Marks and Sparks

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These were £15 each and I love them.
The back is slightly longer, there is a raised seam down the front (very flattering) and there are side slits , plus it is not the slightest bit itchy!
I also bought it in bright pink and a lovely cobalt blue.
Absolute bargain!

I didn't see those in our M&S!
My friend was wearing what looked like a very expensive cashmere sweater recently, then I did see it in M&S - £15. It wouldn't have suited me but looked lovely on her - worn over a very expensive-looking shirt.

Maw, I've just bought the grey one in the sale. It's looks lovely on and so soft.
However, that is all I could find worth buying in Marks.

On the other hand I have just bought a good quality dress from Tu and had to stop myself buying other things, I didn't need. Tu is my preferred shop now for casual clothing at a reasonable price.

I saw those maw but didn't try one on as I assumed they'd be itchy. They are lovely. I will go on search of them with my Xmas vouchers.

I was in my local M&S today. I think it must contain everything that hasn't sold from every other store in the country as it was just a sea of sales racks!

I bought some half price tealights and a 70% off posh bubble bath.

This winter I have bought a camel coloured coat, leggings and several oversized shirts from the Curve range which have all been lovely. And the meat is always good - we had an excellent piece of lamb shoulder at the weekend. For me, there has been an improvement but I have seen some horrid crimplene!

All M&S stores don’t carry exactly the same goods, so will vary widely.My nearest store seems very old fashioned.

Shysal.My ddil bought the strawberry compote, said it was delicious.I will try that next, instead of the triffle.

I get the impression that our M&S store stocks all the clothes that other stores cannot sell. You can't buy a jacket or coat, they just do not stock them.
The make up and underwear departments take up more floor space than anything else and I buy neither.
I buy nightwear for the GC but usually have to order it online becuase they rarely have all sizes in store.

Our Christmas order came from M&S. Husband went to pick it up on the Sunday. All the dates were short i.e. use by 26th Dec. Turkey, ham, large pork pie and beef. I froze what I could but was very disappointed. When you pay premium price you expect longer dates than that. Even the cream had a date of only 3 days. Will never put in a pre-Christmas order again.

I'm off to pick up an online order for DH this morning. I saw it in the sale, but couldn't get it in his size. For once it actually didn't look a cheap item.

I bought two of those jumpers mawbroon. A maroon one and a dark blue one. For £15 they are superb. Very comfy to wear and seem to wash well too. Nice and soft and cosy. They are great with jeans.

I think M&S just have too many trousers - every possible design but not a single one is just "right". They are also scattered all over the store so you never know if you have seen them all or not.

The Bath store is very disappointing, they reduced the downstairs floor are by over 50% last year so clearly not doing well. When I went in to return my latest purchases I was shocked by the sea of sales rails, I've never seen so much reduced clothing. Much of it looked cheap and definitely not what I'd wear.

Customer service at M & S isn’t what it was either, and seems to be hell bent on batting away any complaints, reasonable or not. I seem to have a dispute every year that takes ages to resolve. This year, the snow globe. Bought online two years ago for £19.50. Out it came with the other decorations this year and the liquid in it was so murky you couldn’t see inside. Fair enough, they asked for a photo, but then sent a rather snotty email saying that they, not I, would be the judge of whether it was fit for purpose and I’d have to return it in store, where I may or may not get a store credit at the manager’s discretion. Why they put themselves in the position of having a long queue of customers listening in to their dirty washing/snow globe being aired, I don’t know. Especially when the till assistant then states that a snow globe is only really meant to last one Christmas and the long queue is agreeing with the rather cross customer that if she’d wanted a throwaway item she’d have gone to Poundland. Even then it had to be sent off and “evaluated” by Quality Control before I got an apology and full refund weeks later. It’s hard work!

I love the food though!

I went to the Milton Keynes store last week looking for something to spend my vouchers on but could find nothing - the colours weren't right, there was nothing that said "buy me". I did fancy those jumpers*Maw*, but the colour I wanted had gone. So in the end I'm afraid I put them towards some lovely Burts Bees stuff for DD's birthday. Rather that than let them go to waste. I bought beauty stuff last time I had vouchers as well.

Don’t even bother going into M&S these days.

Has anyone else been asked to do an online survey about the "Sparks" reward points system? I completed one recently, and I didn't hold back from stating exactly what I think of "Sparks" - which isn't much. Why M&S can't have a simple points system like Boots, Sainsbury's, or other retailers, is beyond me.

Love the Sparks wine tastings!

I can't help going back to the flowers that my D sent to me just before Christmas. She'd seen an advert about Christmas flowers at M&S so wired her order through and had told me not to go out as a surprise was on its way.

Large box arrived and as I unwrapped all the cardboard/paper there was this " normal " bunch of flowers with 3 golden cones and a bit of gold nudging. Red roses, a couple of freesias and a lily-shaped flower.

My first thought was that she must have paid a fortune for this, whereas a week earlier I'd bought a £3 bunch of flowers from Asda that well matched it. I felt so sorry for my D when she came next day and saw it-----she said " is that it ?" Then promptly let the company know what she thought about the " huge " bunch of Christmas flowers that they'd advertised. A rip off !

Again I bought another bunch of Asda's £3 flowers yesterday and they're superb, roses, variegated carnations and gypsophilia---which will last 2 weeks, guaranteed.

I have a problem with the length of trousers too. I tend to get them online from Damart because they have a choice of sizes but it would be nice to get some more interesting ones in a shorter length. I haven't been to Marks for years but when I did the few short ones were too short.

loopylou, it was the Bath store that I was referring to, we must live near each other?

I too have found M&S lacking in customer service. I ordered the M&S Classic Christmas Hamper for delivery to friends in Lincolnshire (we're in the West Mids) to arrive in time for Christmas.

When I heard nothing from my friends, I checked and there was no trace of my order, despite having received acknowledgement of the order from M&S (fortunately, as it turned out).

By this time (early January) the hamper I'd ordered was unavailable so I chose an alternative. This did arrive with my friends, even though it was two weeks later than planned.

M&S offered a ten pound voucher in recompense. I was not impressed!

I've had a couple of issues in M&S in the last month. I wasn't happy with the sloppy response put together on email by a call centre bod. It was an answer populated with standard paragraphs, none of which responded to the points I'd made clearly. I then asked that the correspondence be escalated to a manager for an overview. Only at that point did I get a meaningful reply from someone who read my details and got to the nub of the problem. She said she understood and gave a personal example of her own. A very efficient and helpful email followed by some vouchers.

I'm no longer happy to be satisfied with the first response from any Customer Services operator if it doesn't take my issues seriously.

On the plus side I've had some exceptional support from Mint Velvet customer services where they've gone out of their way to accommodate a refund which was well out of time according to the til receipt. Top marks!

I lost faith with M&S when their clothing started to be made overseas.
Always first place to go to buy my undies, but the fit varies between items, even if in the same style. Being charged extra because I wear larger than a DD is wrong and don't talk to me about knickers! If I wanted to wear g strings, I'd buy them - but even with full briefs, there is little difference in width between the front and back, so hopeless if you have any kind of bottom!
M&S always used to be renowned for it's more generous fit , but no longer. What is worrying is that those in the executive depts don't seem to realise that the poor quality and poor fit of the clothing is one of the main reasons that their profits have been dropping - they can rebrand as much as they like, but unless they actually get their clothes back to the quality as it used to be, they might as well give up!