Companies That You Expect to Disappear Soon

Handmade Burger Co has gone under, for the 2nd time apparently.

underbank said:

Yep, I'm a little on the porky side. The last shirts I bought were measured for a gorilla as the arm length was nearly down to my knees. They've completely lost the plot. It's not as if I'm that short either, I'm a good 5'11".

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Yep M&S useless for clothing now. However, oddly, a quick trip to tescos produced some very well proportioned and made white shirts at around 2 for £17!

This one is definitely a case of me shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted but I'm surprised nobody suggested Virgin Trains a few months ago...

(Ducking and got my tin-hat on)

matacaster said:

Yep M&S useless for clothing now. However, oddly, a quick trip to tescos produced some very well proportioned and made white shirts at around 2 for £17!

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FWIW I’ve never heard anything bad about the Tesco clothing lines myself.

RichT54 said:

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...azaar-toy-chain-collapses-into-administration

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How many times has HB gone into and out of administration now?

D365 said:

FWIW I’ve never heard anything bad about the Tesco clothing lines myself.

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A little off topic, but they're pretty good for black trousers as well. Stocking a good selection of waist / leg sizes.

D365 said:

FWIW I’ve never heard anything bad about the Tesco clothing lines myself.

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likewise for other supermarkets too. Generally decent quality, and exchange stuff without question normally too

richw said:

likewise for other supermarkets too. Generally decent quality, and exchange stuff without question normally too

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Maybe I've been unlucky, but I've often regretted menswear buys from both Sainsbury and Asda. My local Tesco doesn't stock clothing, so have rarely tried theirs, though.

Only thing with more budget places i find is strange colouring of jeans .

Norton motorcycles went into administration last Wednesday, owing, amongst others HMRC around £300000, they are also being investigated by the pension ombudsmen for alleged misuse of pension funds.

It may have been mentioned before but one company I'm surprised has so far survived the high street demise is Waterstones.

They charge full publishers prices for all their books. All recent releases can be bought at Asda, Sainsburys or Tesco' s far cheaper - a tenner for a new release hardback while a paperback is around £3. There's also a shop called The Works that sells plenty of new reading material at rock bottom prices. Then of course the age of the Kindle and Amazon - I very rarely buy tangible books as e-books save money and clutter.

Waterstones never appear on the radar for struggling companies but I'm surprised considering the last decade in the UK has seen so much austerity with people cutting back on luxuries and saving a few quid.

CJ

C J Snarzell said:

It may have been mentioned before but one company I'm surprised has so far survived the high street demise is Waterstones.

They charge full publishers prices for all their books. All recent releases can be bought at Asda, Sainsburys or Tesco' s far cheaper - a tenner for a new release hardback while a paperback is around £3. There's also a shop called The Works that sells plenty of new reading material at rock bottom prices. Then of course the age of the Kindle and Amazon - I very rarely buy tangible books as e-books save money and clutter.

Waterstones never appear on the radar for struggling companies but I'm surprised considering the last decade in the UK has seen so much austerity with people cutting back on luxuries and saving a few quid.

CJ

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the branches round here always appear busy with large queues at the till. They must be doing something to attract the custom.

richw said:

the branches round here always appear busy with large queues at the till. They must be doing something to attract the custom.

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The supermarkets carry the latest bestsellers, The Works mainly books which have sold all they're going to at full price and the publishers want to offload cheaply.

I presume Waterstones make a living from selling books that are neither.

richw said:

the branches round here always appear busy with large queues at the till. They must be doing something to attract the custom.

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Strange position for me to be in to defend Waterstone's, as they were very much a competitor to my own small bookshop for three decades until I retired, but they have a wide range of stock, (mostly) knowledgeable and efficient staff aka booksellers and, though they may not discount to the extent they used to, there are discounts on many of the latest titles. Oh, and yes, they pay huge business rates and a fair share of tax unlike that online organisation I can't bring myself to name. The supermarkets keep a rubbish selection of books, I'm glad to say, and this is the third version of The Works after the two prior to it went into prepack admin owing millions.

C J Snarzell said:

It may have been mentioned before but one company I'm surprised has so far survived the high street demise is Waterstones.

They charge full publishers prices for all their books. All recent releases can be bought at Asda, Sainsburys or Tesco' s far cheaper - a tenner for a new release hardback while a paperback is around £3. There's also a shop called The Works that sells plenty of new reading material at rock bottom prices. Then of course the age of the Kindle and Amazon - I very rarely buy tangible books as e-books save money and clutter.

