Next Up Against The Wall
Posted: Tue 23 December, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Thoughts 4 Comments »It’s interesting to see today that supposedly Whittards of Chelsea is apparently also close to going into administration. Following on as it does from yesterday’s news where Woolworths announced the full schedule for the closing of all their shops (come Jan 8th, they’ll all be closed) it’s interesting to see which other chains are apparently due up against the wall.
Personally, I’m not really surprised by Woolworth’s demise – I’m more surprised that they’ve hung on as long as they have, to be honest. They’ve tried for a long time the “stock a bit of everything” approach, and in face of competition from other stores (and particularly online stores for CDs, DVDs and games) well, it just really wasn’t a surprise.
For myself, I wouldn’t be surprised to see WHSmiths go the same route as Woolworths during 2009 – again, they’ve got a huge amount of competition from the online stores for the great majority of their business. In fact, the only thing that you can get in WHSmiths that you can’t get online (for the most part) is magazines – and maybe greetings cards. Even most of the newspapers now carry an online version, which takes away yet more “core business”, although I guess there’ll be people who want to read papers “properly” for a while yet.
I wonder which other retailers will go to the wall in the current economic climate?
Good point. And there are loads of greeting card shops, in addition to which many shops sell them, mostly for a lot less money than WHS. On the other hand, I should think they take a lot of money at railway stations – when you have the prospect of a longish train journey and have a bit of time to kill first, books, magazines and sweets are tempting for an impulse buy.
That’d be interesting seeing as how WHSmith has taken over the contract for a large amount of the post offices now… (or has at least round our way – I assume it was a nationwide thing).
Zavvi, Ponden Mill, MFI, Whittards, adams, USC, Morgan ………there’s a few more. I reckon that HMV will also be lucky to survive, although they might get a bit of a windfall from Zavvi if it collapses totally. BHS could be another one, they are a bit of a wooly company, not sure what to stock or sell. Expect some of the big housebuilders to go and some of the massive contractors.
This whole experience for me has opened my eyes …… I didn’t realise how many people worked for the public sector. I have a neighbour who gloats that his job is safe – might be but during the good times it pays to be in the private sector.
What about Waterstones? Love the bookshops, but they don’t sell owt I can’t buy elsewhere.
Anyone notice Harrods advertising over Christmas? Must be bad if they need to do that.