Recommend A Rival

This is what I wrote in the Southern Daily Echo today:

Here's the dilemma. An item is out of stock but you know your competition has one. Do you tell your customer or do you pretend your competition doesn't exist? What if you know your competition is cheaper? I recently had reason to be grateful to a rival shop. And, more surprisingly, I noticed ASDA had reason to thank Marks & Spencer.
Stylish Life not only sound quite like my shop Your Life Your Style, they also sell similar gifts. In particular they always come up alongside us in a Google search for Dora Designs animal door stops. Naturally I think of them as an arch rival. So I was pleasantly surprised to receive a telephone call from a customer wanting to buy a particular door stop, saying she had been recommended by Stylish Life.
It's an excellent idea because there's a good chance a customer will return to a shop they can trust to give them the best service, even if it means a lost sale.
But do you send customers to another shop when their prices are lower? These days many stores check and then match prices. We do it and it's what Marks & Spencer have been doing since they started selling branded groceries. Looking at their price comparisons the other day, I was taken aback to see a sign for Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes saying M&S price £2.39, ASDA price £2.20.
It's one thing to send a customer elsewhere when you're out of stock but telling customers your shop has higher prices than your competition? My first reaction was that someone didn't follow through with a price match while someone else did follow through with the shelf ticket. But we are talking about the massive marketing resources of Marks & Spencer, so I think it must be deliberate. If I'd done it, my partner would calling for men in white coats but since this is M&S, it's clearly an incredibly brave and innovative marketing strategy. Anyway, where's the nearest ASDA?

Get Em Off! M&S Know How To Party

Move aside, Ann Summers. Not content with selling 'Frontal Enhancement' underpants that are padded to make one's manhood look bigger, Marks and Spencer now appear to be  pushing the idea of women partying in their underwear (see photo). It seems M&S are rapidly becoming the biggest sex shop on the high street. Perhaps their next move will be a change of name to S&M.

The sexiest thing we can offer at Your Life Your Style is a bathtime duck called Ducks Fizz!

Kettle Apartheid At Tescos?

This newspaper ad for Tesco shows just how careful you need to be when you write copy. Apart from the obvious things like checking spelling, always look for double or unintended meanings. It's a very good idea to get someone else to look at and read out loud your copy. Unless of course these Tesco appliances are aimed at black students.

I'm always amused by the Massive Rug Sales advertised locally. What if you want a small rug? I've missed a few when advertising products in my shop Your Life Your Style. For example, what is a 'woollen picnic' as in 'Woollen Picnic Rug'? Maybe everyone going on the picnic has wear a woolly.