Waterstones never appear on the radar for struggling companies but I'm surprised considering the last decade in the UK has seen so much austerity with people cutting back on luxuries and saving a few quid.

CJ

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I make a point of buying books at Waterstones because I don't want to lose them, I don't suppose what I spend will make a difference but you do what you can. Last week I was looking for a birthday present, I saw a book in WHSmith (I can't abide that shop) which might be suitable so I went to Waterstones where they were able to answer a couple of questions about it and I bought from them. My local Waterstones also has a very pleasant, slightly old fashioned look (I imagine that's their corporate style) which I like, apart from the staircase which gives me vertigo for some reason. It will be a sad day if we lose shops like that.

Dai Corner said:

The supermarkets carry the latest bestsellers, The Works mainly books which have sold all they're going to at full price and the publishers want to offload cheaply.

I presume Waterstones make a living from selling books that are neither.

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I find Watertones to be very reliable in stocking my preferred genres (namely Sci-Fi, Fantasy and mangas), and theres very little that if they don't have in stock, they haven't been able to get in for ms. I (and a lot of my book reading friends) are willing to pay a premium to ensure that level of convienence remains available to me.

There are two branches of Waterstones in Exeter, the larger store is usually busy and has a very bustling atmosphere, probably helped by the presence of the cafe. The smaller shop on the other hand was given a reprieve from closure a few years back but when I visited the other day there was hardly any customers and buckets on the floor to catch the leaks from the ceiling.

Temple Meads said:

There are two branches of Waterstones in Exeter, the larger store is usually busy and has a very bustling atmosphere, probably helped by the presence of the cafe. The smaller shop on the other hand was given a reprieve from closure a few years back but when I visited the other day there was hardly any customers and buckets on the floor to catch the leaks from the ceiling.

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But isn't the smaller shop the one just down from the site of the Royal Clarence Hotel? That shopping area was badly affected by the fire, and the House of Fraser store nearby that wasn't among those to be closed by M. Ashley now is, too.

Without sounding stereotypical the town I'm from is what many people would class as a Labour voting working class area with a large majority of the population working in minimum wage factory/warehouse jobs.

Generally speaking, people I've been around with or grown up with are not people who are 'readers'. Everyone in my family used to read the Daily Star or the Sun and if you were caught reading a book there were a few raised eye brows from the older generation.

I think attitudes and the way of life has changed slightly but the point I'm making is that Waterstones probably do quite well in affluent areas where people have good incomes and spend plenty of time reading and discussing the rights and wrongs of the world.

If you go to certain places in Cheshire or North Lancashire, there is clearly a market for the traditional old fashion book shop but sadly where I'm from most people would rather sit in the local pub, go to the gym or watch football than relax with a book at home.

This brings me back to my original post in that I'm very surprised Waterstones have stayed open in my town as long as they have as they never seem that busy.

CJ

richw said:

the branches round here always appear busy with large queues at the till. They must be doing something to attract the custom.

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They sell the books that the supermarkets don't sell. Same way that WH Smith survive by selling the magazines and newspapers which supermarkets don't sell. Both know they can't compete on price with supermarkets, so they need a different way to compete, and that's by selling different stuff the supermarkets aren't interested in.

WHS will survive the high street blood bath because they are like a huge newsagents and sell rare magazines that you cannot buy off the shelf in the supermarket or at the local paper shop (some magazines in there cannot even be found on the internet!). They also have cornered the market with train stations, airports and motorway services which are very much a captive audience and never short of customers.

I think it's fair to say that a lot of high street businesses have gone to the wall because of internet shopping and out of town retail parks which are far more convenient for people to visit. This again goes back to my original post about Waterstones prices - why pay £20 for the new Peter James book when the local Asda will sell it for £10?

CJ

C J Snarzell said:

WHS will survive the high street blood bath because they are like a huge newsagents and sell rare magazines that you cannot buy off the shelf in the supermarket or at the local paper shop (some magazines in there cannot even be found on the internet!). They also have cornered the market with train stations, airports and motorway services which are very much a captive audience and never short of customers.

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I'm amazed Smith's has survived really, and as you say I can only put this down to the travel market. To me their high-street shops offer an appalling experience, why on earth would I spend a fortune on a bottle of coke in Smith's when the convenience store next door will sell it for half the price, and not offload a pile of silly 2-for-1 vouchers on to me at the till? I think Smith's only survives as they still have a reputation as "the place to go" for certain things in particular stationery, which as it's generally comparatively low-value purchases people either aren't sufficiently clued up that they can buy the same things cheaper elsewhere, or choose Smith's simply to save the effort of going elsewhere.

