High street in trouble v queues in shops v unemploment

[Nick Grant]

Can anyone with a retail background explain the relationship between these things, because it's a complete mystery to me.

I know the standard PH response to any sort of physical shopping purchase is "you should buy it online" but I work close to a large shopping centre and it is convienient to pop to the shops. I'm obvoiusly not alone as everytime I go in to a shop to buy something the queues are at least 10 minitues long (example today was Next). Some people were giving up waiting, putting goods down and walking out of the shop. Yet, I see retailers on the news bemoaining how they can't make any money. The news also has me believe there is a very long queue of people looking for jobs.

Can we not just tie all this together, the shops employ more people, get more sales and we have less unemploymnet? I'm sure I must be missing somehting?

[The Ferret]

Nick Grant said:

Can we not just tie all this together, the shops employ more people, get more sales and we have less unemploymnet? I'm sure I must be missing somehting?

shop employs more people, shop already not making enough money makes even less, shop closes.

[Burnham]

Well, you've got my vote. Where do I mark the 'X'?

[The Ferret]

I would hazard a guess that 90% of those that put the item down in next probably end up buying it at a later date (when the shop is less busy). I'm sure they know this.

[k-ink]

I was out for drinks with a group of 12 girls the other night. They are all employed by one very small boutique clothes shop. You'd have thought 1/3 that number of employees would suffice. So that alone must indicate how busy they are. Much like all the shops around here.

[Nick Grant]

The Ferret said:

Nick Grant said:

Can we not just tie all this together, the shops employ more people, get more sales and we have less unemploymnet? I'm sure I must be missing somehting?

shop employs more people, shop already not making enough money makes even less, shop closes.

Nick Grant said:

Some people were giving up waiting, putting goods down and walking out of the shop.

Hence the extra sales.

On top of the queues the shop was a mess, I was trying to buy some slippers for my son and none of the sizes on the hangers matched what was hanging on them. Again more staff could have it in shape and more people would buy if they could find what they wanted.

[Nick Grant]

The Ferret said:

I would hazard a guess that 90% of those that put the item down in next probably end up buying it at a later date (when the shop is less busy). I'm sure they know this.

I did wonder if this might be the case?

ETA I had already walked out of M&S as they didn't have anything in his size and their queues were as bad.

Edited by Nick Grant on Monday 5th December 16:02

[The Ferret]

Nick Grant said:

I did wonder if this might be the case?

ETA I had already walked out of M&S as they didn't have anything in his size and their queues were as bad.

Edited by Nick Grant on Monday 5th December 16:02

It does make you wonder though doesn't it?.

I had the unfortunate experience of having to go into town shopping last weekend. I can honestly say I've never seen it that busy before, ever. Literally couldn't move in some places, and in the end gave up. All this at a time when many are said to be doing all their shopping online.

Either everyone just felt like taking a walk in town without buying anything, or the shops were doing a little better than expected.

[Jonboy_t]

It's a complete vicious circle.

The shops (more to the point, the HQ that runs the shops) see the word 'recession' and almost immediately go on a culling spree using the tough economic climate as an excuse to cut out a few quid. This leads to poorer customer service as the guys in the stores are running round trying to do 10 things at once.

People buying what they need to buy and leaving can cause queue's within stores if enough people decide to go in at the same time (for example, on your lunch break) but my opinion is that there are now more customers in stores demanding better customer service and then bhing and whining when they don't get it, which in turn causes more people behind them to have to wait whilst they do their moaning. The people in the queue's see Mr or Mrs Moaner whinging in front of them, so (unconciously) have their backs up before they've even spoken to someone because they see it that the store/assistant/salesperson has done something to offend/upset Mr or Mrs Moaner and so therefore is going to do the same to them.


So, I don't think retail outlets need to invest more in staff to change things like this, but they do need to empower the staff that they have to make rational, sensible decisions that will benefit the customer instead of the old 'it's company policy' line (I know it's not as easy as that, but it's money better spent than throwing resource at a problem).

[Nick Grant]

Burnham said:

Well, you've got my vote. Where do I mark the 'X'?

And if shops employed more people there would be more wage erners to spend money in shops

[Nick Grant]

Jonboy_t said:

stuff

Some good points, one of my first employers was really into empowerment and having seen the benfits in action I have always fought to manage in this style ever since. That hasn't always been easy but I still persist.

I guess you're right in that you can't just throw people at the problem it needs a bit of other investment too.

[Jonboy_t]

Nick Grant said:

Jonboy_t said:

stuff

Some good points, one of my first employers was really into empowerment and having seen the benfits in action I have always fought to manage in this style ever since. That hasn't always been easy but I still persist.

I guess you're right in that you can't just throw people at the problem it needs a bit of other investment too.

I worked in retail for years and in arguably one of the toughest retail environments to give good/appropriate customer service (mobile phone sales). One of the hardest things for me was sitting talking to people about their problems and just being completely helpless to do anything rational or logical, 'because the company says I can't'. If I'd had the power to say 'You know what, you're right Mr X, it is wrong that some cock gave you our useless insurance policy, here's a refund and I've cancelled it now', it would have saved 20 minutes of joyless arguing, he would have been happier and I could have helped out 4 or 5 other customers who may have spent a couple of quid.

[Du1point8]

Would another issue not be the actual running costs of some of those stores too?

