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?

"Maybe they’ll change their stance in a year or 5 but will I want to come back when I’ve already changed my shopping habits?"
And there's the rub. M&S have thrown away the loyalty and goodwill of core customers. I don't think they will win it back, because - we'll have new shopping habits. New loyalties. New default shops.

WhatsInAName19 listed some of the challenges facing retail (Brexit, election, Black Friday etc.), all chipping away at sales and profits. All these factors are external to the company and outwith their control. But company policy over changing rooms is very much within their control, so any loss of sales due to this one factor was avoidable. Pissing off your core customers before you have attracted new customers was avoidable too. These are pretty fundamental errors of judgement by M&S's senior management, so if the business suffers, it's down to their own poor performance.

Timpsons are a really nice company. They do shoe repairs, key cutting, engraving and that sort of stuff. Their employees , without exception, are so helpful and polite.

10% of their employees are ex- offenders and they have an excellent retention/ non re-offending rate.

Is that mint icing, Totally?

Timpsons fix your shoes and also do a lot of retraining of 'undesirables'.

So environmentally more friendly than fashion and socially responsible in giving life opportunities to ex-offenders.

Practical rather than virtue signalling.

Is that mint icing, Totally?

It has a beautifully subtle taste and the cake is mint chocolate. Oh gad! It serves 8-12 people, but I ate so much of it, with vegan vanilla ice cream. Sorry, I forgot to mention it’s a vegan baker. She’s awesome.

Thank you RedToothBrush. I’ve had a read up on them. There are actually three near me.

I rather like how snowblight and Tocopherol are keeping this post going

That cake is glorious looking.

Timpsons are great. Cheapest and best place for getting ordinary shoes fitted with suede soles for dance.

£3k per annum from me gone elsewhere

I’ve stopped shopping at M&S.

Was useful for Christmas presents for my UK family but I’ve found an awesome e-commerce website that hosts independent sellers, listing lots of recycled and up-cycled gifts. It’s just as handy as M&S was (so I can still buy and ship within the UK for a better carbon footprint), but it’s so much more interesting, I’ll never go back to M&S.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etsy

(No, I’m not a seller, or owner so this isn’t a stealth advert )

I’ve also stopped top-up clothes shopping there when I’ve been in the UK

Let them go bust. I'll take my bust elsewhere.

Best comment I’ve read haha.

Not in the UK but my family lives there and used to swear by Waitrose, John Lewis and M&S. Have noticed that they made the switch to veg boxes, back to the butcher, the fishmonger, the baker. Reasons cited: too much packaging, more food than we need, could not find what I needed. I used to get so exasperated with them every time I saw that 3 for 2 sticker (who needs that much ham??) Very much along the same lines of what I am doing/experiencing at my end. I would also add that M&S quality has gone down in recent years, which made me look for better quality undies which I now buy on sale because more expensive.
Re changing rooms: we have non-binary sales assistants at Zara, &Other Stories, etc. where I live. They also work the changing rooms. But the changing rooms are still very much women only which explains the cluster of men sitting on the staircase to the men’s department as they wait for their wives/gfs.
At the UK end, my family also seems to be well aware of the change in store policy, which I gather has led to mail ordering of clothes from certain retailers.

On a last note, I don’t know if you have bulk shops as they’re called here. You bring your own packaging, bags, weigh everything yourself and only buy what you need. They work with local and other farmers (citrus from an Italian cooperative). We now spend so much less on food every week and the fridge is almost empty by Saturday when I do my weekly shop.

I live in a large city @snowblight, transwomen are pretty common here and unfortunately this one was making me very uncomfortable whilst looking at underwear. It's a shame you don't believe me.

Yeah I'm another former M&S user. This has been a harder change for me: I'm autistic, I like going to the same places and using the same brands, and I found their shops manageable. I vaguely "knew" the cashiers (you know, where you recognise the same people).

I doubt that my change on it's own will affect anything, but it's difficult to happily shop at a place which has explocitly told women it won't protect them.

I can't imagine why anyone buys meat at M&S. Overpriced and overpackaged.

Try a local butcher; their sausages are usually amazing, and their food miles very low. I asked mine what went into them and he went out the back to fetch the tray with the pre-minced mix to show me. I'd never eat a supermarket sausage again. In fact, I bought an electric mincer for a tenner in a charity shop and now mince my own beef for burgers, meat loaf etc. Bulk preparation and a slow cooker can provide easy ready meals for the freezer, without all the sugar and preservatives crap too.

M&S clothing hasn't been hard to boycott - I can't be arsed navigating through the acres of rails anyway.

If M&S go bust it is not the fault of their female former customers. The blame sits at the feet of the managers who have showed clear contempt for their core customer base by bringing in unisex changing rooms on the sly.

Didn’t buy anything over Christmas, but am twitching now as I need new tights! Can anyone recommend an alternative shop?

Boots do good tights.

PP up thread who mentioned the age-old marketing advice about it being many times cheaper to retain existing customers than it is to attract new ones is spot on.

When Sainsbury’s wanted £2.5 billion in extra revenue, their ad agency worked out that it would be much easier to do it by getting existing customers to spend an extra £1.14 each than by bringing in new customers. Hence the Jamie Oliver Try Something New Today campaign.

M&S and JL may be finding that it works in reverse too.

I've kept up the boycott of both. Had been boycotting m&s for a year, but added john Lewis before Christmas. I spent £300 on cushions for a bench seat from a local shop. Would have automatically bought from John Lewis before.

When Sainsbury’s wanted £2.5 billion in extra revenue, their ad agency worked out that it would be much easier to do it by getting existing customers to spend an extra £1.14 each than by bringing in new customers. Hence the Jamie Oliver Try Something New Today campaign

M&S and JL may be finding that it works in reverse too
I never knew this, so for m and s to recover the lost monies from just us here on MN will take the remaining customers to spend more.
After the Christmas jumper advert they must be scratching heads to find a way to make that happen. Or invest in more new customers who hopefully will Google and find the threads.

The problem is that the young woke crowd they're catering to (you know, the ones who refuse to believe in sexism or sex-based violence) are also for the most part the ones who would never be seen dead in M&S clothes, and can't afford to do the weekly food shop there.

It's one of the weirdest marketing decisions no matter what your personal feelings as a marketeer.

@snowblight a trans woman works in the women's clothing section inmy local M&S, haven't experienced 'her' presence in women's changing rooms as haven't shopped since their silly policy

I've also stopped shopping at those stores on principle.

I'd normally go into M&S for my Christmas food (as well as some usualy weekly shopping) but I didn't this year for the changing rooms issue.

I also used to buy clothes there (such as non leather footwear) but I've stopped going.

It wasn't a flash in the pan decision while the furore around changing rooms played out, I'll maintain this stance so long as they allow men to change next to women and children and while they allow numerous male fetishists to review (returnable) knickers online.

I love Timpsons! Such a useful little shop- shoe repairs, key cutting, dry cleaning, passport photos... Ours has very friendly staff as well.