Based on my limited town visits whilst gift shopping I was amazed that anyone at all ever shops at boots, their prices are unbelievable. The aftershave I got my brother was £8 cheaper in asda. £8 in £30 (£22 at asda) is over 25% more expensive - how is this even remotely competitive.
Not saying they will go but they should!
It's because of their Boots advantage card. It probably creates an impression that it's worth shopping there to get rewarded, and often you can stack vouchers and end up getting a decent whack of vouchers back. My girlfriend buys a lot of Clinique stuff and she waits until she has stackable triple points, 400 points extra etc and she ends up with a wad of points back. It's like landing a word on scrabble with multiple word and letter score
I think this is why Boots have done well.
Shouldn't at least one of the mobile shop chains collapse by now? At least one of the picky/weird ones, like Phones4U or something. With exception of Primani, Hollands & Barrets and a handful of usual NextGapTopZaraPink undersized clothing places most of small town highstreets are now mobiles, coffee/sandwich chains, paydayloan junk exchanges and poundshops. The latter three are safe in any economy, but how are mobile shops still afloat with everyone on iphones and gazillion year contracts?
I agree that they're prices are expensive, I do wonder how they survive, they've been like that as far back as I can remember, 20 years ago.
I can't see Game's fortunes getting much better, there's still 3 Game stores in Nottingham, one down-sized but it's still ridiculous.
Shouldn't at least one of the mobile shop chains collapse by now? At least one of the picky/weird ones, like Phones4U or something. With exception of Primani, Hollands & Barrets and a handful of usual NextGapTopZaraPink undersized clothing places most of small town highstreets are now mobiles, coffee/sandwich chains, paydayloan junk exchanges and poundshops. The latter three are safe in any economy, but how are mobile shops still afloat with everyone on iphones and gazillion year contracts?
[TW]Fox;23575863 said:I think of all the suggestions in this thread the only credible ones seem to be some of the random furniture chains or Maplins. Everyone else seems to be just listing stores they don't personally like or buy from on the time honoured assumption that everyone else thinks like them.
Thorntons looked shakey, infact they may already have been through administration, but the current plan appears to be one of gradually changing into a coffee chain which sells chocolate and coffee chains are currently a significant growth market.
Clinton and GAME both went into administration last year as a result of massively excessive store portfolio. They've since emerged having been able to trim all the fat and should therefore be reasonably well place going forward.
Argos have significant cash reserves. The very fact people keep saying 'they are in big trouble!' despite the fact they are delivering above expectation profit kinda sums up the sentiment on here, people just seem to blurt out random stores with little attempt made to do any background research? I'm suprised nobody has said ADAPT OR DIE yet, or have they?
Waterstones? I do like the quaint idea that everyone has a Kindle so nobody uses bookshops but it certainly doesn't seem to be the case. If they were going to go they'd have gone before now - don't forget the high streets enemy Amazon was originally books only so they've been whethering competition from Amazon for 15 years now.
3? only know of the one in vic center and outside broadmarsh, there is a gamestation near the bell on market square (same company)
"Curry's-owner Dixon's reports strong Christmas sales"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21055640
Company is now at its strongest since the recession in '08 as far as I can tell, we arnt going anywhere![]()
Also high street stores wont be going anywhere, come look at the metro centre branch![]()
Why do people keep mentioning Argos? They're one of the few growing companies, and even more importantly their business model adapts very well to digital format.
Thorntons won't go bust, but they might have to close more stores and concentrate on supermarket sales of their brand (which are growing).
Curries should be fine, they had an increase in sales over christmas despite Dixons having closing down sales.
WHS smith might have to restructure a bit, but they won't disappear either, if only because of their airport stores.
Game is changing very slowly, and we will probably see it in further trouble before the year is out. A new generation of consoles might keep it afloat for a while though.
Maplins would be my best bet as to who might go next.
Why do people keep mentioning Argos? They're one of the few growing companies, and even more importantly their business model adapts very well to digital format.
Would probably say WHsmiths aswell.