Marks and Sparks

If they focussed on good quality but stylish 'basics' it might help!

I wasn't happy when I paid £40 for a jumper for it to shrink on the first wash. Then I had to queue up and be questioned about my ability to wash an item according to the instructions. They sent it off for testing, agreed the jumper was faulty instead of me, and sent me a refund for £25! Of course now I won't take the risk with their jumpers. And I get so annoyed with the use by dates of food. I don't go in every day, so why is there an assumption I'm going to eat a cake on the day I buy it?

However I did buy some lovely bedding a year ago, a beautiful design with embroidered birds that washes up lovely. And great extra deep fitted sheets.

Recently saw in Marks (one in shop, one on line) two real horrors. One was a mid-calf length quite flared yellow leather skirt with elastic waist. Had some favourable reviews though, so what do I know? The other was a tartan dress, asymmetrical in the extreme, displayed very unattractively by being just shoved on the end of a rail, with blouses on it. Not in the sale.

I bought a couple of decent tops for DS last week. As the sale was on I thought I'd have a look round for a new coat. Fat chance! Horrible colours, horrible fabrics and horrible styles. I tried on a trench coat from the curve range. It made me look like a huge sausage.

Me too Hooty do you think there is a support group we could join that would cure us of this?

I do hope that somebody high up in M&S reads this thread.
Or their Mother/Grandmother.

Well, here is the reply that I have just received from the Executive Team,

“Thank you for your email.
I have noted your comments about this forum on our system for our future consideration.
Of course should any customer wish to engage with us directly and provide suggestions or comments about our business, we would always appreciate their time and gratefully receive their feedback.
Thanks again, I hope you enjoy the rest of your week.
Kind regards”

That pretty well sums up their attitude, it seems. I’ve obviously been filed in their archives - aka the bin!!

Only buy food there occasionally now, clothes are sh**e! Shame, I used to be a really loyal customer- they won’t learn ‘til they go under!

This is a popular topic and will no doubt run and run.
However in their defence may I point out that while I agree they are spreading themselves too thinly and have perhaps lost direction, nevertheless would you honestly expect to like everything on offer?
I have instanced two items which are fantastic value and very stylish and there may well be others. Fair enough, their trousers are a disaster although the cord straight jeans in black, blue and grey have seen me through the last 4 months
If I am being honest House if Fraser never has anything which appeals to me and I find Debenhams like a poor relation of C&A !

I now prefer to go to separate shops/labels like Joules, Uniqlo and Sahara etc or look online.
M&S used to be all things to all women and I can understand everybody’s disappointment, but it is not all bad, you just have to be more selective.

Knickers!! Like Liz46, I miss BHS, the knickers I bought from M&S have lots of little holes in them, they are very poor quality.

I've just read lemongroves' comment. I, too, got in touch with a complaint about them and suggested they should read the comments on GN, but I don't think that they bothered.Pity they can't be bothered to see what their (former) customers think.

I shop at the Bath store too. My main complaint is with their Autograph bras. Different years I’ve purchased 3 bras where the straps just unravelled and fell apart after a couple of washes. Got a refund each time. But what made me fume is I’m then left with matching pants which then match nothing else.(I’ve a thing for matching undies). Also I bought online a Per Una parka to replace my (brilliant) 5 year old one and quality is not a patch on my old one. Quality has really gone downhill, even with some food items.

I find their per una Roma cut jeans a perfect fit for me however

Me too Glammagran!

I hadn’t been to marks for ages. On impulse. Did Xmas food shop there. It was rather good. Range of food looks better than before, I think. Not somewhere I’d shop often for food though.
Went into clothes bit several months ago. Needs someone with a clear mind to define what they are doing. Bring back George!

Food! Now that’s a different matter Shizam.

My nearest shop is a M&S Food, just a perfect half mile walk up the hill and through the old West Gate. Can combine a little work out with a pleasant shop.

I agree re M and S, I use Next mostly for jeans etc and tops as well as FatFace. No Debenhams where I live but it’s going to fold anyway from what I hear.

Squiffy Suitable response to the M&S Executive Team's reply. Feel free to copy it and send to them -

"Thank you for your response to my suggestion that you read and consider the opinions of Gransnet members on the clothes you stock.

I have noted it for future reference and sent a copy to the forum site owners so that they can see how little you value the views of what used to be your bedrock consumer base. As you would have seen had you looked, many of them were regular customers until the colours, styles and quality changed. There ARE good things, but it takes a lot of searching through multiple groupings of racks of different ranges to find them.

