Suits You, Sir.

Today's blogging was delayed due to a very important shopping trip. Today we went on the "man shop". 


For those of you who live with a man, you'll know what that is. For those of you who don't, let me briefly explain. Men shop differently to women. They have a tendency to only come out once of twice a year, bulk buy, and spend a lot in a single transaction. 


It's an important ritual in a man's year. Stocking up on socks, pants, trousers, jumpers and shoes. Their primary mission is to clothe themselves fully in one single trip, without the pain of having to repeat the process before a reasonable amount of time has elapsed. 


For a retailer, this should make him the ideal client. He's interested in purchasing the whole kit and caboodle. And, crucially, he has money to spend. So making sure he spends it in your store is critical. 


Now we are increasingly led to believe that British Retail is in the doldrums. People are spending less and less, well established retail chains struggle, and jobs are in jeopardy as the British public cast aside shopping as a national past time and embrace, well, other stuff. 


So here's a wake up call for you, British Retail, based on my recent "man shop" experience. 


In less than 80 minutes we achieved the following:

• The purchase of 6 pairs of pants, 7 pairs of socks, 4 pairs of trousers, 2 jumpers, 1 pair of boots and 1 pair of shoes. 
• Spending a minimum of 15 minutes in 3 separate major national retailers
• Trying on clothes in all 3 retailers
• Waiting for around about 10-12 minutes to hand over money
• Having to ask for a bag to put the large shoe box in so we could carry it out of the store (seriously)
• Spending 40% less than we had intended

And we achieved all of that without once actually being offered an ounce of service or purchasing advice from any of the 6 separate sales "assistants" we encountered on our retail journey. 

Now, in a previous life I have a retail claim to fame: I was once the national sales champion for women's clothing retailer Richards. And this lofty title was bestowed upon me for one simple reason: I was able to shift more clothing per square foot of store than any other sales assistant in the country. Cool, huh?

Perhaps I should share my ancient wisdom with British Retail now, in the hope that they might be able to redeem themselves from the doldrums and lift themselves firmly back into the 21st century?

If you are trying hard to wrestle money from the purse of the average consumer, it really only ever comes down to one thing, and one thing only: SERVICE. Simple service. 

And much of that service, in a clothing environment, is delivered in the changing room. Not on the shop floor where your retail assistants are wasting time tidying up. Not in the stockroom where they are shirking from the primary task of serving the customer. And not behind the till where they are standing, looking vacant and bored. In the changing room. 

The changing room is where you can take a £20 sale and turn it into £120. The changing room is where you can offer that added value service: Need a different size, sir? Can I suggest that the green would look fantastic on you, sir, would you like to try it in that colour? Have you tried these on, sir? They look very smart, sir, we have them in 4 other colours, would you like me to bring them in for you to see?

Once a customer is in the changing room, they become a client. They are yours and yours alone to serve, advise, understand and help. 

There's a small dress shop in Perth where I live, called Loretta's which has got this level of service down pat. The shop is stuffed full of stock. So much so, it's impossible to find anything. In fact most of the stock isn't even on the shop floor. But Loretta knows this. Which is why she ritualistically shoves you in a changing room and brings the shop to you. Average spend in Loretta's, I'd hazard a guess, is in the region of £3-400 per transaction. 

When I worked for family owned, national retailer Hobbs, we were all trained in advising the customer on their ultimate "capsule wardrobe" - irrespective of whether they only popped in to buy just a belt or an entirely new look. "That belt would go really well with these trousers, madam. And may I suggest we team it up with this top - it's the perfect colour for you." Average sale? Much higher than the cost of the average belt. 

When I worked for Richards, we were specifically trained in the art of getting the customer into the changing room and off the shop floor as fast as possible. Why? You've guessed it. This action alone increased the customer's average spend. 

