Struggling High Street chains ignore customer opinion at their peril
WHSmith recently announced that it is selling off its retail stores and keeping only its “travel outlet” stores. Figures show that the company’s sales fell 6% in the 21 weeks to January 2025, down 3% on the previous year. Hot on the heels of that news was Primark announcing a 6% drop in sales in the 16 weeks to 4 January 2025 in like-for-like sales.
In my view, these two businesses are great examples of what happens when you don’t listen to customers.
What’s wrong with the High Street?
I asked consumers what they believed were the reasons behind this news. It was of no surprise that many people cited Amazon’s dominance, rents, rates and parking as issues for the High Street generally:
Parking
In Waltham Forest where I live, the council has undertaken a consultation with residents regarding introducing charges for parking for the first 15 minutes which are currently free. 92% were against the introduction and yet the borough is ignoring it and will go ahead with the proposed change! Our High Streets are small and without doubt this will affect small businesses.
When I questioned this decision, asking for a statement, Cllr Clyde Loakes MBE, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate and Air Quality, said:
All consultations in Waltham Forest are carried out in accordance with statutory guidelines. They help us understand residents’ thoughts on proposals such as changes to parking arrangements before any decisions are made. We take on board all comments and feedback – this consultation received just over 5,000 responses, approximately 2.5 per cent of the adult population of the borough.
Historically, our parking offer has been far more generous than that of the rest of London and bringing it in line with our neighbours will reduce confusion for motorists as they cross borough boundaries. Our current outdated pay-to-park model inadvertently promotes short car journeys – as a borough that has championed active and sustainable travel, these changes will further help to improve air quality and encourage even more active or sustainable travel.
Councils are facing huge financial challenges across the country. Any additional revenue that these changes may bring will contribute towards the revenue we need to fund the increased costs of the Freedom Pass for over 30,000 of our most vulnerable residents, and pay for essential road repairs such as potholes.”
Clearly the first paragraph is trite and provides contradictory information, as well as acknowledging they did it because they had to do so. Whilst a 2.5% response rate is very low (usual is between 5% and 10%), it is highly unlikely that more respondents would have all been in favour!
Our High Streets are small, this decision will undoubtedly affect business income, as people who previously stopped on the way home to pick something up will no longer do so. Despite being told repeatedly by local people that parking is an issue for reviving our High Streets, the powers-that-be ignore it, as in Waltham Forest.
In my social media posts about the High Street I talked about how they need to be reinvented. They are never going to be as busy as they once were. So, we need to reimagine them as different places. Creativity and innovation is needed to bring a reason for returning to the High Street.
I talked about this more than 4 years ago in this piece: The Art of reviving the great British High Street. Again, no one listening to what people want or to those who could make a difference (and I don’t mean just me!)
The fall of WHSmith
In my video on the WHSmith sale I asked why those watching thought the company was having to sell its High Street store network. The responses consistently said the same things. In hundreds of responses three points came up continuously:
@thecomplainingcow What will happen to WH Smith? #Retail #WHSmith #SelfCheckOut #newsagents #HighStreet
1) Hundreds of respondents say that WHSmith hasn’t moved with the times. Whilst other stores have evolved with what consumers want, WHSmith has stayed doing the same thing and has been left behind.
In short, they needed to be creative to help them succeed.
2) The high cost of items were cited as a major contributory factor in the chain’s demise in nearly every comment on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
3) So many respondents were hugely critical of the state of the stores:
Disappointingly, the hugely popular Twitter account @WHS_Carpet no longer exists. Twitter users would use it to tweet images of WHSmith carpets and the state of stores.
WHSmith moves into experiential retail with an instore assault course for gaming shoppers at its Harrow branch pic.twitter.com/EaMuEw1xqd
— Patrick O’Brien (@pat_gdretail) December 3, 2019
Even retail experts got in on the game:
I honestly believe WHSmith has a ‘no cleaning’ policy. There’s no way this can be a single day’s mess @WHS_Carpet pic.twitter.com/SsBjW9ZyxB
— Graham Soult FIPM (@soult) July 4, 2015
Now, in the absence of the account, people still share pictures in homage:
@WHS_carpet If WHSmith is selling its high street shops and manages to sell them, then carpet and laminate sales will go through the ROOF replacing all the mess #WHSmith pic.twitter.com/mvNfao9ZgV
— Charles Fleming (@Charles59232810) January 28, 2025
WHSmith did not care for how its stores looked. The company never responded to criticisms and yet we can clearly see it affected people’s shopping with them.
The introduction of self-service checkouts didn’t go well either.
People remember WHSmith fondly, but it didn’t listen to the loyal customers (or indeed any customer?)
Reasons for Primark’s sale drops
In another viral video below, I talked about the reasons for Primark’s apparent demise.
Primark puts it down to reasons such as a lack of consumer confidence, the imminent rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions and the warmer weather. Supermarkets have seen record sales and many consumers disagreed about the weather!
I gave the likely reasons as the continuing cost-of-living crisis, consumers dropping down from branded goods to non-branded, as well as turning their back on fast fashion and buying branded goods second-hand on sites such as Vinted:
@thecomplainingcow What is happening to Primark? #Primark #PrimarkFinds #PrimarkSales #vintedtips #FastFashion
With over 400 people responding on TikTok alone, it was very clear that consumers have stopped shopping in Primark due to the higher prices, a lack of quality, not being online and a narrower range of goods.
Let’s take a look at what people are saying in reply to my TikTok:
Instead of shopping at Primark, their former customers are frequently choosing to spend a couple of pounds more for much better quality, such as in Marks & Spencer and Next or at a supermarket.
In addition, they are choosing to spend what they used to spend at Primark whilst turning their back on fast fashion and use marketplaces such as Vinted:
but conversely also using Shein and Temu where fast fashion issues are rife.
Or simply a combination:
Numerous Primark customers have been turned off by the “Disneyfication” of so much stock:
In contrast to the slow demise of WHSmith over the last couple of decades, consumers believe that they have turned away from Primark only in the last year or so:
@thecomplainingcow Replying to @Sharon Wilson getting feedback to increase your sales is so important. Paragraph a major reason why Primark are getting it wrong because they don’t listen. #Primark#SmallBusinessUK #UKSmallBusiness #Feedback #Sales #customers
Whether Primark will start to listen to its customers and turn their profits round remains to be seen. There are certainly lessons here for companies big and small about the importance of listening to customers if you want to sustain your business.
If you are a business that wants to listen to customers in order to retain and attract new customers see The Complaining Cow Services.
