Marks & Spencer’s decision to start stocking competitor brands must have come as a shock to the majority of loyal M&S customers in the UK.
From next week several north-east M&S stores will start to look like any other supermarket, as Colgate toothpaste sits alongside its own brand of toothpaste. Such an image erodes the exclusive dimension of M&S shopping. You shop there because it is different and because its many of its customers were born in a time when loyalty was everything.
I had thought Marks & Spencer’s early failed moved away from unsuccessful foray into cheaper garments had taught its management team a painful lesson. Though it would seem Steven Esom paid the ultimate price for his mismanagement of their food halls, his ridiculous idea will run even after his forced 
departure.
By selling cheaper poor quality knickers, the company almost ran aground a few years’ ago. People still want quality products, it’s just we want them more competitively priced. Compromise and quality and where’s the exclusivity? Indeed Jeremy Paxman’s recent comments on the poor quality of male undergarments highlighted management’s shortcomings.
Quality generates loyalty and loyalty is reciprocal. Loyalty might sound old-fashioned but by stocking competitors products M&S are admitting their own brand is of a lesser quality and you erode customer loyalty. If I want to buy Tetley Tea I’ll go to Sainsbury’s, I shop at M&S in search of quality food stuffs that contrary to popular belief competing supermarkets fail to deliver on. Indeed I trust M&S food to an extent I don’t any other leading supermarket.
Marks & Spencer’s should market themselves on this basis rather than squabbling with the rest. Yes, times are hard and money is tight so, deliver quality even more competitively rather than simply sell your soul!
August 3, 2008 at 2:52 pm |
Brilliant!