The over-fifties spent nearly £7 billion on clothes in 2013, (see fashionunited.uk/v1/fashion/women-over-50s-spending-most-on-fashion/2014022113134 ), These women are unlikely to bother giving you direct feedback. They just quietly take their business elsewhere and talk about their disappointment amongst themselves. Places like this forum, where people chat informally about shopping for clothes are as valuable a source of information about reactions to your stock as letters from customers.

In addition to the chat forum, I am sure Gransnet management staff are also interested in more formal co-operation with retail organisations to gather feedback from their thousands of members on M&S "

Elegran Very good!!

I consider it very offhand that their reply to my email implied that only communications from individual customers would be taken into consideration!

It was a barely polite brush-off, probably from a whizz kid of 20 or so.

If you do use that post to reply to them, there should be a comma between "clothes" and "are" in the sentence "Places like this forum, where people chat informally about shopping for clothes are as valuable a source of information about reactions to your stock as letters from customers." and on reading the whole thing again, in a later paragraph I would change "These women are unlikely . . " to " These "old women" are unlikely . . " Might as well emphasise that "old women" are a financial and social force to be reckoned with.

Should have said same paragraph, sorry. Accuracy is important when you are having a politely acid dig.

Oh dear, too late Elegran! I read it through and didn't pick up on the missing comma. It made sense to me, so, hopefully, it will make sense to whoever receives the email. No doubt, it will be another 'Executive'!

I've been reading through this thread. (displacement activity) and it seems their main problem is lack of customer service.
We could forgive them some of the other errors. It was never a shop of choice for fashion.
John Lewis is going has gone the same way.
I fear it is caused by the upsurge of online shopping so that nobody is trained properly any more. Cutbacks you know.
I can remember 40 yrs ago when food producer friends managed to sell their product range to M&S. They were thrilled as it was the ultimate mark of approval. M&S standards were tops.

I've also been reading this thread, (procrastinating, avoiding other dull but necessary paperwork ). I agree Grammaretto, their customer service has declined from helpful (years ago) to utter disinterest and downright rudeness. (But I cannot fault the excellent JL customer service, (Cambridge store).)
Tu clothing? As in Sainsbury's Tu? DH bought some trousers which faded badly in the first wash, and the knee high socks I bought developed holes within weeks of purchase.
As to M & S products, I used to buy 1 new M & S cashmere sweater each winter, (only 1, due to hefty price tag of cashmere), but no longer! Last year's purchase was so disappointingly thin and dismal, by comparison to the luxurious warmth of the well worn sweater of 6 year's ago. The quality declined year on year!
The Roma 'rise' trousers, (yes, a daft name) fit beautifully, and so far wash well, but finding the right, size shape etc (12 S) in their jeans is so mind numbing I can't be bothered. Their t-shirts are pretty good, though, was and wear over and over. And a wool camel coat from last year is beautifully warm and been complimented on.
But their dresses, well, 'frumpy' comes to mind as an adequate adjective. Did try a 'Twiggy' endorsed waterfall long wool jacket - the seams unravelled - hopeless!
Once upon a time M & S was the go-to shop for the basics of a wardrobe and for quality and a fair price.
Sadly it's just too much of a pot luck feast now!
If these 6 pages of comments so far are a reflection of their core customer opinion across the UK, M & S won't be around much longer. Time to stock up on heatgen tops (love 'em here in the chilly east,) & 'no VPL' knickers before the "Store for Rent/Sale" signs go up.

Update!

As predicted, the reply from my last email is from a different Executive!

"Thank you for coming back to us.

I am sorry if our response implied we only consider feedback from customers who contact us directly. That's certainly not the case and I can assure you our buying and design teams will have research tools to gather customer feedback from various sources.

The reason why this was suggested is because if a customer emails our Executive team directly with their views, it's included in our regular reviews with the CEO, Chairman and Board, as well as our technologists and buyers for each specific department.

We know our customers care about M&S and find it frustrating when they want to shop with us, but can't find the perfect pieces to add to their current wardrobe. We are therefore focusing on listening more closely to the feedback and suggestions we receive.

We know that quality, fit and price are all areas we are working on, as well as our clothing styles. Although we aren't there yet, we have started to see customer influence across our clothing collections in store and online.



For example, we were told we did not offer many dresses with sleeves, and some of our sizes were much harder to find than others. Since then we added sleeves to more than 80% of our dresses and improved the availability of the sizes our customers often contacted us about.

It is good to know what you and other customers are looking for from M&S and your suggestions and comments are very welcome. I am confident you will see more of the styles you like in our stores soon, so I hope we will see you shopping with us again in the future.



Thank you again for taking the time to email.

Kind regards"