Another High Street Brand

[Power Lunch Club]

Well it's another one that's close to the edge just now.

Whittards...lots of shops in the high streets and shopping centres.

BBC NEWS | Business | Whittard 'nears administration'

Flip!!

 

[Brian McIntosh]

And there's rumours doing the rounds that B&Q may be in difficulties. Maybe it's just rumour though.

 

[Former Member 1]

And there's rumours doing the rounds that B&Q may be in difficulties. Maybe it's just rumour though.

I heard that too. But it was from some older chap in the pub that thought the Kingfisher/Woolworths link was still current. I can see them suffering. But they're less seasonal than most stores and if they can keep away from the high ticket stuff....

Makro (not quite High Street; but still) Now THERE'S a festive Mari-Celeste with a management who seem to have their heads remarkably far up their own .....

I suspect I may have bought my last Christmas Stollen from them!

 

[Former Member 1]

Looks like "Officer's Club" have gone down....

Next please?

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Just heard that Zavvi have gone tits up.

 

[Power Lunch Club]

It's the fear that this will cause!! That's the real damage now

 

[Former Member 1]

Well as quick as some fold they get propped up again....

Officers Club Deal Saves 900 Jobs - Yahoo! News UK

Not that I'd ever buy from them (they don't half sell some tat!) but like Wittards (also saved) there are jobs at stake.

EUK (Entertainment UK) WAS (is?) a part of the Woolworths group. The fall of stores who depended on them is almost inevitable. Companies of that size simply have too much intertia to react to the loss of a major supplier. And lets not forget that both EUK and Zavvi (Formerly Virgin Megastore) essentially presided over the virtual death of the small independent record stores and distributors. I've argued for years that this was an essentially self-anihilating trend and collapse was inevitable. The supply chains being in the hands of and operating in the interests of just a few rather than the many.

And overall what we're seeing today in the inevitable result of our High Streets having become no more that cardboard clones of each other dominated by bland corporate monsters. With luck, when the arse has completely dropped out the property market we'll see REAL shop keepers and small independent groups of stores come to the fore again......

I'm reminded of a Goldfish tank that lurked in a restaurant belonging to a friend of my uncle. The Big fish in the tank were always the first at feeding time to snap up the biggest flakes; occasionally chewing up and spitting out some of the smaller fish when the feeding got really frenzied. But they were also first to suffer and least able to survive when someone forgot to feed them for a few days. Needing as they did relatively huge amounts of 'fodder' and lacking the mobility and resourcefulness to find what was lurking at the bottom of the tank...

Fear not fellow fishes.. The water will be clearer and safer when a few of those bloated monsters have been weeded out.