Which retail store going be next to go ??

welshboy said:
Thorntons defo, -7% loss theyve just posted or something, they did same last year.

any minute now

DSG are solid at min
ARGOS/Homebase are too
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Thorntons in a shakey position but as I mentioned above they've just sealed a couple of decentish contracts with big retailers so they should have the financial position to last out a bit longer.
 
Thorntons. Their chocolate is a 'meh' middleground between Cadbury and Hotel Chocolat.

WH Smiths. It's tatty and a horible shopping experience. If I want some fancy paper or ink for the fountain pen, I go to the local independent stationers.
 
Westyfield2 said:
WH Smiths. It's tatty and a horible shopping experience. If I want some fancy paper or ink for the fountain pen, I go to the local independent stationers.
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WH Smiths would definitely be struggling if it wasn't for the aspect someone mentioned earlier of them having franchise deals in airports, motorway services, etc. which seem to be turning over a decent enough profit for them. My gut instinct is they are in a less stable position than their financials look at face value but if their financials are anything to go by they are treading water fairly well at the moment. (They aren't going anywhere but they aren't sinking either).
 
shoes said:
Hasn't CPW gone now, or is it just the Stafford store which has ceased to be?

Edit: googled them, apparently not.
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*high fives* another one from Stafford here :-) I think our Stafford CPW went into that little high street shop that used to be Music Zone.

Guys - what about the Post Office? I'm seeing branches close and instead co-habiting with other high street shops. E.g. Stafford's main post office moved into our WHSmiths a few years back. I know of other PO branches that moved into Co-ops etc. With couriers looking after parcels and letters (statements etc) going paperless, then the only way that PO can survive is by being more competitive with their Parcel Force subdivision.
 
Here I think Easons will be closed sooner rather than later. The upsurge in ebooks was the final nail in their coffin.

The game shops will be artificially boosted at the end of the year with the release of the new game consoles but not as much as they'd like. I think their move to sell steam vouchers was incredibly short sighted. I'd expect them to be back in trouble within three years and probably closed within five, sooner if the new consoles support digital downloads. The only thing keeping them afloat at the moment are second hand sales but game companies are going out of their way to make this a less appealing option.

The highstreet is going to become a glut of clothes/jewellery shops with the odd Argos and electrical store. Things that people are going to want to see in the flesh before buying.
 
Monserrat said:
Guys - what about the Post Office? I'm seeing branches close and instead co-habiting with other high street shops. E.g. Stafford's main post office moved into our WHSmiths a few years back. I know of other PO branches that moved into Co-ops etc. With couriers looking after parcels and letters (statements etc) going paperless, then the only way that PO can survive is by being more competitive with their Parcel Force subdivision.
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How are post offices closing, they should be thriving with the move to online sales. There's not a week goes by that I don't have some box or other arriving and I can imagine that that's true of a lot of people. The traffic generated by Amazon alone must be worth a substantial amount. I don't know what it's like over here but An Post certainly used to run at a loss, this just completely baffles me.
 
[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? :p

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.
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I'm inclined to agree also. Find it quite amusing that two of the repeated suggestions in this thread posted good results over the Christmas trading period today!

I'm going to side with Homebase, on the sole reason alone they seem to be closing a lot of stores. The one near me has gone, soon to become a Next. So either they're pre-empting a fall and trying to stave it off by trimming their own fat down, or this is the beginning of the end for them.

Mothercare I also agree with, I think they've got a lot of competition these days with the likes of Mama's & Papa's and every department store/supermarket and their cat selling baby stuff now. Odd, because they're a strong brand and I'm pretty sure that people haven't cut down on their procreation of late. If anything, I think they've probably upped their ante on that one.

My personal feeling is someone like H Samuel or another similar jeweller's chain (no pun honest) is going to go, they're at the bottom end of a premium market personally I'm quite surprised they've lasted this long.

Also, and this will probably create some disagreement. I think Burger King's days are limited in this country also, arguably they're a better product than their competitors but I can't help but think their brand has suffered in recent years with various scandals and furores and McDonald's have clearly won the burger war with their persistent ad campaigns. Might take a while, but I have a funny feeling they'll go.

edit - I'm a soldato, what the hell is a soldato?! :D
 
All of them eventually, then city centres will become completely undesirable, fall into squalor or depending on how large the city is, just become really expensive residential areas for fat Russians and Arabs.

Once the reason to be there goes, the city will no longer be able to make much money, leading to heightened taxes on residents, residents leave for less hassle.

Bam!

This is more serious than you can really imagine, frankly the worst case scenario is likely to occur (mainly cause i say it will :p), councils don't seem to know what they are doing any more.
 
Antar Bolaeisk said:
How are post offices closing, they should be thriving with the move to online sales. There's not a week goes by that I don't have some box or other arriving and I can imagine that that's true of a lot of people. The traffic generated by Amazon alone must be worth a substantial amount. I don't know what it's like over here but An Post certainly used to run at a loss, this just completely baffles me.
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None of this stuff is sent via the Post Office though - only returns and personal Ebay sales. The biggest thread to the Post Office is the ease and flexibility of the numerous courier firms operating now.
 
M&S non food? But where will we buy our moderately priced work slacks from? Not to mention coats and jumpers without massive branded logos all over them.

Actually, I'd be pretty miffed if M&S went lol.
 
randal24 said:
I'm going to side with Homebase, on the sole reason alone they seem to be closing a lot of stores. The one near me has gone, soon to become a Next. So either they're pre-empting a fall and trying to stave it off by trimming their own fat down, or this is the beginning of the end for them.
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You do realise that Homebase is the parent company to Argos owned and run by Home Retail Group.

4 store closures arcoss their portfolio of 340+ stores and a decline in sales of c. 1.2% in the quarter leading up to Christmas is hardley a lot... Again like Argos they are investing heavily in their online shopping experience with their reserve and collect service, which has proved to be a winner in Argos, showing pretty good growth.

The group is expecting to post pre tax profits of around £260 million for the year and coupled with substantial reserves of cach in the bank I doubt they will be folding any time soon...

/Salsa
 
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