Author: Leigh Sparks
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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)
April 2022 -new journal article published (Journal Articles page) on Twenty-One Years of Going Shopping and Marketing History
Top Posts & Pages
- The Buttercup Dairy Company
- Retail change and why we fell in love with supermarkets?
- Logistics and Retail Management 5th Edition
- A (Retail) Sense of Place
- UK Grocery Market Share 1997-2019
- London's Welsh Dairies: The Welsh Milk Trade
- Oxford Street, Hull and Beyond
- Strange Things in Self-Service
- Urban Logistics and Retailing
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Tag 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
The Buttercup Dairy Company
One of the most enjoyable things about social media is the ease of connectivity to people, their work and interesting (well, to me) things. It really is so much more simpler and easier than decades ago. A good example of … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Books, Buttercup Dairy Company, Corporate History, Creative Places, Edinburgh, Food Retailing, Grocery, Heritage, Historic Shops, History, Retail Change, Retail History, Retailing, Scotland, Scotland's Town and High Streets, Shopfronts, Signage, Town Centres, Uncategorized, Urban History
Tagged Architecture, Buttercup Dairy Company, Customer service, Grocery, Heritage, Retail History, Shop Fronts, Shops, Tiles
1 Comment
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
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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
Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowships 2017
In the summer of 1989 I spent eight weeks travelling around the United States and Canada looking at the customer service practices of North American retailers. I visited numerous retailers, large and small, and interviewed countless owners, managers, directors and … Continue reading
Easy, it Ain’t
What with the announcement by a number of retailers that they are re-considering the tone of voice and announcements made by their self service checkouts and others who are removing such non-human (inhuman?) equipment, it has not been a good … Continue reading
Waitrose – mining a rich seam of service?
I moved to Stirling around the time of the miner’s strike against the Thatcher government. On one of the main roundabouts into Stirling’s town centre stood the Stirling Miner’s Welfare Club. A couple of years ago it was pulled down … Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Change, Customer Service, Food Retailing, Retailers, Waitrose
Tagged Consumer change, Customer service, Food retailing, Stirling, Waitrose
1 Comment
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