Jayne Dowle: Peace call from woman on verge of retail breakdown

Hosting a houseful for Christmas dinner, a big family gathering on Boxing Day and a party on New Year’s Eve has taken it out of me, and not just financially. I am heartily sick of pushing my trolley up and down the aisles, filling it with stuff and having to stand in a queue and pay for it at the end. The business of supermarket shopping is fraught enough, but it’s made worse when the whole experience is a one-sided relationship: all give from us, and all take from the retailers. It is brought into sharp focus at this time of year. All those endless trips to stock up, when we are assaulted from all sides by “special offers” and BOGOFs which achieve nothing but filling up the fridge with ridiculous party food which never gets eaten. And that’s not to mention the nauseating television advertisements which demand our attention and tug on our purse strings. Still, I suppose I will have to brave it again soon. There is only so long a family can subsist on the remnants of a large bag of cheesy savouries from the pound shop. As I sit here attempting to get over my retail hangover, can I make a plea to all the big supermarkets? Can 2015 be a year when bosses call a ceasefire on supermarket price-wars and focus on offering customers good value and decent service instead of fighting over themselves for the coppers left in our purse? And let’s be honest. They certainly have some kissing and making up to do this year. Figures published just before Christmas by retail researchers Kantal Worldpanel suggest that the “Big Four” supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda – all witnessed a drop in sales in the run-up to the biggest shop of the year. In December, Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, issued its fourth profit warning in five months. Meanwhile, German discounters Aldi and Lidl hit a record combined market share of 8.6 per cent as shoppers continued their exodus from established names. Of course, the net effect on this trend is that the established names pull out all the stops in order to woo us back. This has the counter-productive effect of ever-more frantic attempts to gain our attention – and customer loyalty. I have to admit that I’ve warmed to Morrisons in recent weeks. I’ll explain why later. However, I would like to remind its cheerful till operators that there is a time and place for explaining the benefits of a “Match & More” card, and it is not at the front of a queue of 20 anxious people with trolleys full of sausage rolls and beer. There are more uncompleted application forms for this item – designed as a tool to combat super-low prices from the likes of Aldi – in my handbag than there are discarded shopping lists. Frankly, I haven’t got time to fill in forms. I just want to know that I am not being ripped off. No one wants to feel used. And the problem is with these so-called “supermarket wars” is that we all end up as collateral damage in the cross-fire. Supermarket shopping is painful enough as it is, without piling the stress onto us. Time was when we all had a favourite retailer which we would patronise faithfully, knowing that it delivered exactly what we wanted for our family with the minimum of fuss and discount hysteria. I’d like to see a return to these times, instead of constantly feeling that I’m missing out by not driving to the other side of Barnsley to save 15p on a multi-pack of baked beans. What do I know? I’m just your average shopper. I’ll say one thing, though. If the supermarkets really want to win our old-fashioned customer loyalty, they need to shift their focus from waging a constant price war and look towards offering excellent customer service. I’ll give you an example. This might not sound much in the multi-million scheme of things, but it means a lot when you’re scrabbling for change in the rain. Last year, my local branch of Morrisons decided to scrap the £1 charge for trollies. I swear it was this move which persuaded me to give the place a try instead of thinking it was all too much faff. I know this sounds pathetic, but there you go. That’s shopping for you. Little things mean a lot. Not just free trollies, but cheap or free parking. Clean toilets with sanitary baby-changing facilities. Coffee machines for a quick pick-me-up hit and lockable trolley bays to keep shopping safe. Women on the verge of a retail breakdown will be seduced by anyone who is nice to them. And I’ll tell you this. Once Morrisons had me through the doors, I was hooked in by the surprisingly low prices and spacious, well-laid out aisles. Simple, eh? If only more retailers thought like this. Perhaps as the new year dawns, they will. And that fraught and exhausting one-sided relationship will become nothing more than a painful price-war memory.