Horsing around is a sad sign of the times

THERE’S lots of talk of horse meat at the moment.

Our customer focused supermarkets will not sell us a pup but they might well sell us a horse, or at least parts of one.

We shouldn’t worry though because horse meat won’t do us any harm and anyway in some places its a delicacy.

Maybe I am hard to please but I reckon that if I am buying a beef burger the meat content should be 100% beef and 0% horse.

In the supermarket world everything seems to be promoted on the basis of value. In reality that just means price.

The supermarkets aren’t really about pleasing customers. They are about stopping people going to other supermarkets. Supermarket shareholders don’t feel that they have won anything unless another supermarket’s shareholders have lost something.

It stands to reason then that the only way that any supermarket can sell processed meat as cheaply as it wants to is to screw the processor down tightly on cost.

The supermarkets will carry on. They will adapt their tactics in light of their competition but not in light of their customer’s interests. They will prosper.

Contrast this with the unfortunate cases of HMV and Jessops. They either couldn’t or didn’t adapt to an online world and they are to disappear.

I shopped in both HMV and Jessops over the years and I always came home with what I paid for. I enjoyed the experience of browsing and choosing. I have also shopped online. That can be a bit of a lottery and I always feel that I have been cheating.

It is a sad sign of our times that some multi-nationals fail when they sell proper quality merchandise face to face but other multi-nationals keep on growing without apparently knowing what they are selling. Sad times and strange times too.