Apart from magazines, it's very many years since I've bought anything from Smith's, and even with the magazines TBH I'd prefer to patronise a local newsagents in preference if at all possible.

Moving onto another business - HMV - I'm sure they have been brought out of administration twice and are yet again in financial trouble.

Unlike Waterstones, my town's HMV is always busy. Apparently they sold out of the Game of Thrones season 8 box set that was released in December.

CJ

C J Snarzell said:

WHS will survive the high street blood bath because they are like a huge newsagents and sell rare magazines that you cannot buy off the shelf in the supermarket or at the local paper shop (some magazines in there cannot even be found on the internet!). They also have cornered the market with train stations, airports and motorway services which are very much a captive audience and never short of customers.

I think it's fair to say that a lot of high street businesses have gone to the wall because of internet shopping and out of town retail parks which are far more convenient for people to visit. This again goes back to my original post about Waterstones prices - why pay £20 for the new Peter James book when the local Asda will sell it for £10?

CJ

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Since the end of the Net Book Agreement which virtually guaranteed that every shop sold a newly published book at its cover price (this predated the internet, and its abolition began the process of bringing an end to the traditional bookshop), cover prices on certain types of popular hardback books are the equivalent of headline prices on Ryanair or Easyjet flights i.e. a work of fiction, except in reverse. Nobody expects to sell a new Peter James or Val McDermid book for £20, nor a Jamie Oliver cookbook for £26, these are merely 'before' prices with the 'after' being half price or less. Only a nitwit, or desperate person, would ever pay full price for these, but book wholesalers' trade discounts will be based on those cover prices, as will public library purchases. Waterstones will be quite aware they aren't going to sell many Peter James h/bs, and will order accordingly, assuming they still have the enhanced discount they used to have for buying everything 'firm sale'. WH Smith, on the other hand, will have special arrangements with the publishers to buy at a discount on that half price, for a limited period only, and will probably be able to return unsold a good proportion of copies. Another reason for WHS's continued existence, by the way, is their newspaper and magazine wholesale arm which controls distribution to many supermarkets, convenience stores and other newsagents, including the independents.

DaleCooper said:

I make a point of buying books at Waterstones because I don't want to lose them, I don't suppose what I spend will make a difference but you do what you can. Last week I was looking for a birthday present, I saw a book in WHSmith (I can't abide that shop) which might be suitable so I went to Waterstones where they were able to answer a couple of questions about it and I bought from them. My local Waterstones also has a very pleasant, slightly old fashioned look (I imagine that's their corporate style) which I like, apart from the staircase which gives me vertigo for some reason. It will be a sad day if we lose shops like that.

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Unlike the local Waterstone to me which went from a well sized store with a good variety to a much smaller, crowded store stocking much less than the old one. They no longer stock transport books and their military history section has significantly shrunk. As these were the two genres I tend to buy, I no longer shop there. A shame as I really enjoy a good browse for a book.

Red Onion said:

Unlike the local Waterstone to me which went from a well sized store with a good variety to a much smaller, crowded store stocking much less than the old one. They no longer stock transport books and their military history section has significantly shrunk. As these were the two genres I tend to buy, I no longer shop there. A shame as I really enjoy a good browse for a book.

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A similar thing has happened to the Waterstones in Guildford. Last year a prominent "To Let" sign appear on the building. Waterstones told the local press they weren't closing the store, but that the sign was due to the landlords putting on the pressure during negotiations about the rent. However last month they moved across the High Street to the premises vacated by Monsoon/Accessorize. Unfortunately this is a smaller store; the old store had three good sized floors, whereas the new one only has two smaller floors. My favourite section used to be labelled "Popular Science", but even before the move it had been merged with other topics and renamed "Smart Thinking". In the new store there is a much smaller section simply labelled "Non Fiction".

At least they don't play loud and annoying music unlike WH Smiths next door.

Two shops I've wondered about in the last few weeks are...

