A recent trip to the waste and recycling centre served as a reminder that a huge number of items are thrown away for want of a spare part. Vacuum cleaners in need of a handle; a piece of furniture in need of a new joint; a radio-controlled car in need of a new wheel: mass […]
Two large UK chains filed for administration this week, adding to the list of high-profile retail group failures that have taken place during the last decade. A number of the usual factors have been cited in the demise of Maplin and Toys R Us, not least competition from online sellers. In the case of Toys […]
Generating loyalty among shoppers is proving to be a challenge in the ultra-competitive UK supermarket sector, where customers value a complex combination of price, convenience, quality and choice. A 2017 study by loyalty experts ICLP found that while just over a third of Tesco and Sainsbury’s customers feel their custom and loyalty is rewarded, only […]
Taking advice from complete strangers has always been part of life. Whether in a town that’s new to us, or seeking advice about something we’re not an expert on (such as when we take a car for new tyres), we’ve often had to turn to people we don’t know for guidance. The prevalence of online […]
Amid ongoing speculation about whether haggling will eventually cease to be part of buying a car, we’ve spent some time recently reflecting on why it’s so painful. We know that many customers don’t like to haggle – in fact around three-quarters of younger car buyers in the UK are put off from price negotiation as […]
Another week, another round of autonomous vehicle announcements. The last seven days’ worth included a few that caught our attention here, not least the news that Voyage’s self-driving cars are set to be introduced to The Villages, a 125,000-resident retirement community in Florida, US. This second ‘deployment’ will see the company’s autonomous vehicles operating across […]
There has been much written recently on how autonomous cars may change our lives and landscapes if their use becomes widespread. Before then, however, the increasing acceptance and adoption of electric cars may introduce rather more prosaic and iterative changes. just-auto.com recently reported that Shell “is trying to rethink the refuelling station for the electric […]
