Jessops into administration

[Tracky]

I worked for Jessops from leaving school until moving onto the railways. Good times with great people.

 

[Bevan Price]

So where would I find a place to demonstrate the different types of lens for my DSLR? Please don't say Google, it just shows reviews.

Wilkinson Cameras have 9 stores in / around Lancashire.

http://www.wilkinson.co.uk/stores/


London Camera Exchange sells new & 2nd hand equipment, and has branches as far north as Manchester

http://www.lcegroup.co.uk/Branch-Finder/


These sites also list some UK camera shops:

http://www.ukcamera.co.uk/

http://www.freeindex.co.uk/categories/shopping/electrical_goods/camera_shops/

 

[JohnB57]

Oh and btw. They're Administrators not Liquidators, you never know what might happen, don't beleive the BBC when they use the word perminant, this hasn't been used by the Administrators at PWC yet.

Administration means that the company continues to trade, with employees and suppliers given guarantees of payment for labour and goods supplied from the point of administration onwards. The idea of this is to protect the business for new owners and to maximise its value for creditors. Jessops have stopped trading so this process has effectively ended and liquidation would be the only realistic outcome.

 

[jon0844]

Not sure if another thread has been started, but now it's HMV.. but that's hardly a surprise (the surprise is HMV lasted as long as it did).

Surely WH Smith can't be long for this world, at least on the high street (at the airports and train stations they enjoy something of a monopoly).

 

[starrymarkb]

To be honest I'm more of the opinion that for more specialist items, having 197 stores is way too many.

If they want to get back to their roots and serve markets not served by John Lewis, Currys PC World, Tesco etc. then there needs to be a massive reduction in the number of stores, the market for mid to high end DSLR equipment is not very big, and since the bottom has dropped out of the low end camera market and it is now served in general consumer stores, a contration combined with reduction of stores and a push to more specialist markets might be the only way forwards. Like I said, it's not yet classed as a liquidation, it's currently "In Administration".

You don't need six stores in 'Central' London for example, there was even three on the same road...(!)

Have to agree, the independent and smaller chains seem to be doing OK. But they focus on SLR/Pro kit and Second Hand with high levels of service. Jessops seemed to be targeting the mass market being just another chain with basic service.

But it is possible to be a chain and have good service - Richer Sounds seem to be doing very well despite competition from the internet because of their high levels of service (and usually they will beat web prices on the same model!)

 

[Oswyntail]

....Surely WH Smith can't be long for this world, at least on the high street (at the airports and train stations they enjoy something of a monopoly).

I think their strength is their diverse - yet coherent - product range. Not just a newsagent, bookseller, stationers etc

 

[jon0844]

I find WH Smith on the high street to be a mess. Trying to sell a bit of everything, but lacking many essentials. And they charge way too much for everything. I mean, a SRP of about £1.90 for a 500ml bottle of Coke? Sure, they do lots of offers but I don't always want to buy two bottles of drink!

The aisles seem to get narrower and narrower and they do little to stop people using the magazine section as a library, so they probably sell a fraction of the mags they could because people spend their lunch break reading the mags in the store anyway - then getting it all ragged so it can't be sold.

As I worked for a print magazine, I can say that it isn't fun to have loads of mags returned unsold because they've been so heavily read!

 

[JohnB57]

The whole hight street retail experience is pretty much broken in maybe 90% of town centres. This is partly because of technology, but local councils should also bear some responsibility for making it difficult and/or expensive to access them.

In my local town, it's extremely difficult to get anywhere near the railway station and when you do work your way round the tortuous and illogical traffic system - designed it seems to keep traffic out - you can't park anyway. The same applies throughout the town. This is basic stuff, not rocket science but the knock on effect is that instead of habitually shopping in town centres, people go out of town or do it online. The last traditional hotel in town, adjacent to the station as it happens, went bust a couple of weeks ago. It is very unlikely ever to reopen.

Retailers and councils need to get to grips with this problem and make town centres more accessible and attractive to people who have a bit of disposable income - most of whom probably want to drive in - and abandon their anti-car policies. I realise this is a rail forum, but if you were to buy, say a sound system from, say Richer Sounds, you wouldn't want to collect it by train or bus would you?

 

[jon0844]

I agree that I wouldn't be seeking to carry large items bought from a shop on a train, although, that said, I did buy an iMac 27-inch which I took by taxi from the Apple Store in Regent Street to King's Cross and then on the train.

That was an exception to the rule, and I'd more likely drive to a retail park than go shopping by train if I intended to buy lots of things.

I now consider it a lot easier to buy online and, especially as I now work from home, get it hand delivered to my front door the next day instead. Works for me and, by the sounds of it, a lot of other people.

Amazon can now deliver to a number of locations for collection at your own convenience now, which solves the issue of waiting in all day for a courier to turn up.

Looking around where I live and a number of different town centres, the council decision to pedestrianise many places effectively killed them off many years ago (as in the late 1980s for places like Hoddesdon, Herts and Waltham Cross). It's been a slippery slope since then, and with both the anti-car policies and now increased competition, most high streets are doomed regardless of what the council might try and do now. It's too late.

There's clearly not going to be the money to re-open streets to cars, drop rents and modernise crumbling shopping centres that would need millions to modernise to even get close to modern shopping mall standards - and any half arsed approach will just be more money down the drain. Sorry if that sounds defeatist, but I can't see what will save the high street besides getting in shops that people want to shop in.. and that's most likely stuff like Costa/Starbucks/Nero and Primark.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Re: my search for alternative D&P; good news - Boots in Epsom still do it; bad news they only do the inferior glossy prints, so it looks like I'll have to go to a Snappy in London after all...