Marks and Spencers selling other brands

tjones4958

I visited M&S in Cardiff yesterday and was shocked to see that they are stocking other brands in their food section. I really do not want to go the M&S to buy Whiskas cat food and PG Tips tea bags. What really annoyed me was that there were no M&S tea bags available - but two shelves full of PG Tips (these appeared to be non fair trade) - why no M&S teabags - no room on shelves for them!!
M&S - get a grip please!
Oh - another thing M&S - have you shed some staff from the shop floor? I couldn't locate a member of staff in the food section and had to queue up at customer service information to be told eventually that if there was no stock on the shelf then they didn't have it!

go_cat

AFAIK they are trialling this in some of their branches it was in the press several months ago and is a response to customer feeback ( although obviously not yours!!)

lilac_lady

If M&S want to continue the illusion that their food is far superior in every product range then I think they've made a mistake putting other brands on their shelves.

Helix

go_cat wrote: »

AFAIK they are trialling this in some of their branches it was in the press several months ago and is a response to customer feeback ( although obviously not yours!!)

I think the trial is over and they have rolled it out to all stores now.

mynameisdave

It has been going on for quite a while, I'm fairly certain the trial started in '09 and if you were Culverhouse Cross rather than Queen Street I'd have thought that store would have been included in the trial.

moonrakerz

go_cat wrote: »

is a response to customer feeback

The trouble is that most "customer feedback" is based on questionnaires that are written in such a way as to give the answer that they want.

The most common one of late is for the rail companies to do away with buffet cars because most rail passengers WANT them removed from the trains because they said that they wanted a trolley to "serve them at their seat" - the buffet car, of course, was never actually mentioned in the questionnaires !

Would you like PG Tips on the shelf ? - Yes please !
Would you like PG Tips on the shelf instead of M & S brand tea ? - ??????

tcr_3

Most reasonable folk would say that much of the day to day M&S own brand food is pretty naff, overpriced and the shelf lives are short. I don't rate their tea bags at all, their gold ones are vile.

mynameisdave

moonrakerz wrote: »

The trouble is that most "customer feedback" is based on questionnaires that are written in such a way as to give the answer that they want.

People are of course free to write to Customer Services Head Office, eitehr via email or letter and then you have freeform to say exactly what you want.

moonrakerz

mynameisdave wrote: »

People are of course free to write to Customer Services Head Office, eitehr via email or letter and then you have freeform to say exactly what you want.

True, but when they want a particular result, any "freehand" comments outside the "scientifically conducted study" will be discarded as unreliable evidence !

DCFC79

surely its a good thing for m and s to sell branded goods, gives the customer choice at least.

Chester85

The trial was started in the North East stores in 2009 and was a large success in Newcastle, which is the most profitable M&S Foodhall and store outside of London

It was based on customers who do the weekly shop in M&S, of which there are a lot, wanting brand names so thy could do an all in one shop