Woolworths has been going for nearly 100 years and is now soon to be removed from the centre of towns and cities forever! There's no other shop quite like it; they sold CD's, clothes, confectionary, games, household items, stationary, tools, toys & videos. They had an online outlet for a wider range of products, offering virtually anything delivered to your door, or to be collected from your local store.
Now it is no more, a poor, bankrupt pile of debt; £300million worth of debt to be honest. I feel I have to question this disaster in business; how do you not get to £10million, or even £100million in debt without alarm bells ringing? Surely some hefty revamping of the business was due long before this bombshell! Marks & Sparks were massively in trouble a few years ago, but all things considered they've turned things round by changing their produce and expanding their food range.
Yes it's the credit crunch, financial crisis, and the pound is weaker than ever so we're all heading for a financial nuclear winter of misery and misfortune. This in mind, even a company as enormous as Woolies should never have ended up in or been allowed to have gotten this deep into a chasm of negative fortune!
I like the idea and principles of the company in question. They stock the latest in home entertainment, do a varied range of clothes, particularly appealing and reasonably priced for children’s clothing. They sell Pick 'n' Mix, to my knowledge in every store! Over a lifetime of being a British high street presence, and now it's all over. So what went wrong?
In a world of internet shopping; for anything from beds to xylophones, with no town and city centre rates and staff to employ; the costs of running retail businesses can be reduced significantly. Savings can then be passed on to customers. Why buy a CD in Woolies for £10.99, when you can buy the same online for £8.99 including delivery (often billed as 'free'). No need to travel into town, burn a gallon of fuel queuing in town centre traffic and trying to park the car, then to be fronted with a £5 bill to leave your car somewhere no safer than a cobbled road south of the Thames! This applies to clothing, computer games, anything at all! I, as am sure many do, browse the high street for ideas and inspiration to then find things cheaper online. Crafty maybe, but particularly in turbulent financial times more people have been and will continue to do more so. Pic&Mix.com anyone, has that been done yet???
All of Woolworths' 800-strong empire of buildings will likely be sold off for not much, to a supermarket chain. You can already buy pretty much anything in Tesco and Asda. As lifestyles in the UK increasingly become driven by ever-more work, longer hours and less time with our loved ones, this is surely the future. Gigantic supermarket department stores: 417 stories high where you can buy all your groceries, slippers, a new or used car and a penthouse in the Bahamas all under one roof! And for being loyal to said Ultra-shop you get 0.0000001p back for every pound you spend so after 10 years of buying necessities you can treat yourself to some cheap Cava Brut absolutely free!
A true shame we've lost such a big British chain and I pity the poor souls that will soon be jobless during the season of so-called 'good will'.
RIP Woolworths PLC
