Shopping

Should I have known better than to go into the Centre for some essential shopping on a Sunday? Well, Spanish dictionaries don't just turn up you know (Oh yes, Amazon). The circuit included WH Smith, Superdrug and BHS (and a wander through Boots).

I love books and I came to hate WH Smith when they seemed to pull back from being a bookseller, but that has reversed and it has a useful and OK laid out library of tomes. Still facing the challenge of buy it now at full cost or online later. They stock a wide range of magazines and must be praised for that. The rest of the store seems to be decorated with random displays of knick-knacks and cheap junk. With lots of primary colours again. I think this repulses the older people so must be aimed at youngsters. Do they really use their significant buying power in response to bright colours. Is our youth really so stupid, or just marketing people?

Superdrug is that brightly lit cornucopia of all manner of household necessities such as polish and cleaners and perfumes. Except now it is a hopelessly laid out, brightly lit, not that cheap also ran. With a cheap name. It wasn't busy and it didn't deserve to be. Lord knows what motivates their buyers.

BHS. A decent store I think but desperately schizoid. Own brand walking style shoes at £42; is that a bargain? In the crowded market place, no. The range of things on offer are not graduated but seem random and overlapping. The use of space is thoughtless beyond 'sections'. Sight-lines could be better but are not as bad as Boots.

How do Boots survive? What are they known for or do well? It is a mess, you cannot understand the layout and sight-lines are non-existent. I hate the place and only use it as a thoroughfare to somewhere else.

Oh, I mustn't forget The Works. You have to love this place. They have some very interesting stock, it is reasonably laid out around a compact store and everything is easy to find. And they do live up to their promise of attractive prices. With quite a bit of tat.

Retail does give you the impression in these especially stressful times that the big decisions are not well founded, that stores could do better by standing back and looking properly at their business (metaphorically as a construct and actually in their stores) and thinking around the subject of people buying their wares instead of trying to be 'clever', with bright colours.

Retail Detail

Is it just me? I went to Pets At Home at the weekend. I appreciate that often there is a not a huge amount of competition regarding pet supplies (well not if you need mixed corn and layers pellets as well as Bakers Complete), so a certain disregard can creep in to a retailer, but does it have to just be a warehouse? It isn't of course, its a standard retail estate unit of barn like proportions, but really it is a riot of brightly coloured (why?) toys and packaging of pet foods stacked high.

But most annoying of all (and it is an absolute rule with this shop) fully half of the people in the store will be queuing at the till. How do they manage that? And then as you put down a myriad of items they ask you 'did you find everything you wanted?' Now this either infers that you are pretty stupid in the shopping department, their store is spectacularly badly laid out so it is highly likely that you would struggle or they are giving you an opportunity to say 'well actually...' because you were too timid to ask otherwise, as you thought it might hurt their feelings.

But. But, if you wanted say a bell shaped parrot treat that you have seen before but couldn't find today and you say so at this entreaty, they usually just drone 'no, we haven't got any of those left'. Excellent, thank you for just giving me a glimmer of hope there, only to dash it by proving that the empty space on the shelf did actually mean that you hadn't got any, as I originally supposed.

They are usually sweet kids in the store and don't mean any harm and the stupid question clearly isn't their idea, so you can't maintain a rage about it all. Just a dread of going back.