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?

I never understand how Mothercare went bust

Oh I do. A lot of people would go in mothercare to look at bigger items such as prams and car seats in person then would find them cheaper online. Everything in mothercare was hugely overpriced and not any better quality wise than other cheaper stores. I only liked the Jools Oliver little bird range which I believe is now sold in next but even then I’d often wait for the sales because full price was just ridiculous.

@Andante57
They are good at branding and it's easy to remember compared with Komatsu

JCM revenue is however around £4billion compared with Japanese Komatsu's £985billion

Can you guess I work in construction

Primark!

@idrinkchocolatemilk

Primark!

They haven't moved to create a website where you can actually buy from though.

High street presence is great but online sales really ramping up nowadays.

Charity shops will hopefully remain

Pizza to remain

Mothercare also had really poor/basic training for their staff. If you go to John Lewis baby department for example they are brilliant and can really confidently go through various models and explain the pros and cons of different prams/car seats. They are more expensive than anywhere else but it doesn't matter because the service is so good.

Whereas Mothercare was expensive and the service wasn't great. Their staff often didn't seem to know the answers to stuff or care very much, or you'd ask and then get the impression that the answer wasn't really complete or correct. You'd get the odd staff member who was really passionate and clearly knew their stuff but I don't think they interviewed/trained very well (or maybe not that many people applied?) because most of the staff were just totally disinterested. Maybe they were underpaid and underappreciated!

Actually for baby stuff what I always tell people to do is look on the icandy/bugaboo/britax/chicco (whatever baby brand) website and look through their list of nearest stockists and pick whichever isn't a chain. Because the independents tend to be similar to how Mothercare was decades ago, with staff that know their stuff and you don't have loads of price inflation either.

If you want as cheap as possible then you can always go online but you don't get the advice that way, and it can be complicated to sort if you need any aftercare like repairs/replacement parts etc.

TBH if you want cheap for baby stuff the better plan is to buy second hand.

Thanks to the pp upthread who corrected me re: WH Smith's wholesale news business. I had missed that.

The Co-op has a policy of having stores in areas where it may be uneconomic to operate because it believes in providing services in areas which otherwise wouldn't have them. That goes back to the original co-operative principles.

Their financial services arm suffered because they overpaid for Britannia building society which had commercial loans it couldn't afford to repay.

Unilever is another massive organisation which is unlikely to go bust.

I think we are likely to see a number of retailers move to having a largely online presence or online presence only over the next few years.

Wonkylegs That’s interesting about diggers -I’ve never even heard of the Japanese brand.
I will look anew at roadworks and building sites equipment.
Yes, I agree JCB have been clever with their branding and also it’s a privately owned company so presumably its success in the future depends on who takes over from Lord Bamford.

Primark , it's good it's not online really as people will go out and might then spend in other shops, something you don't tend to do if it's online. Keeping the high street alive!
Plus it must also keep the costs down too

I love the Co op. I will be devestated if they do go under

@halcyondays

McDonalds aren’t daft. They would adapt to a changing market if necessary. They already sell different products to cater for local preferences in different countries.

It’s hard to imagine Amazon going, also Ikea, Tesco and Primark.

They're yet to make a single nice vegetarian or vegan dish though

Possibly Google.

I’ve never seen a home bargains, I’m not sure what it is. I have seen a B&M but never been in as not one local to me. Off to look for them. We do have Wilkos though

Just looked. Nearest hone bargains and B&M are over 20 miles away

Wh Smiths. Surely they should have gone years ago but no. So maybe they won't ever go under? The shops are dire, expensive and the staff are grumpy and unhelpful (may just be my one regarding the staff, granted).

Home Bargains and B&M are basically a bit of everything, discounted across the board; food and toiletries range similar to Poundland, but quite a lot of homeware and toys too that’s a bit more expensive (but a lot cheaper than your average homeware store). Lots of end of line and surplus stock type products. Perhaps best described as a halfway point between Poundland and TK Maxx.

I prefer Home Bargains and B&M to Poundland for food. Whereas some things you see in Poundland would probably only be £1 (or maybe even less) in the supermarkets anyway, and isn’t a bargain because of their pricing policy, something that might be a £1 in a supermarket is, say, 60p in Home Bargains. Not the kind of saving that’s going to help you retire to Barbados, obviously but it all adds up enough to make it worth the trip.

Another one here baffled by WHsmiths.
Lol at some of their comments. Theres rarely anything special about their special offers anyway.i cant believe anyone has really ever paid £25 for a pack of sharpies. I had to buy printer ink there over lockdown as I needed same day and the price was eye-watering

My nana would have laughed at the idea of British Home Stores (never BHS) gasping its last!

Also just to add to the B&M conversation - I've only ever heard of it on Mumsnet! I'm in fairly central London and they don't have any stores near me at all. I wish they'd open one near me, they sound great. And we have a couple of gaping holes on our high street (left by M&S and Burger King, funnily enough).

I think the difference between McDonalds and other brand former-behemoths like Kodak is that McDonald's are in the trade of actually physically addictive products. Even if we all go vegan they'll find a way to fill it with sugar and deep fry it.

I’m surprised Claire’s accessories hasn’t closed down too.

Google and PayPal

@Bul21ia

I’m surprised Claire’s accessories hasn’t closed down too.

Agree!!!! Everything always seems to be buy 3 get 3 free - how do they survive?!

B&Q have done remarkably well in lockdown. People will always want to spend money on their homes and gardens and no competitor has quite the same mix of trade building/plumbing essentials with soft furnishings and garden centre plus the showrooms and paint.

Even in the economic downturn they did ok because people who couldn't afford tradespeople started to diy more.

They have started doing deliveries and click n collect during lockdown as well as being the 'day out of choice'for the last 4 months. My local store is always heaving.

However, the website is shit and needs to sort itself out

Kingfisher which owns B&Q also owns Screwfix. They have a lot of the same product lines. Screwfix is usually cheaper.

Interesting about McDonald’s - their sales have been falling and a local branch closed.

Leon have just been sold and the brothers who bought it are planning to roll out around the uk. Perhaps because they are a healthier option or more middle class or we like to tell ourselves it’s healthier. They might take over a few food outlets from places like McD.