What's really wrong with Britain's High Streets?
There's been a lot of media frenzy in recent weeks and months about how the Internet is killing the High street.
Amazon, what bastards right?
Well, they don't pay much tax, but when our tax system is so ridiculous you cant really blame them for that. No. It's not Amazon or anyone else’s faulty, it's their own incompetence.
Wilko
Wilko has a shop in Farnborough which is almost next to the cinema. Instead of paying about a billion pounds for a bag of sweets, I'll pop into Wilko to grab some Pick'n'Mix or something similar. Most times in the past I have been disappointed by lack of pick'n'mix lids, lack of pick'n'mix cups or general lack of any sweetie related stock.
I like Wilko and want them to survive, so complained to them in August via Resolver. They replied with
Sorry to hear your recent visit to store wasn’t a positive experience, we have passed your comments onto the Farnborough Store Manager to investigate.
So here we are in December. How are they faring?
mmm, Well stocked!
lots to choose from.
I really fancy a drink
More emptiness
Great value Christmas Tree without roots a few days AFTER Christmas!
This is made even worse by the fact I have discovered the kids package at the cinema where you can get sweets, a drink and a chocolate bar for £2.99. I now have NO reason to visit Wilko, ever. They sell all sorts of items (including paint & DIY) but I'd probably only buy it on the spur of the moment, most likely when buying sweets. I literally have no reason to be their customer any more.
Drucker
I've recently been listening to Peter Drucker’s 5 Most Important Questions and the first is to "What is our mission". I would think it is something like "to sell stuff". That is what shops are for, and they are failing.
Argos
It's not just Wilko. I wanted to buy a shoe rack, so thought I'd give Argos a try. On my phone I found a nice rack and added it to the cart. It then offered me a "back of the door shoe hangar". Great! I'll have that and added it to the cart too. I clicked the cart icon to checkout. Runtime error.
What???
I tried it on my desktop. Same.
I phoned them up and at first the lady didn't believe me. She tried. You guessed it. Error!
While I was on the phone, I ordered a paid for a shoe rack from Amazon.
You had one job
Both Argos & Wilko had one job; to sell me stuff. They failed. Wilko lost my custom to the cinema and Argos lost my custom to Amazon.
Management Lessons
The managers and ordering process have failed. Their shop floor staff have failed by not raising these issues. Do they not have any pride in their store? Do they not want their company to succeed?
It is not Amazon that are killing these shops. It is themselves. You see it time and time again. Next time you visit any shop, look for these issues. Surely these are simple issues to resolve, but as I have seen from Wilko they just cannot be bothered and as a result will continue to lose custom to other companies that do want them.
How long can these dinosuars survive?