So a great tradition has come to an end as M&S slash their refunds policy from 90 days to 35, one if its unique selling points from day one. None of their shoppers needed three months to decide whether they liked the product or not but because it's always been there no Chief Exec dare change it, until April this year. Mr Rose, the current top honcho, was aware of the abuse of their returns policy but as it wasn't everyone abusing it they left it in place. But now recession is upon us the returns have shot up and the door has been closed.

When I talk about abuse the females reading this will immediately know what I'm on about. A whole chunk of 'loyal' customers have been deliberately purchasing items they quite like from the stores and taking full advantage of that returns policy, in fact have no intention of keeping the item and just wearing it a couple of times for nights out and weddings etc then sending it back for the full refund. It became habit to get nice outfits this way and when this 90 day story hit the press this week I was amazed just how many people were doing this. For some its routine weekend shopping and they do it in a whole list of different companies and stores, even the ones that operate the normal 28 day policy. One bloke even admitted returning underpants he had been wearing for the last two days! The whole nation has been up-in-arms over the MPs expenses yet all the time they have been running scams like this. The irony of course is those clothes are sent off to be laundered and resold to someone else doing it.

In the glory days of M&S you could use stores to cash cheques. One would buy an item for the amount of cash you wanted to get out and then return the item later in the day and collect the cash. Now with 'cash back' you don't have that worry but at weekends in the 80s cash machines were rare and banks closed on Saturdays and that was the way our parents had to do it. The 35 day return period as from April 18th is still the longest return date on the high street though.

M&S is Middle England's store of choice, the older generation always having this deluded sense the store was somehow more British than any other, the clothes hand woven in Northern Mills by busty fish wives using traditions passed down through the centuries. The reality is that lots of their stock is now made in the third world (they don't use the word 'sweatshops') like any other chain store to keep costs down and profits up. The only ones wearing hand made suits are the Chief Exec and board of directors. Their policy used to be 'Made in England' under the old St Michael label but now they have lost that identity. When they owned up to being like the rest their profits collapsed in the mid-nineties. They tried to win back ethnical middle-class shoppers with Fair-trade lines but they had gone elsewhere. They no longer want to play that little bit more to shop away from the great unwashed.

When you go to their restaurant (not called a common old café, even though it's a common old cafe) its always women of certain age and class escaping the proletariat, drinking out or proper cups drinking proper coffee before driving home, the very nice car displaying one of those disabled badges type character. Again do they think they are paying 30% more than BHS customers because the coffee is hand ground by dusky Brazilian Maidens? You can, of course, still get 20% of the restaurant bill if you keep your receipt from the store.

Of the 865 stores worldwide (285 internationals ones) my hometown one of Northampton has two floors and one of the biggest retail spaces outside of London. The clothing range is more geared to the older person and I don't consider myself of that age middle-age yet because I still look great in shorts. I would not buy my shorts there. Shorts should not be navy blue with pleats! I have bought a tie there for a funeral and I picked up a nice leather jacket for £50. Socks with Pringle patterns on don't do it for me. I would imagine the suits department has seen quite a few of the return scams. They also have Are You Being Served type chaps that are prepared to measure your inside leg, whether you want them to or not. Again the formal wear isn't sexy and the trendy stuff is also ripe for a funeral. I did a temp contract there once and the girls that worked there were very sweet and pretty.

This is the type of store that still sells braces and tie clips and you can imagine the chaps that have a pocket watch would shop here. There's a kids section but for obvious reasons I don't go sniffing around there and would presume is not frequented by kids but parents choosing for kids. Let's just say there's not a lot of chav pink there. I do go sniffing around in the ladies section of course. There's something nostalgic about those big white bras I used to stare at in the Grattons catalogue when I was a kid. Moving swiftly on! Ok I don't go in the women's bit. We have a food department with chilled and normal stuff and flowers too. We don't have much hardware though. Some stores now do electrical.

It's the largest clothes stores in the U.K. and the 49th largest retailer in the world. In 1989 it became the first British retailer to make one billion pounds profit, surprisingly beating Tesco to that landmark. Unusually, the stores in the U.K are all franchised out. Like the big retailers they are opening mini stores across the county. But they recently had to close a lot in the recession because the goods were ludicrously expensive compared to Tesco Express and Sainsbury's and so didnt do well.

As with many big British retailers they are Jewish owned and run and M&S have received lots of critic over their unflinching support of Israel. Some Muslim groups actually boycott the stores. Intriguingly Marks pioneered the 5p per carrier bag scheme to discourage shoppers throwing their bags away. They donated the money to the 'Groundwork's' charity but recently scrapped the scheme because customers didn't want to buy the bags, meaning they bought their own-the point of the scheme-but with other stores logos on. Sales have also fallen since they introduced the scheme in 2008 and that was another factor to stop. So much for saving the planet!

Their Ethical aims-

• Become carbon neutral
• Send no waste to landfill
• Extend sustainable sourcing
• Help improve the lives of people in their supply chain
• Help customers and employees live a healthier life-style

Various undercover documentaries have quashed most of that list of 'greenwash'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks_&_Spencers
http://www.marksandspencer.com/

Summary: Expensive