Companies you can't see ever going under.

[PollyPepper]

Yesterday DH and I got a McDonald's. What an absolute treat.

And I started wondering if McDonald's will ever go bust.

It seems so unlikely, though of course it is possible as with any other business.

Mcdonalsa are in 120 countries around the world and serve 68 million customers each day!!

I honestly think it could be exposed that they use human meat and people would still go there.

I suppose Amazon as well?

All it takes though is a better and bigger competitor to take them down, but at this stage I just don't see it ever happening.

AIBU?

Never heard of Wilko either. I’ve only heard these shops mentioned on here, not by any friends or relatives.

I’ve googled both B&M and Home Bargains. My nearest shops for both are about an hour /over an hour away by public transport, and quite complicated journeys too. They seem to be on retail parks.

@Whinge

lemonsyellow

You live in the UK and have never heard of B&M or home bargains?

I understand you might not have them near you, but you've never travelled around the UK or heard others mention them?

Seriously? You think when people go travelling around the UK they spend their days trawling suburban high streets for discount stores? Or that B&M Bargains is a major conversation topic for friends and relatives?

It’s not that uncommon for chains to have a stronger presence in particular regions. For years Morrisons was very much a Northern brand; they only really went truly nationwide when they bought out Safeway, and even then it’s only been more recently that they’ve significantly expanded into London.

Robert Dyas is another one that springs to mind for me. When I moved South there was one in my local shopping centre and I initially assumed it was an independent or a local chain, as I’d never heard of them. Once I spotted a few more I looked them up and discovered they were effectively nationwide, but that (at the time anyway) there were only two stores in the whole of the West Midlands, where I’m from.

@lemonsyellow

Never heard of Wilko either. I’ve only heard these shops mentioned on here, not by any friends or relatives.

I’ve googled both B&M and Home Bargains. My nearest shops for both are about an hour /over an hour away by public transport, and quite complicated journeys too. They seem to be on retail parks.

You've never heard of wilko and none of your family or friends have either? Where on earth in the UK do you live and what shops do you have on your high street if not any of these 3??

Seriously? You think when people go travelling around the UK they spend their days trawling suburban high streets for discount stores? Or that B&M Bargains is a major conversation topic for friends and relatives?

Of course not. I just find it odd that the poster has never heard of them. I'm not saying families talk about shops regularly, although after the last year visiting B&M / home bargains could easily be a highlight of a conversation.

@PollyPepper apple almost went bust in the late 90s. It's hard to imagine now but if they had a bad senior leadership team their fortunes could change.

I'd never heard of greggs until I went north to uni, now they are everywhere.

I'm also mystified by the continued survival of The Body Shop. My local branch is always empty.

Heavily propped up by it's "Body Shop at home" MLM model where it dupes women in to thinking they can make money from it.

You've never heard of wilko and none of your family or friends have either? Where on earth in the UK do you live and what shops do you have on your high street if not any of these 3??

Scotland? There is one wilko I know of in one shopping centre about 30 miles from me. Never seen one anywhere else.

Lidl and Aldi
Lego as a pp said - they will never go out of fashion
Disney - maybe the shops will be scaled down, but the brand will always be there
Dreamworks
Unilever - massive company that make lots of things we all have in our cupboards
IKEA - they are constantly coming up with new ideas and their stuff is so reliable. They probably could continue exist on the sale of candles, photo frames and Billy bookcases.
Ladbrookes and William Hill - I should think they have been making good profits during lockdown
Pepsi and Coca Cola

Oh - and also the Co-op. I like their business model and they are often the only plave for groceries in rural areas.
Shell and BP

IKEA - they are constantly coming up with new ideas and their stuff is so reliable. They probably could continue exist on the sale of candles, photo frames and Billy bookcases.

And Kallax. It's like magic for making toys disappear.

@bitheby

You might be right but then attitudes do shift over time. It's not inconceivable to imagine that the majority of people are vegan in 150 years time and McDonalds didn't keep up with the pace of change.

Maybe everyone will be going to hoverboard thru Greggs for vegan sausage rolls?

McDonald's in Europe already do vegan burgers and I heard they were looking at bringing it to the UK but had to put plans on hold when Covid hit. (info from a McD manager)

I had one of their vegan burgers in Sweden and it was delicious but I have no comparison as I don't eat beef.

what shops do you have on your high street if not any of these 3??

I have things like Sainsbury’s, post office, WHSmith(!), hairdressers, a lot of bars, cafes, restaurants, Boots, Superdrug, Iceland, Evans Cycles, printers, estate agents, a few “sell anything if you can find your way through the clutter” shops, and a few other independent shops. No Wilko, B&M or Home Bargains. I’m not sure what those shops actually sell.

@PegPeople

I live in the U.K and always have. I’ve never heard of them. Are they a high street shop? Off to google.

If you live in the UK how on earth have you never heard of them, both b&ms and home bargains are a staple of almost every high street.