I can't remember the location (think trafford centre or similar) and the lease is £330k a year so they need to cover £500k+ if its one person running it for them to make even remotely feasible once all the revenue verse profits are brought in.

Bring in another say 7 staff at £20k a year (I don't know salaries for retail) and then that is another say £200k of more revenue to make a small profit...

Soon that store would need to make £800k a year in revenue for it to be worth bothering with.

Could that be the reason of being understaffed?

[Jonboy_t]

Du1point8 said:

Would another issue not be the actual running costs of some of those stores too?

I can't remember the location (think trafford centre or similar) and the lease is £330k a year so they need to cover £500k+ if its one person running it for them to make even remotely feasible once all the revenue verse profits are brought in.

Bring in another say 7 staff at £20k a year (I don't know salaries for retail) and then that is another say £200k of more revenue to make a small profit...

Soon that store would need to make £800k a year in revenue for it to be worth bothering with.

Could that be the reason of being understaffed?

Good point:

Prices of everything goes up - landlords charge more rent
Landlords charge more rent - stores can't afford people
Stores can't afford people - crappy customer service
crappy customer service - people don't put up with it
People don't put up with it - have to hike prices
price of everything goes up - landlords charge more rent

The knee bone - the thigh bone etc.

[valiant1]

I worked in retail for years and whenever the economy took a dive and sales started to suffer the first thing was to cut staffing to the bone and place severe limits on temp christmas staff. This placed massive strains on staff and choices had to made. Put everyone on tills and let the shop look st or keep people on the floor and reduce till staff?

We were very conscience of people leaving not being served but with every available staff working there was not much we could do. And it only took someone to go ill to stuff us.

Complaints to upper management went unheeded and when they asked for ways to improve sales, the obvious answer was not welcomed.

Talking to mates still in the trade it is only going to get worse as well!

[Eddh]

My younger brother works in Hollister on the weekends (other overpriced poor quality clothes brands are available). They have 30 minute queues to get INTO the shop and usually around 30 minute queues to pay as well.

[Nick Grant]

Du1point8 said:

Would another issue not be the actual running costs of some of those stores too?

I can't remember the location (think trafford centre or similar) and the lease is £330k a year so they need to cover £500k+ if its one person running it for them to make even remotely feasible once all the revenue verse profits are brought in.

Bring in another say 7 staff at £20k a year (I don't know salaries for retail) and then that is another say £200k of more revenue to make a small profit...

Soon that store would need to make £800k a year in revenue for it to be worth bothering with.

Could that be the reason of being understaffed?

20K a year extra for one person but from what I saw today they would be busy all day and even if they only served 50 people a day (only 6 people an hour, to allow for busy and quiet periods) and those customers spent £20 each on average at 200 days a year that's an extra £200,000 turnover. I know I'm over simplyfying this as we can't tell how many of these would be "extra" customers.

Bottom line to me is some accountant has calculated that customers will wait about and are preapared to put up with bad service, I call them wrong and say put the service in and you will get more sales. If you don't you will close down.

[Du1point8]

Nick Grant said:

Du1point8 said:

Would another issue not be the actual running costs of some of those stores too?

I can't remember the location (think trafford centre or similar) and the lease is £330k a year so they need to cover £500k+ if its one person running it for them to make even remotely feasible once all the revenue verse profits are brought in.

Bring in another say 7 staff at £20k a year (I don't know salaries for retail) and then that is another say £200k of more revenue to make a small profit...

Soon that store would need to make £800k a year in revenue for it to be worth bothering with.

Could that be the reason of being understaffed?

20K a year extra for one person but from what I saw today they would be busy all day and even if they only served 50 people a day (only 6 people an hour, to allow for busy and quiet periods) and those customers spent £20 each on average at 200 days a year that's an extra £200,000 turnover. I know I'm over simplyfying this as we can't tell how many of these would be "extra" customers.

Bottom line to me is some accountant has calculated that customers will wait about and are preapared to put up with bad service, I call them wrong and say put the service in and you will get more sales. If you don't you will close down.

using your example:

Ok but £200k a year for 6 people fine.

Say the clothes cost 25% of the price of what they sell... so 75% is profit.

£200k /4 = £150k of possible profit... minus £120k in staff costs... grand profit of £30k

This is not taking into account everything else like rent, etc...

Say the turnover is £800k in my example
-£330k for lease
-£100k for extras
-£250k for the making of the clothes
-£120k for the staff (6)

= 0 profit for owner

Now if I was an owner I would like to have a salary of £75k, so now I need to sell another £100k of clothes for me to make my money.

Simplified of course.

[Tango13]

Nick Grant said:

20K a year extra for one person but from what I saw today they would be busy all day and even if they only served 50 people a day (only 6 people an hour, to allow for busy and quiet periods) and those customers spent £20 each on average at 200 days a year that's an extra £200,000 turnover. I know I'm over simplyfying this as we can't tell how many of these would be "extra" customers.

Bottom line to me is some accountant has calculated that customers will wait about and are preapared to put up with bad service, I call them wrong and say put the service in and you will get more sales. If you don't you will close down.

The bit in bold is the problem with nearly all of industry and retail today. The average account will be able to tell you the cost of every item to the last penny but hasn't got a clue as to its value.

[0a]

British people put up with poor service - slow and rude staff. Walk out and go somewhere else.