Billions have been wiped off the value of JD Sports whose in store service is seriously questionable, with the business now laying off staff.

I recently walked into one of their stores in Berlin during IFA 2024, to buy a pair of leisure track pants, after finding a pair of North Face pants I decided to try them on.

The change room was locked.

After finding a staff member I was told that the only person who had a key to the change room was the person serving on the till, after waiting 10 minutes I approached the guy on the till who obviously had a degree in ‘Attitude” when he said, “Can’t you see I am busy”.

The other staff member said, “You will have to wait”.

In the end I handed to pants to the guy on the till and walked out.

Two other people who had also been waiting did the same as me.
This was a classic case of their poor systems come first, stuff the customer, or maybe it was because I was in Germany where everything is done by the book irrelevant of whether it impacts customer service.

Recently more than A$3.54 billion has been wiped off the value of JD Sports after the retailer issued a profit warning.

It appears that customer service is just one of the problems the business that has a similar target audience to JB Hi Fi as well as similar branding is facing a difficult time due to the impact of inflation with the business forced to heavily discount branded clothing.

saying that mild weather and heavy discounting had affected sales before Christmas.

Shares in the retail group, dived by 23% after the company said it did not expect to make more than A1.8 Billion in annual profits, 10% below its previous guidance.

Recently JD Sports announced that they are starting to lay off staff including 200 at one of their warehouse operations, following its decision to close a distribution centre.