article_snippet.sent: However, families no longer want to do a big, weekly shop in a soul-less hypermarket.
article_snippet.sent: the biggest in the supermarket’s 96-year history — was even worse than the most pessimistic City analysts had expected.
article_snippet.sent: Here, retail industry veterans, plus Mail writers, identify what on earth went wrong . . .
article_snippet.sent: how five or six stores bullied five or six stores way into our communities.
article_snippet.sent: The aisles got narrower, the layout was confusing and the staff on the floor were fewer and surlier.
article_snippet.sent: the staff on the floor became a sweaty, irritating chore to shop there.
article_snippet.sent: There was never enough staff in their thousands of stores, yet their kept opening more, sometimes even in competition with each other.
article_snippet.sent: When the same or similar goods were cheaper elsewhere, the same or similar goods left in droves.
article_snippet.sent: There was no brand loyalty, especially when everyone else started doing online delivery, too.
article_snippet.sent: There is also a sense the stores do not excel at anything in particular.
highlights_snippet.sent: Here, retail industry veterans, plus Mail writers, identify what went wrong .