Until recently another stalwart of the British high street, Mothercare, could have been included on this list of troubled organisations. I pick out this company because, as a mother of young children, I have a personal interest in its fortunes. Despite an extended period of offering poor product selection and a dire in-store environment, mothers continued to shop there.
Consumers wanted it to succeed. It was deemed to be essential to our high street. It had been there for years and it would be a loss if it suddenly disappeared. Thankfully, it now has management that know what the retailing game is all about, and the company is getting back onto the right track.
There is also a similar desire for M&S and WH Smith to succeed. With M&S - and I have tested this out on a number of consumers - there is a certain desire to return to its stores in the hope that you'll see something, or indeed anything, to buy.
This is surely a result of M&S becoming part of the British shoppers' psyche. It was once the biggest UK retailer and went overseas to trade before any other retailer.
Although Tesco has overtaken it in terms of size, the public doesn't appear to feel the same affinity with it as with M&S. Tesco's meteoric rise is such a success story, though, that this affinity hasn't been tested.
It would probably take some major reputation problem for M&S to swiftly lose the loyalty of many of its shoppers. Because of the desire for the company to succeed, shoppers give it many more chances than they would a lot of other retailers.
But underperformance can be tolerated only for so long. Take WH Smith.
The venture capital company Permira recently made a £940m approach to the organisation. Permira clearly believes it can be turned around and that this will be achieved more easily if it is removed from the glare of the business media and City analysts.
Permira has lined up former Hamleys chief executive Simon Burke and Moss Bros chairman Keith Hamill, a former finance director of WH Smith, to bring retailing power to the business. If the bid is successful, this will be a disappointment for Kate Swann, who has been chief executive for just a few months - hardly time to make her mark.
We have seen what retailing flair can bring to an ailing business. At Bhs, Philip Green introduced the right product at the right price, and recruited ex-Debenhams boss Terry Green to oversee the in-store environment.
If these essentials are right, the rest is peripheral - otherwise you have no chance of success.
As ever, it is all too easy to trot out such business principles, but another matter when it comes to executing them. It remains to be seen whether the incumbents at many of our venerable retailing names have the necessary depth of retailing skills and will be given the time to execute their strategies.
At M&S there is certainly a chance, given that it has Vittorio Radice - the man credited with working wonders at Selfridges - now heading both its clothing and general merchandise divisions.
It is still early days, but if Radice is given the time to work some magic, his appointment could begin to repay those shoppers, like me, who keep returning in the hope that something will make them open their purse.
- Amanda Aldridge is head of retail at KPMG
30 SECONDS ON ... WH SMITH
- WH Smith is a classic legacy brand, having been around for a long time, but is struggling today. It has been losing customers to supermarkets such as Tesco, which offers cut-price CDs, DVDs and books.
- Last week WH Smith announced a £72m pre-tax loss for the six months to 29 February, compared with a £54m profit for the same period last year. Chief executive Kate Swann also announced 270 job losses.
- The brand was founded in 1792 by central London news vendor Henry Walton Smith and was Britain's leading news outlet by the mid-19th century. His son, William Henry, was responsible for the name change, in 1828.
- It owns 742 shops, including outlets at UK airports and railway stations. It has 31,000 employees and turned in sales of £2.9bn in 2003.
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