smiths

what a con!
there i am thinking that places like the big chains abuse their buying power in order to get the lowest possible price so that they canundercut the local shop. put the local shop out of business and grow bigger and stronger.
you can see it with tescos. you can see it with sainsburys (even if they never have stock on their shelves). look at hmv and virgin (ok we know they can be cheaper but the principle is there). check out borders and waterstones - have the publishers over a barrel, pass the savings on to the consumer.

it all falls apart with wh smiths.
smiths is a chain of stores that sort of lost it's way a while back. has gone through many changes in order to get back on top. from line cuts to line expansions. it carves a big discount out of publishers and it charges for space on the shelves.

there i was in birmingham coming back from a show, needing something to drink. two bottles of pop, some chocolate and next thing i know i am lighter by £4. £1.19 each for the bottle. my local corner shop, who buys his pop from a cash and carry, is cheaper than that.
wh smiths must be the most expensive sellers of pop in the country.
they are making superprofit on the bottles they sell (even marks and spencers own brand stuff is cheaper and they are purposely expensive....)and who knows what else they are scoring high(er) profits on.

even so they are still not fully successful.

i tell you now wh smiths are gougers of the worst kind. boycott them now, except to stand around and read the magazines and steal the cover mount cds.
(oh and to buy copies of personal trainer for women)