terrible press coverage they received and viral threads of Twitter about how they allow men into the female changing rooms, the contempt they treated their female customers with when we voiced our complaints, and the 1,000s of us who pledged not to shop with them over Christmas. I stuck by my pledge over Christmas and they lost about £1,000 of custom from me with gifts and food. Anyone else kept up their boycott?

[VerbenaGirl]

It was the really weird jumper advert that did it for me...

[PurpleCrowbar]

I'm an expat in a country where good quality clothes are generally imported & cost ££££s.

I'm in the U.K. twice a year & do all my clothes shopping for a family of four in two massive blitzes. Usually lots at M&S (school uniform, bras for teenage daughters, food for Xmas shop for parents).

Not this time. I spent my money elsewhere. To the tune of about a grand, I reckon.

& I won't be back to M&S.

[Babdoc]

Snowblight, are you Steve Rowe?!
You seem to be desperately trying to convince yourself that our boycott of your company hasn’t worked!
Joking apart, pissing off their business’s core demographic is a particularly stupid move on M and S’s part. I’m happy to continue my own boycott - I got my Christmas food from the Farmers Market, and will not set foot in M and S for either food or clothes again.

[T0tallyFuckedUpFamily]

Isn’t it funny how manner posters are keen to tell us that women refusing to share changing rooms with men and voting with their money had absolutely nothing to do with falling sales. Are they trying to convince us to get back into our little gender boxes and do as we’re told, do you think? Why so keen to tell us that we’re wrong?

[midgebabe]

How do you determine that the majority of people here claim they have met a transwoman in the changing rooms? Are you just making it up?

[TimeLady]

Boycotting too. Tbh, I prefer a rummage through TKMaxx anyway for clothing. Much more interesting choices.

I used to spend £30-40 pw on top-up shopping in my local M&S Food, but I use the Sainsburys local or Coop instead now, so that's at least a couple of grand a year.

Only thing I miss are their minisub rolls. Cant seem to find an equivalent.

[NewNameChange2020]

@VinandVigour that's really interesting about the spreadsheet, thanks for mentioning your experience! When I closed mine and explained why literally nobody at M and S gave a toss. I'm pleased someone somewhere is noticing it.

I didn't buy anything from there this Xmas so that's at least £250 missing for them. It may only be little compared to what their figures are, but I talk to family and friends about why not and the ripples spread outwards

[T0tallyFuckedUpFamily]

It was the really weird jumper advert that did it for me

If you think the advert was just weird, you’ll be more disgusted when you read the actual lyrics, especially these lovely lines.

Yo I bust him in the eye, and then I'll take the punk's hoe

If your girl steps up, I'm smacking the hoe

A nice choice of music to hammer home their attitude to women.

This is not just misogyny, this is M&S misogyny.

[nzborn]

Haven't been in a M & S since spoke to plenty of people why l won't be and don't intend going in again ever until my privacy is respected.

[VinandVigour]

NewName. I was late to the game cancelling mine, because I’d forgotten I even had it! I think by the time I did it they had realised what was happening. The chap on the phone was lovely, and when I told him why I was closing it, he new immediately what I was referring to. He asked if there was anything more he could do, and I said ‘yes, please pass on the reason to your managers.’ He said ‘oh don’t worry, they are all going onto a spreadsheet, and being sent to senior managers on a daily basis’. I then asked if there were lots of them and he said ‘um, YES!’

[Datun]

M&S could not have pissed off their core demographic harder if they had tried.

And I can't believe no one checked the lyrics to that song. Who is in charge of all this, 12-year-olds?

Or people like snow who simply can't believe that women have their own disposable income, quite a lot of it, and can spend it wherever they want.

[Babysharkdoodoodood]

Another one here who boycotted m & s and Waitrose this year. Went to Cook for Xmas and also Aldi and Morrisons instead.

Problem is getting decent cheap mastectomy bras. I've got a few but I'll need a couple of new ones, so it looks like I'll have to splurge elsewhere.

[FlyingOink]

You know what, if I only had a fiver to spend at M&S and I chose not to go there, that's my choice and my fiver.

M&S aren't telling me they don't want my fiver. A few posters on here are telling me that fiver means nothing, but they clearly don't understand retail. Why are the impulse items by the tills? Oh yeah, it's because that odd fiver here and there makes a big difference.
There are posters on here who have moved what was previously a guaranteed sum of hundreds of pounds out of M&S's reach.

It's naive in the extreme to think those actions won't have been noticed. The stock control would show it immediately. Stuff that gets bought every week isn't getting bought. Whether it's a fiver or five hundred pounds, it will have been noticed.