So come on, British Retail, this is your clarion call. Get your staff off the cleaning and into the changing room.  Get them onto the shop floor serving the customer. Get them acknowledging the customer when they walk into the store. Get them talking to the customer. Get them offering advice. Assisting. Consulting. 

Then, you just never know, your doldrums may just be a thing of the past. And my 40% underspend might just have made it into your tills. Your loss. Our gain. 

The Economy. Does it Really Matter?

I caught Newsnight this week. I try to avoid doing this because it winds me up. However, this week it was actually quite interesting and, dare I say it, thought provoking. 


Jeremy (let's call him Jer) was attempting to stimulate debate on the alternatives to capitalism following David Cameron's statement in the week about moral capitalism. Capitalism that was socially irresponsible. A type of capitalism that must be stopped. 


Bastion of the far left and son of a marxist theorist Ed Miliband agrees with him. And not to be left out, Nick Clegg fancies helping us develop a "John Lewis" economy where everyone owns a wee bit of the company they work for. How egalitarian. 


Maybe I've missed something but it would seem to me that there is a subtle political revolution which is steering us more and more in the direction of communism? And I say communism, rather than socialism. A society which has common ownership of production at its very heart. (Not people). 


The flavour of the Newsnight discussion intrigued me. Jer brought on a well known Marxist to tell us why and how capitalism was doomed to failure. Then failed to interview him well. Keynsian economics theory was referred to in the programme as "revolutionary" some 80 odd years after it was first produced but Jer forgot to tell us what that actually meant. 


Revolutionary? Really? 


Either way it's clear that this concept of moral capitalism and economic predators with fat cat bonuses is here to stay. 


However, their rhetoric could be a smokescreen and distraction for what's really happening. 


So, here's how I see it. In our so called "free market" Keynsian society, the following things have happened in very recent years:


Individuals and households up and down the country have been encouraged, programmed and positively been forced down the route that owning your own property is a rite of passage. In truth, in Britain and the USA, you're not a real contributing citizen until you've straddled yourself with a 25 year debt amounting to tens of thousands of pounds through which you will actually pay more than double the actual cost of your property. 


This lending has been made free and easy by the capitalist (and, don't forget, evil) banks that ultimately control whether our economy stands or falls. They alone, we are led to believe, have the power. Not governments. And not the people.  


These banks soon found out that not everyone actually has the ability to pay these onerous, 25 year loans. So they did what any self-protecting capitalist venture would do and minimised their liabilities. Only, in their case, they found a way to do it which kept the debt "in play" as an asset. In so doing, creating a chain of transactions which, at best, could only be described as a game that combined the best of Russian Roulette and "The Weakest Link". 


As with any weak link in a chain, it will eventually break and, like a pile of dominoes, the effects are compound. In what felt like an extremely short period of time, our banks began to fall. And the people bailed them out one by one. State owned banks in a capitalist society. Who would have thought it possible?


Taking one bold step further towards a Marxist economy, as a country we are now in an interesting position where thousands of households "own" a mortgage debt, lent to them by banks which are now owned in a large part by the government which is in turn "owned" by the people of the country. The rest of us rent council properties. Which are owned by the government. Which owns the banks. Hmmmmmmm. 


In the background, electricity and gas companies battle with market pricing mechanisms and a consumer base that is continually telling them that they can't afford to pay those prices. Transport companies are lambasted for pushing up fares beyond which consumers can afford to pay. We've even had one politician suggest that the rich should pay the fares for the "ordinary" man. Robbing the rich to give to the poor. Robin Hood would be proud. 


This all sounds like the basis of a communist society to me and before we all go hurtling towards it at a break neck speed we should maybe stand back and ask ourselves: Is that what we really want?


Do we want a society where every gets exactly what they need. Not what they want, but what they need. 


As any political theorist will know - go too far to the right and you will end up on the left. Politics and, so it would seem, economics are not linear, but circular in their behaviour.


Which brings me nicely on to literary theory (often ignored in these troubled times, but a fairly useful reference tool for those that think it's just all so unfair). 


