You want a state run by bureaucrats? Move to Italy.

Oh sorry, I thought the coalition were still supposed to be running the economy.
They were going to eliminate the deficit within one parliamentary term and growth would happen as if by magic.
They now admit they need at least two terms ... meantime debt has gone up and growth down.

Great, this plan A, isn't it ?

Prior to the banking collapse, Labour's deficit and debt were perfectly manageable and Darling even coaxed some growth after it.

If you want talk about opposition's plans, maybe you can tell us what Gideon would have done about the banks, seeing as he spoke out against bailing the banks out but never said what he would have done instead.

and yet again, RLFans becomes Socialist Worker in all but name.

there are far too may people living as cliches on here

You've only been back a day and you've run out of arguments already?

nope, just remembered why I gave up posting, same old stagers, same old arguments, same old jealousy.

a new year in dates only

I don't understand what you were replying to? None of the posts I can see are in any way the politics of the SWP, not even close.

Its because he mentioned that the Labour party didn't state what their plans for the economy would be.

ElB responded with the fact that the Tory party didn't have a plan for the economy when they were in opposition either.

And that prompted a foot stomping hissy fit in a true Violet Elizabeth Bott style.

No, I don't really understand it either.

You need to brush-up on political movements a bit.
I don' t think you''ll find the SWP ever supporting my views which, for a start, include acceptance of a market economy.
But then, I guess anyone to your left is a total commie pinko in your view, yes?

The unending price-cutting model, as illustrated in [iThe Wal-Mart Effect[/i by Charles Fishman, eventually loses jobs and decreases quality.



And unless there was some sort of a miracle in the last quarter, we'll be back into recession soon, IIRC.

It'll be minimal – as with fish.

You'd be very lucky to get a real butcher who could, for instance, French trim a rack of lamb for you.

The "same old jealousy" isn't obvious either.

none so blind as .....

anyway, the usual suspects are best left to it.

So you'll be able to point out where jealousy is revealed.

Problem is when all the retailers have gone you will have to buy online and unseen with new products. Not only that but with reputable high street competition gone there will be more incentive for online traders to cut prices and in doing so cut corners on customer service.

It's understandable that people want things cheaper and cheaper, but as mentioned above, the evidence shows that that ultimately leads to lower quality goods, together with lost jobs – and poorer service.

I suspect I mentioned at the time, but around 10 months ago, I needed some stuff for the garden, and a 'man with a van', who's been doing a lot of work for us, took take me to the nearest B&Q. It was staggering just how few staff there were on really large premises, and if you had a query, they were quite polite, but knew nothing about the subject.

Driving back, he was shaking his head at the lack of service, and observing that in the building trade itself, it's the same. There used to be small places where you go with a problem, and you'd find staff with knowledge and the interest to help you out, possibly even suggesting a solution that you hadn't thought of. All those are gone now, he continued, swallowed up by big companies, with staffing levels and attitudes to service at pretty much that of B&Q.

It's a major reason to use John Lewis when I need household stuff (or anything else I can get there).

Used to love the classical section in Virgin Megastore – and before that, the jazz section in HMC at Piccadilly. Both examples of staff who knew their stuff and could give you all sorts of really interesting suggestions. It really is not the same having some software make recommendations to you.

Retailers on the whole need to think about what their stores actually are. At the moment, most stores on the High Street are simply showrooms for Amazon.

I'm a firm believer that people make purchasing decisions based on emotion. They don't care about features and benefits, they (largely) don't care about practicalities - they just care about how good it looks, how nice it is to use and how they "feel" about it. Yes, there are exceptions, but I don't believe that people make impulsive decisions based on a specs sheet.

That's why, in my experience, Apple Stores are always rammed. In an Apple store, you're not given the 'hard sell'. You are simply invited into the store and allowed to 'play' with the product and learn about the product. That's how you win customers around - not by bombarding them by tech specs and warranties - just by inviting them in to get a sense of what it is like to use, touch and own the product. Who cares if you can buy a better spec laptop for half the price, or get double the warranty next door in John Lewis? It is all about giving buyers that feeling of owning it before they've handed over their cash.