And shareholders aren't going to be happy that the financial performance of a heritage brand is being affected by the political views of its communications department.

[Nightowlreturns]

I am also boycotting m and s. I am mostly a lurker but I’m sure there are loads of us, and we are their core market. Middle aged women with whole families to clothe and feed, way to go to whoever thought it was a good idea to prioritise a few woke types over the people who historically have spent most of the money in their stores.

And for those saying that most women aren’t transphobic, you are right. But most women do not want to share changing rooms with men of any type, especially not the kind who want to use women’s changing rooms. Any man who feels entitled to make women feel uncomfortable when they are in a state of undress by invading their space should be nowhere near vulnerable women.

I really hope this whole gender bollocks will end soon, before too many women are thrown under the bus.

[DuMondeB]

I was practically brought up in M&S, my mum worked there from when I was 10/11. I liked M&S, they used to take exceptional care of the staff, things like paying for dental care and having a mobile mammogram unit parked in the car park each year (funded by the company) so the mostly middle aged, mostly female staff wouldn’t need to use their spare time for NHS screening.

I was allowed to retain my ‘friends and family’ discount card because my mum died in service.
This was the first year I didn’t shop there for Xmas. Didn’t even bother with the January sales.

[AllTheProsecco]

We're still boycotting and so in DM after I spoke to her about the changing room situation over Christmas. She must spend £100s every month there.

I normally do a bit M&S sale shop for the kids clothes but bought some bits from frugi instead.

Annoyingly we got both M&S and JL vouchers for Christmas. Still deciding how I feel about spending them or not.

[HermioneWeasley]

I don’t know if the decision caused their poor results, but a decision made with contempt for their customers and an arrogance that they know best, despite thousands and thousands of their core demographic saying they’d got it wrong, probably does have a link.

Another one who hasn’t spent any £ in M&S since

[Uncompromisingwoman]

I'm a bit at how much we spent in M & S. An account (with the regular 20% off vouchers) guaranteed regular spends on clothing etc. M & S were our provider of choice for their long distance flower / gift deliveries (interflora got the trade this Christmas) - even currency for trips abroad . The family spend over a year was well into 4 figures. It felt like supporting a good British brand with values I could support.
Unbelievable that they cared so little for women in favour of £££ from people with no respect for women's boundaries. I'm still a bit shocked that they have doubled down on this - especially as there is no evidence that women want their bra fittings being shared with random men. But as others have said - once companies have taken the Stonewall shilling, getting out of it seems impossible. It will only be when the torrent of hidden cameras and creeps like this are identified with M & S mixed sex changing rooms that this may get rolled back.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6796451/Surrey-father-two-jailed-posting-46-upskirt-videos-London-Underground-adult-website.html

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

It's funny watching someone try to convince themselves that numbers don't mean what they seem to mean, and everyone else is a liar and/or insignificant.

I'd normally have bought a bunch of stuff from family from M&S - it's not my style but a lot of my older relatives like it. Didn't this year. Have also redirected gift buying relatives to much better bra companies that are UK based, so everyone benefits really, especially those who will now be receiving much better quality bras going forward.

Retail is in so much trouble right now that every high street customer lost hurts. It was exactly the wrong time to be putting woke bollocks before sales and customer loyalty. Hopefully they'll see sense before a bunch of people lose their jobs.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

And yes, the bizarre advert for the ugly holiday jumpers didn't help. The Twitter responses on that were a mix of "WTF?", "boycotting you anyway", and "did you not listen to the lyrics before picking this song?"

[T0tallyFuckedUpFamily]

Annoyingly we got both M&S and JL vouchers for Christmas. Still deciding how I feel about spending them or not.

Maybe have a look and see if you can find a genuinely female only shelter and hand them in there or use them to buy toiletries, loo rolls or whatever else the female shelter staff tell you they need. At least women will benefit from them. Don’t bin them as the money has already been spent and you would actually be benefiting M&S and JL by not using them.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

I wonder if a food bank would take the vouchers and be able to use them, since food is one of the few things M&S still do quite well.

[Goosefoot]

Retail is in so much trouble right now that every high street customer lost hurts. It was exactly the wrong time to be putting woke bollocks before sales and customer loyalty. Hopefully they'll see sense before a bunch of people lose their jobs.

I think this is maybe closer to the truth though, than what the title/op said about the numbers being down being because of this issue.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Christmas really was the worst possible time for the changing room story to break. I get the sense that John Lewis's sales are a bit more spread out, but for M&S Christmas sales will represent a really significant chunk of their yearly profits, so they couldn't have picked a worse time to annoy their customers.