Thomas Hardy had it down nicely in his novels where Fortune's Wheel was the main factor in whether a man (or woman) succeeded or failed, economically speaking. However even Hardy had the nonce to understand that everyone begins their life at a different place on the wheel, going through both good times and bad times in order to live life to the full. It was, in essence, the meaning of life. That's why Tess never seems to get a proper break, it's why the Mayor of Casterbridge seems to be forever battling with bad luck through the ups and downs of his own career. 


Hardy wasn't the only one providing us with a commentary on economic success. Fielding did it too. And hundreds of years before him, so did Shakespeare. And years before him, Ovid. 


So, perhaps, just perhaps, what I'm trying to say is that our leaders need to be very careful if they think they have control over these situations. 


Economics are complex. However out of complexity, order will come. It's a cyclical thing. It's the way of the world. Complexity theorists know that. Writers of old know that. Heck, even the free market knows that. 


So in answer to my question about the economy, does it really matter? Yes, I think it does. 


But it matters to each and every one of us. Because we ARE the economy. Not the banks. Not the governments. The people. 


We are the market. We decide whether a business succeeds or fails. We decide whether a person's skills are valuable or not. We decide how we can better ourselves. We decide in which bank we should put our money. 


We decide. 


For the time being at least. 

What Kind of Woman would put a Hairdryer in the Wardrobe?

I have had the (mis)fortune of having to travel for work since the day my working life began. As a result of this I have stayed in literally hundreds of hotels, in quite a number of cities, in a fair few countries. 


And everywhere I go, it seems to be the same: The hotel rooms are designed by men, for men. 


Now don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that the lion's share of the business travel market is male. But that lion's share is getting smaller all the time and recent statistics suggest that over 40% of the business travel market is now female. 


So how come hotels don't seem to have cottoned on?


As a female business traveller, I'm a creature of habit. I like to use the same trains/planes/car hire companies, and I like to stay in the same hotel - it makes my life easier. But in all my travels I have rarely found a hotel who'd got is right for the girls. 


And it's not rocket science. Most women who travel often quickly get over the "don't like being alone in a restaurant" feeling - it's the lack of attention to detail that bugs us most. So here's my wish list for any of those hoteliers out there that want to stop ignoring this lucrative market and really stand out from the crowd:

• How about a free plug socket near to where a mirror is situated so we can plug in our hair straighteners?
• How about a plug socket situated far enough away from the desk (in height) so the cord attached to our hair straighteners/laptop etc etc can actually fit?
• How about replacing those terrible hairdryers in the wardrobe with something that will actually take less than five minutes to dry your fringe? (Note to hoteliers, anything less that 1600w is a) a waste of your money, b) a waste of your space, c) a waste of our time and d) means we can't travel quite as light as the boys).
• Even better, why not have qood quality ghd hair straighteners available at reception to borrow (booked in advance, of course). This is more useful to us than novelty (boys) toys like playstations - yup, I've stayed in more than a few hotels where they have been available. 
• How about having sanitary towels and ibuprofen available to purchase at reception or in vending machines? If you are travelling for a period (excuse the pun) of time and across time zones you can often get caught out. 
• Safety is a major priority for lone female travellers, how about a series of safe parking spaces close to the hotel doors so we don't have to wrestle with our suitcase and handbag, while constantly looking behind us in a strange and deserted car park late at night?
• When you are selecting toiletries, why not consider that the vast majority of women use hair conditioner as well as shampoo. Oh, and I think you'd be hard pushed to find a woman who still uses soap. So don't waste your money on toiletries we rarely use. I take mine home with me: to my husband. And yes, while it may seem old fashioned, a hair cap is actually very, very useful. But they are rarely found in hotel bathrooms anymore. 

This list is not exhaustive, by any means. But if hotels could just sort out a few of the easy peasy things, they'd have a loyal market of female business travellers just lining up to spend money with them. 


Imagine that.