We reveal the nation’s top shops – is yours on the list?

It’s interesting that the advent of internet shopping has not really caused enough of the big high street shops to pull their finger out and offer a decent service. Those at the bottom of the pile deserve our condemnation and if they go pop, I don’t think anyone will miss them. As for the top dogs, good luck to them.

There is no need for high street shops to offer a decent service unless we can be sure that online suppliers are better. Generally Internet prices are lower but many of us could tell tales of poor service or unresolved complaints when buying via the Internet.

It is human nature to want good service and lowest possible prices, but that is difficult to achieve. It is good that some shops do consistently better than others. That deserves publicity and their employees deserve praise.

I’m not surprised about the comment about WH Smith, I stopped using them over 25 years ago when I perceived they were expensive and that was before the internet took off in the way it has.

I’ve also heard good things about Richer Sounds, although I’ve yet to experience it myself.

Any company that realises that the customer should be king and not seen as a cash cow is going to be a winner, shame they’ll be so few and fair between.

My local W H Smith in Broad Street, Reading is total carnage. I stopped going in and buying stuff years ago. Overcrowded shelves and a highly irritating snake around the sweets to the counters.
Should have gone years ago with an attitude like that.
Surprisingly, they did have enlightened days some years ago when you could pick up a newspaper and throw your money in a ‘bucket’. That didn’t seem to survive for long.

Apologies if I am in the wrong forum but are we in the minority in thinking that the Co-op needs to seriously raise its game in their small food stores? They have taken over a grocery store in the town centre of a small market town in West Dorset. It is the only general grocery in the town centre but Co-op head office refuses to acknowledge that it is anything more than their designation of a ‘convenience store’, i.e., what you would expect to find as a corner shop in a suburban housing estate. We want a store that stocks what we want to buy, not what Manchester’s H.O. tells us we should be buying. Not only is the product range limited but, because we are seen as being a town with above average affluence, we get charged 20-50p more per item than the Co-op in nearby towns! Many of us vote with our feet, and wheels, and shop in the nearby towns which is not good for our town, fuel consumption, or saving the planet which Co-op frequently claims to be doing…..!

I have written to Head Office twice, directly to the Chairman, Mr. Len Wardle, but am I still banging my head against a brick wall or can I hope to change their blinkered policies?

WH Smith in S Shields A newsagent thats closed on a sunday.So no sunday papers.Posters in the window promoting products they dont stock.