Disappointment at the demise of Woolworths (and MFI)
I, for one, was very upset to learn last week that Woolworths and MFI have called in the administrators after suffering massively at the hands of the credit crisis.
For me these two companies are national ‘institutions’. Woolworths especially was one of the many aspects of my Christmas preparations, I would always have a look around, yet admittedly more often that not I’d leave without finding anything for a present.
So perhaps in that sense its fall into administration comes as not much of a surprise.
The article in the BBC online ‘Magazine’ raised two very good questions; what is the point of Woolworths? And when was the last time you bought anything from them? (article here) I actually cannot remember the last time I purchased something in Woolworths, let alone what it was, which I guess underlines its lack of success – we’re all very happy it’s there and shop happily knowing its there, but do we actually shop there?
Arguably its most infamous items on sale was its ’pick and mix’ sweets, but you can hardly maintain a national enterprise specialising in areas as diverse as children’s clothing, to CDs, to kitchen utensils etc on the sale of its sweets. You could argue that it was the diversity of product created more potential competition from other retailers for Woolies, but wasn’t that one of the very reasons why we loved it? Certainly was for me.
But looking ahead, the decline of Woolworths is very likely indeed to drag the whole of the high-street down with it. In the ultra- competitive IT sector, big names Currys and PC World (both owned by DSG International), have both reported half-year losses of £29.8m, and retail group Kingfisher (B&Q, Screwfix, Brico Depot) have said sales at its B&Q home improvement chain have fallen by nearly 9%.
The upside of this, however, is that the fall of Woolworths (and its ‘Entertainment UK’ subsidiary which is a major wholesaler of books, DVDs and the like) and the decline of DSG and Kingfisher, is that it is likely to trigger a price-war across whole sectors.
This of course is great news for shoppers, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, but on the other hand this come as very bad news indeed for those smaller independent stores who simply do not have the margins to be able to compete to such a level.
Thankfully, Mr Brown has leaped to the nation’s rescue again and pledged that the government will work hard to ensure that Woolworths stores remain open, at least over the Christmas period. Perhaps he needs to do some of his Christmas shopping there!
Because I’d be sorry to see Woolworths disappear from the high street I shall make a special effort to shop in Woolworths and other independent smaller stores this Christmas, (so yes Mum and Dad you’ll be getting some weird and wonderful things I’m sure). So who knows, perhaps all I will end up buying is some ‘pick and mix’, but at least I’ll feel I’m doing my part to preserve this ‘national institution’.
Labels: Current Affairs
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