Author: Leigh Sparks
-
Follow me on Twitter
My TweetsPage Updates
May 2023 – Two new articles and a book chapter noted on the Journal Articles page
February 2023 – New piece for The Conversation on online retailing (see commentaries tab)
January 2023 – Roll over of some areas for new year, plus The Conversation piece on Christmas trading updates published (see commentaries tab) and main posts
December 2022 – End of year tidying up and re-arrangement, including link to EDAS podcast on places and towns (see presentations tab)
Top Posts & Pages
- Transformative Food Retailing, Data and Consumers
- Logistics and Retail Management 5th Edition
- A Retail Strategy for Scotland
- Journal Articles 2014
- Co-operative Tokens, Sports Direct and The Bristol Pound
- London's Welsh Dairies: The Welsh Milk Trade
- Retail Branding: it's not (just) private label
- Twenty One Years of UK Grocery Market Share
- Herkku Food Market Delicatessen – Helsinki
- Reclaim the High Street - Midsteeple Quarter, Dumfries Crowdfunder
Writing About ...
Archives
-
Join 5,534 other subscribers
- Follow Stirlingretail on WordPress.com
Meta
Category Archives: Customer Service
Ground Down
Last February I wrote about the state of customer service and specifically the failure of KRUPS to honour their manufacturer warranty. A further two months have now passed and last week I finally got a replacement coffee grinder, but not … Continue reading
Coffee KRUPS
In the middle of 2021, I bought a coffee grinder. I looked around, read the reviews, and ended up getting a KRUPS burr grinder (cost c£35). So far, so good. Just after Christmas 2022, the grinder stopped working. Dead, nothing, … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon, Brexit, Consumers, Customer Service, KRUPS, Service Quality, Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon, Brexit, Coffee, Consumer Rights, Customer service, KRUPS, Supply chains
4 Comments
Strange Things in Self-Service
My twitter timeline has been populated recently by photos of retailers doing, for me, some strange things with self-service tills. These tills have popped up everywhere over the last decade and not always to universal acclaim. B&Q and WH Smith … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, Clothing, Consumers, Customer Service, Employment practices, Experiential, Functional Retailing, Marks and Spencer, Retail Change, Sainsbury, Self-checkout, Self-Scanning, Self-Service, Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, Clothing, Consumers, Costs, Customer service, Marks and Spencer, Retail, Retail Employment, Sainsbury, Self-checkout, Self-Scanning, Self-Service, technology
2 Comments
Queen Bees : Q-commerce, the on-demand world and the changing meaning of online retailing
Online retailing is now close to 30 years old. It has seen an almost relentless growth over much of this period, accelerated by events such as Black Friday and Christmas, and more recently super-charged by the pandemic and lockdown. The … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon, Availability, Black Friday, Community, Consumer Lifestyle, Consumers, Convenience stores, Customer Service, Dark Stores, Employment practices, Food Retailing, Home, Home Delivery, Internet, Internet shopping, Just in Time, Office for National Statistics, On demand retailing, Online Retailing, Q-commerce, Retailers, Retailing, Shopping
Tagged Amazon, Community, Convenience, Convenience stores, Dark Stores, Gig Economy, Home Delivery, internet retailing, Neighbourhood, On demand retailing, Q-commerce, Tesco
1 Comment
Going Self-Service – a 70 year old revolution?
A few weeks ago a journalist rang and asked about the introduction of self-service retailing into the UK. A particular question was about the way in which retailers converting to self-service in the 1940s and 1950s knew what to do … Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Change, Customer Service, Express Dairies, Food Retailing, Historic Shops, History, Retail Change, Retail History, Retail innovation, Retailers, Retailing, Self-checkout, Self-Service, Small Shops, Tesco, Uncategorized, USA
Tagged Express Dairies, Innovation, Knowledge Transfer, Retail, Retail History, Self-Service, Tesco
Leave a comment
The Multiplier and the Glue: Locally owned convenience stores and the local economy
Longer term readers of this blog will possibly recall a long standing interest in the impacts of small convenience stores on the local economy. This has taken the form of some discussion about what may be termed ‘the local multiplier’. … Continue reading
Posted in Academics, Community, Consumers, Convenience stores, Customer Service, Independents, Local Multiplier, Local Retailers, Relationships, Retail Economy, Retailers, Scottish Grocers Federation, Scottish Local Retailer, Uncategorized, University of Stirling
Tagged Communities, Consumers, Convenience stores, Economic Impact, independents, Local Economy, Local Multiplier, Locally-owned, Retailing, Scotland, Scottish Grocers Federation, Services, Social impact
3 Comments
London’s Welsh Dairies: The Welsh Milk Trade
As a child I remember people mentioning the ‘milk train’ between London and South Wales, but was never sure if it was first up or last down or both. Before I married, my fiancée and I went to stay in … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Buildings, Consumer Change, Consumers, Customer Service, distribution, Food, Food Retailing, Heritage, High Streets, Historic Shops, History, Independents, London, MIlk, Retail Change, Retail History, Sanders Bros, Shopfronts, Signage, Uncategorized, Urban History, Wales
Tagged Book, Consumer change, Dairy, Distribution and Supply, Drovers, Heritage, History, London Welsh, MIlk, Retail History, Retailing, Sanders Bros, Shopfronts, Wales
31 Comments
Efficiency or Idiocy?
For some time it has been apparent that Dave Lewis has been determined to address the ‘bloat’ in Tesco and cut back on all sorts of things. In the big picture out have gone most of the diversifications of the … Continue reading
Posted in Boots, Competition, Consumer Change, Consumers, Costs, Customer Service, distribution, Food Retailing, Local Retailers, Pharmacy, Plastic Bags, Retailers, Self-checkout, Stirling, Tax, Tesco, Uncategorized
Tagged Boots, Butchers, Consumers, Cost-cutting, distribution, Efficiency, Fishmongers, independents, Plastic, Prescriptions, Self-checkout, Service, Tax, Tesco
8 Comments
Feargal Quinn 1936-2019
On the 25th April, it was announced that Feargal Quinn the legendary Irish retail businessman, founder of Superquinn, had passed away. The President of Ireland said There have been many tributes and obituaries to him in the days that have … Continue reading
Posted in Alumni, Consumer Lifestyle, Customer engagement, Customer Service, Food Retailing, Ireland, Retail leadership, Retailers, Retailing, Supermarket, Superquinn, Uncategorized, University of Stirling
Tagged Customer service, Entrepreneur, Feargal Quinn, Honorary Degree, Ireland, Retailing, Superquinn, University of Stirling
Leave a comment
Herkku Food Market Delicatessen – Helsinki
Visiting Helsinki for a couple of days (see blog here) allowed me also to experience a guided visit to the S-Group’s Herkku Food Market Delicatessen in the basement of the Stockmann Department Store. Stockmann is an institution in Finland, being … Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Lifestyle, Cooperatives, Customer Service, Delicatessen, Deposit Return Scheme, Finland, Food, Food and Beverage, Food Retailing, Format, Herkku, Merchandising, Restaurants, Retailers, Retailing, Service Quality, Town Centre Living, Uncategorized
Tagged Bistro, Cooperatives, Customer service, Delicatessen, Deposit Return Scheme, Finland, Fish, Food and Beverage, Food retailing, Helsinki, Herkku, Juice, Restaurants, Reverse Vending, S-Group, Service Counters, Stockmann, Supermarket
1 Comment
Stirlingretail 