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?

I've not managed to completely stop shopping at M&S yet but definitely significantly down as I can't face the changing rooms, and I've spent a lot less on food. I've only bought two vest like tops there since this thread started and I'd normally have done a replenish of my DCs clothes by now mostly from M&S & JL (we're not at the forefront of fashion )

I know many men don't think middle aged mums matter but some earn substantial amounts of money and it tends to be a time when the mortgage is paid off so that's a lot of disposable income. We also do most of the shopping particularly at Christmas, and I bought no presents this year from M&S and only one from JL. Food gifts were from small local providers.

Individually we don't matter but collectively we do. And for a company like M&S collectively over time this will make a difference to their sales at a time when sales will be down anyway.

I agree some of us end up here after unpleasant encounters with transwomen as that is often when we start noticing that what we initially thought was an isolated incident may not be. Trans activists on twitter thoughtfully sent me here - that wasn't their intent obviously but thanks anyway

boatyardblues agreed, they are telling us they don't care what we think, and we're responding by not going somewhere we're not wanted. We're not picketing their stores or intimidating their staff we're just making a choice about how and where to spend our money

One good thing to come out of this unisex changing rooms nonsense, is the the fact that I’ve starting looking around my local area and using the independent shops. Like a previous poster, I now order vegetable boxes and I also find the clothes in the wee shops much more interesting, although more expensive. I try to support females in independent businesses as much as possible.

I'm sorry, I've tried to ignore this stuff but I find these threads so spiteful. Hoping companies (that employ a disproportionate number of young and working class women) go bust and rubbing your hands together with glee really rubs me the wrong way.

All UK high street stores allow 'transgender' people to self ID into the changing rooms btw. Do you think any of them want to deal with the shit if someone was refused? Lidl, Morrison's, TKMaxx, Asda,Tesco and Sainsbury's all allow self ID in their toilets and changing facilities where I've lived too shrug

I've also worked for a number of the companies you have 'defected' to and a lot of them treat their staff like complete crap (getting pay docked for taking too many loo breaks on my period was my fave! Thnx Asda and Tesco!) but hey, who gives a shit about retail workers?

Why would posters that don’t use M&S, comment on here, since they’re obviously not the demographic that the store relies on. You’re just getting desperate now, aren’t you. Why’s that?

Snow. You're on a forum filled with m&s' target demographic! Funnily enough we've spent money on the shop. And yes, i would have spent about a hundred quid in there at Xmas. That's not a lot, really, in the grand scheme of things. I'm in my mid 30s, above average household income. That's the sort of money we spend. There's people here whose household income is ten times mine, so yeah, they probably do spend ten times what I do.

You are really clutching at straws here.

I do still use M&S food hall as there are gluten free foods I get from there for DD. Except they keep pissing about with the range over Christmas, even though they sell out of these items.
I probably would still buy clothes from there. I live in a town and don’t have a lot of access to different clothes shops but the stuff is disgusting generally. The clothes for DD (pre teen) are equally horrible.
That and the changing room issue (hasn’t been an issue for me as I haven’t tried anything on in years, maybe that’s the plan - anyone can use the changing rooms but no one will want to) makes me feel like they want to go bust... they’re making a good job of it .

@AvaSnowdrop:
I want to dress like the clothes at Toast but they’re out of my budget.

I've just gone pure barmy in their sale. I was bragging to my g/f about how much I've saved and she just sniffed dismissively and said "You haven't saved anything. You've just spent the GDP of a developing country."

Tell you what Tocopherol, I’ll decide where my boundaries lie and you can determine yours. To cry and preach about working class women losing jobs, while you’re happy for them to lose their rights to dignity, privacy and safety, really rubs me the wrong way. You’re welcome to make your stand and I’ll make mine. 🤷‍♀️

Is that the sound of a barrel being scraped?

Oh dear. I think the toys are about to start to fly out of the prams. Not long now. Duck GC feminists. 😁

M&S decided to close 110 stores in 2016 and to have them closed by 2022 as part of a restructure to encourage online sales.

Those who don't get redeployed and end up redundant will not be blaming those here who did their Christmas food shop in Adsa.

We are not rubbing our hands with glee, we are exercising our choice as customers, not undermining the profit and loss columns of a multi-national retailer with a feminist master plan.

FWIW I have great sympathy for the employees who have to manage the changing rooms. What a nightmare.

To be honest, their stores are such an effing jumble I often search for what I want online and then go into the store and show staff the screengrabs on my phone and ask where they’ve hidden it. Or did...

What's 'female' @snowblight? Can't wait to hear your non-circular definition of the people you pretend to care about

I am working class, and an adult human female, so logic dictates i care. However, it is not the role of women of any demographic to ameliorate the poor business decisions of retailers they shop from.

Retailers, if you're willing to pay, however, i'm sure we can form some kind of common-sense based focus group to help you stop fucking up.

We are not rubbing our hands with glee

Not sure how previous comments on this thread like 'I hope they go bust' sit with that.

No. We buy pretty much all our food from M&S, I won’t be boycotting.

And John Lewis is the mother ship. I love it.

Ruffle ameliorate is a brilliant word and a focus group is a great idea. Too late now of course but there's that stakeholders meeting and community engagement...

corporate.marksandspencer.com/sustainability/delivering-plan-a/listening-and-taking-action

FWIW I have great sympathy for the employees who have to manage the changing rooms. What a nightmare.

Don’t try to explain yourself to those posters. They don’t actually care about that, they just want to kickstart your female socialisation that causes feelings of guilt. They’re disingenuous at best.

@T0tallyFuckedUpFamily me too and it’s actually been enjoyable.

We’re a family of 6 and I work FT so not possible to totally avoid a supermarket shop but I’ve switched to a weekly food box delivery and I get all my meat at the local butcher.

"Nothing you do makes any difference" turns into "you, personally, are putting shops out of business" so easily when the first tactic isn't working.

I'm off to bed T0tally you're right I can't be bothered anyway, the thing is as a Saturday girl a million years ago I had to remove semen soaked underwear (women's thongs) from the men's changing rooms. I used to use a coat hanger so I didn't have to touch them as the retailer/employer didn't provide gloves.

So I sympathise, I can't imagine how stressful and uncomfortable it must be these days, now they get to do it in the women's.

Oh my goodness! The neoliberal wokeists have discovered workers rights! Would those include not being forced to provide intimate fitting services to members of the opposite sex, perhaps?

This is where my M&S money was diverted to: high street butcher, farm shop, farmers market, small independent women's clothes shop, small independent candle and soap shop, online woman-owned vegan confectionery shop.

A much more ethical spend. A supporting the local High Street spend. A supporting small business spend. A supporting women-led small business spend.

Also: an anti-Woke capitalist spend. So last year, this Woke shite.

Trans isn't the issue though is it? The real issue is that M&S introduced a policy that customers should use the changing rooms that they felt comfortable using - ie any man could enter the women's changing rooms unchallenged. Unsurprisingly women are not happy about that. I have never bought clothes in M&S so I can't boycott them but I fully understand why others have decided to.