Matalan - As far as I can see, the clothing seems no better and no cheaper than standard Supermarket fare (George @ ASDA, Florence + Fred @ Tesco etc) - they are paying business rates on huge sheds in retail parks but without the footfall that Supermarkets will get from regular shoppers (i.e. people will be in Tesco for other things and maybe pick up a new top) - with the increase in online retailers, I wonder how much future there is for Matalan - some clothes places specialise in one way or another (e.g. Decathlon) but Matalan isn't exactly a "destination shop" - it's more like the kind of place you might pop into as you wander between more important shops 0 not essential - I'm surprised that it's kept going (other than, I guess, it seems to do quite well from shoppers over 50 who maybe welcome an unthreatening shop with no loud music or pressure - a clothes shop for people who don't like clothes shopping - but such people, by definition, aren't going to be visiting very often)

CEX - Music Magpie's shops seem to have all closed down so I wonder how much of a market there will be for second hand CDs/ DVDs/ computer games, now that so few are "physical - the CEX inc central Sheffield tried to dump most of their DVDs for fifty pence before giving up on most and replacing them with computer games - but so many computer games are downloaded these days - and the resale value will go down every time there's a new console out there (whereas a CD/DVD from a few years ago will still work okay, a Playstation/ X-Box/ Nintentdo game will be a lot less valuable when the manufacturer brings out a new version. Good luck to them - I enjoy a mooch around, and the stock is pretty competitively priced - but I don't know how many years there are left for a business selling second hand physical media in an era of Spotify/ iTunes/ Play Station Store/ Netflix etc.

Busaholic said:

Strange position for me to be in to defend Waterstone's, as they were very much a competitor to my own small bookshop for three decades until I retired, but they have a wide range of stock, (mostly) knowledgeable and efficient staff aka booksellers and, though they may not discount to the extent they used to, there are discounts on many of the latest titles. Oh, and yes, they pay huge business rates and a fair share of tax unlike that online organisation I can't bring myself to name. The supermarkets keep a rubbish selection of books, I'm glad to say, and this is the third version of The Works after the two prior to it went into prepack admin owing millions.

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It's funny how Waterstones and HMV have gone from being "the enemy" (to someone like me) to a relative treasure remaining on the High Street and something that I'll try to support when I can because I'll miss them when they are gone. It's good to see that sufficient people are happy to pay a reasonable price for a physical product and not everyone is happy with digital downloads/ dirt cheap options

Spent some time today in Kingston on Thames and was sad to see various shops having closed recently or on the verge of closure.

- Earnest Jones
- Clas Ohlsen
- Edinburgh Woolen Mill
- Mothercare
- HMV
- Gap
- Karen Millen

Many of these are mentioned in the thread, one or two are the result of ever higher business rents and a couple of smaller-scale corporate closures. What really got me was the cumulative effect on the shopping area. Even in a relatively well-off area like Kingston you can tell something's in the air, and it's not good. Change is very much in the air.

Some good points here

Matalan - I remember going to the very first Matalan store as a kid which was in Bamber Bridge, Preston. It opened around 1985, just as the bypass was being built at the end of the car park. At the time they were kind of like a cash & carry business selling everything - toys, board games, prams, sports equipment (football's, cricket bats) and of course they did sell design brands too. In a way they started out very similar to Macro and Costco but have branched out as the boom of out of town retail parks took off during the 1990s.

Fast forward 35 years & they are now identical to Primark. They sell non discript clothing that is manufactured abroad and is probably not the best in quality and like Primark their prices are usually quite cheap & reasonable. I've not been in a Matalan for quite some time but I'm sure they may still sell the odd designer label (Wrangler jeans or Nike T-shirts). Their HQ is in Knowsley - although it used to be in nearby Skelmersdale.

CEX - I've often wondered how this business keeps itself afloat. The store in my town has more people going in there to flog their unwanted DVDs, computer games & old mobiles than people who are actually purchasing anything!!!!!

The upstairs of my local CEX is always empty despite having a huge selection of DVDs and CDs. They are all second hand but I did manage to bag myself the series 1-5 box set of Peaky Blinders at £20 recently!

One of the great things about CEX is the fact if you purchase a mobile phone from them it is a case of you get what you see. You get a full warranty on it and any blemishes are highlighted and reflected in the price. I would never buy a second hand phone off the local market stall cowboy or any of these other idiots who set up these second hand mobile phone outlets, but CEX are definitely the place to go for these things.

I also suspect that CEX make a lot of money from internet trading and probably trade rare items with online dealers. Clearly they are making money somehow and managing to pay all their staff & business rates.

CJ

C J Snarzell said:

One of the great things about CEX is the fact if you purchase a mobile phone from them it is a case of you get what you see. You get a full warranty on it and any blemishes are highlighted and reflected in the price. I would never buy a second hand phone off the local market stall cowboy or any of these other idiots who set up these second hand mobile phone outlets, but CEX are definitely the place to go for these things.

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To be fair, I took a 2010 MacBook (the last plastic model) to the Sheffield branch in order to sell it, and had it turned down due to a surface level crack on the hinge. Didn't affect the function, but it would seem they are quite strict when it comes to buying. I can understand where they are coming from now though.

However, the less said about the smell of their shops, the better...