Interesting Google fact but apparently there are more home bargain and b&m stores than wilko stores in the UK.

We have, I think, two each of those stores in my city but they're not on the high street, they're out of town in one of the many retail estate things.

Our High St doesn't really have many cheap shops - there's a Savers and one of the Pound type shops - but the rest are more middle priced shops - Marks/Waterstones/Boots/FatFace/Hotel Chcocolat/Joules and independents. I can easily imagine that central London doesn't have B&M. I can't recall seeing one in central London.

We do have a Wilko's though

Our nearest Wilkos is 20 miles away - I wish we had one. I used their paint for my bedroom - much cheaper than anywhere else and it did a great job. I love their stationery, and they have some nice cheap home decor stuff. I think they are filling the gap left by TK Maxx and Home Bargains - both of which have gone downhill with their stock imho. They are probably after the same market share as Matalan with their homeware.

TK Maxx used to have some lovely stuff, but in the last couple of years ours has become a bit of a jumble sale. I can't remember the last time I bought clothes there, and the Christmas stuff was weird and overpriced. Do they really sell a lot of the Christmas sweets in strange flavours or the millionty bars of overpriced soap?

@Teapotsandtablecloths

I don't think ASDA would go bust either.

Asda nearly did go bust, it was Walmart buying it that saved it.

Some of the most enduring retailers have been owned by lots of different companies over the years - Halfords is good example of this. Smiths and Boots have both sold all sorts of things too. I hate the WH Smith shops now as they look really cluttered and are expensive. There was a time when they had record counters, travel agents, etc. They still own the wholesale newspaper and magazine business in the UK I think and I imagine those sales are well down. Boots' main competitor for cosmetics is Superdrug on the high street. I think without the pharmacies a lot of Boots stores wouldn't exist. Their online offering is good though.

It used to be the case that retail had seven year cycles so a niche retailer that was a market leader, e.g. the likes of Sock Shop in its day, would be a real money maker for seven years before competitors encroached on its market or it was taken over. I imagine it's a shorter time span now.

@lemonsyellow

Never heard of Wilko either. I’ve only heard these shops mentioned on here, not by any friends or relatives.

I’ve googled both B&M and Home Bargains. My nearest shops for both are about an hour /over an hour away by public transport, and quite complicated journeys too. They seem to be on retail parks.

A lot of them are on retail parks although you get some on High Streets, often they took over old Woolies units. They’re a bit like Woolworths in some ways.

How did you miss all the threads complaining about people buying non-essential items in B and M and the Range?

It depends a lot what you mean by 'survive'. Many of the companies mentioned have been sold and integrated into other businesses. Or they've changed with the times.

Brand names get sold on for lingering recognition even when the company isn't viable (eg Habitat).

Anything can fail. Nokia was a $250bn business that collapsed in a decade to be flogged off for $7.5bn.

The only sure thing is there's no sure thing.

Anyone that has anything to do with the funeral business. Not just funeral directors - chains & independents - and crematoriums but providers of funeral requirements (coffins, etc..)

During Lockdown #1, I would walk past 3 funeral directors to get to the railway station. All were open & were fully staffed.
The rest of the town was closed down.

(And yes it was necessary travel for health reasons, I had documents from hospitals & consultants to prove it but I never saw a policeman so never needed them!)

Procter & Gamble. You don’t even realise you’re using half of their brands. Prime example being Tampax as it’s already been mentioned on this thread as a company.

@BertieBotts thanks for the info, that's interesting! Amazon really need to have some kind of quality control. There's a lot of tat on there and it's worrying to think that products are being sold without the safety checks. I only really purchase things that have tons of reviews or are "Amazon's choice" most things have been fine but I imagine a lot of people get drawn in by the cheap (dangerous) crap... Will be interesting to see how this pans out for Amazon. Unfortunately it would probably take some kind of accident for them to take this seriously.

I do love an overpriced Starbucks it just seems like the ultimate treat!

I never saw a B&M or Home Bargains except for when visiting relatives. I don't think it's that unusual!

@Caneloalvarez Unfortunately those things aren't a good failsafe. Amazon's Choice is something picked randomly by computers and doesn't actually mean any employee at amazon has ever even seen the product, let alone chosen it. And sometimes too many reviews are actually a red flag as many sellers also use "review farming" where they get bots or pay people to post positive reviews, or offer people a refund or free products in return for deleting a negative review. That's a slightly different technique to the "cheapest search result" one. Always check the negative reviews because on a decent product they will be totally reasonable/expected complaints rather than exposing a lack of quality.

In the US there have been deaths from substandard products (a bicycle helmet for one) but because they are sold through third party sellers Amazon has so far avoided legal trouble due to it. And because the sellers are extremely hard to trace they never have any comeback from it either.

My go to if I am buying on amazon is either pick a brand I recognise as a real brand I have used before, or google the brand name and see what comes up. If the amazon page is the only related result then it's a nope.