And that's where other retailers are failing. If you are interested in specs and features and benefits, why would you go to a store? That information is very easy to find elsewhere and, in the main, much more trustworthy from the keyword of a ?stranger than it is from the mouth of a salesperson. Retailers need to make their stores fun, enjoyable and emotional places to be - not places to be sold to. Locking everything behind glass and asking disinterested and ill-informed staff to stack boxes as high as possible isn't the way to do that.

There used to be four camera shops in Chester. A Jessops and three others. Jessops bought one of the other three out but then closed the shop when they nearly went bust a few years ago.

The staff in the remaining Jessops shop were generally OK and reasonably knowledgeable and I bought stuff from them in the past but I also buy online and have even bought from Jessops online as occasionally they were actually the cheapest. My on-line purchases tend to be lenses and accessories not cameras.

My first digital camera was bought from the shop Jessops took over and when I bought a DSLR in 2011 that was purchased from one of the other camera shops in Chester which is part of the London Camera Exchange group.

I was expecting to pay through the nose for the camera which hadn't been out that long and was actually pretty scarce in the shops and on-line. I nearly fell over when I asked the price. It was £180 [icheaper[/i than anywhere I could find online and cheaper than the price the same shop quoted me on the phone a few days before.

So it doesn't always follow on-line is best for prices and I got to check the camera out properly before I bought it. The shop even threw in 100 free prints.

I would envision street retail becoming more orientated around the manufacturer, as a demo centre. Like the Apple centres, it's a nice place to be, to touch and feel and try stuff out. Apply don't care if you then go home and buy their kit on-line, because you're still buying their stuff. PC World can't do that, but HP can. Porsche and Mercedes are making similar moves in their car dealerships, each with a demo centre where you can try a greater variety of options and test driving, and it doesn't matter to them if you then go buy the car from a dealership or from the internet.
I expect we will start seeing more along those lines, shops aligned to a particular manufacturer, that are more of a demo centre. Whether a Levi's store or Sony or Porsche or whatever.

It is certainly the way things would logically move for the higher end items, I'm not sure it would work for lots of mass market items like shoes and clothes. Supermarkets do some of those lines but I'm not sure I wanna buy my shoes from the same place I buy my bog roll, I may not have that choice however.

Yes....having thought about it a bit further....the "demo centre" works for high end items, but not low end.
Low end will be piled high and sold cheap, because that's it's differentiator. In the example of shoes, Brantano gets ahead because it's piled up self serve, as are the sports shops that have overtaken JJB in trainer sales.

I agree that the model wouldn't work on 'consumables' but not sure I agree on clothing.

I'd say that a lot more fashion retailers are shifting to a model of "come in and experience" rather than "come in and be sold to". The new Topshop/Man opened in Leeds just before Christmas and it's a world away from the previous store. Much more room to move, staff with iPads helping customers, personal shopping services and a much more pleasant environment - I certainly don't think that they're unique in that regard and Topshop is hardly "high-end". It's not Primark, but it's hardly Harvey Nichols.

I agree that we might see more 'manufacturer' stores in the coming years but I'm not convinced that Curry's couldn't follow a similar model to Apple for example. If Curry's can show customers that their product can do something clever or eye-catching (regardless of how special it actually is), then they'll get the attention of a lot of people - and some of those will open their wallets.

And on a similar line - how the hell did TK Maxx find their business model and make it work ?

1. Pile all of your stock out onto the shop floor and cram in as many racks as you can, each one stuffed tight with stock.
2. Make your showroom look like a badly organised church hall jumble sale.
3. Sell everything at the highest price you can think of and use the "its a designer name" as an excuse.

I prefer charity shops, at least everyone knows you're a cheapskate and if you're going to have to fight for something in your size its better to have to fight a pensioner for it.

Talking of John Lewis / Waitrose it has been doing well - sales of £9.5B against M&S ((a former world giant of retailing)'s £10B. I am concerned though that the CEO of Jonelle was making noises about opening lots of new stores. To me that could kill a good business - at present Jonelle do well because they occupy the key site in most large shopping centres and people are will ing to travel to them. Likewise Waitrose have a rarity value and concentrate on affluent areas. Why saddle yourself with the major overhead of new shops when current policy works?

Somerfield doing that (when they bought Kwiksave in 199icon_cool.gif really accelerated their downfall.