Shops you are surprised are still going

[fajitaaaa]

WHSMITHS - who is buying from them? Anything other than a emergency magazine for the train and maybe a bottle of water? But some of their stores are HUGE!

FAT FACE - always a massive sale on!

Something went horribly wrong with them about 20 years ago.

(WH Smith)

Yes, the thing that went wrong for them was the behaviour of us, the customers. Cast your mind back twenty years. Which (now) household name business was starting to make its mark by selling books online, cutting out the costs associated with bricks and mortar retail? Clue: named after a South American river.

When everyone could buy books more cheaply online, they stopped going to bookshops. Borders died ten years ago. There are far fewer independent bookshops than there were in 2003. Waterstones have pulled off quite a coup by staying in business. WH Smith were in serious trouble. They also had to deal with the decline in physical music formats. That they have pivoted to making money from shops in stations, airports, hospitals and motorway services is pretty impressive.

Molton Brown - its like the body shop but more expensive.

The more I think about it the more I'm surprised anything is still going!

I used to work in a travel WHSmith in the 2000's. There was never a lull all day but the majority of what sold were newspapers, magazines and cigarettes so they couldn't even have been taking that much then.

20 years later many will have swapped to readings newspapers and magazines on their phones and has cigarette sales decreased since then too....

I hated working there with a passion 😂

We have a L'Occitane which is similar to Molton Brown, the only time it seems to have customers is in December

I like Boots and M and S, but that is because the ones near me are large and well stocked. I don't want any more shops to go under, even the ones I don't use. Town and city centres are having a hard enough time as it is.

I am an MN anomaly though as I much prefer the instant gratification of buying in a physical shop, not to mention supporting local businesses and the workforce, to buying online.

WH Smith's our local one previously John menzies closed about it year ago. We have a brilliant independent family run stationary shop though also a toy shop. They used to have two shops but sadly had to close one.

Some of the named businesses have good online sales; Fatface, Tapi, Peacocks, Bodyshop etc which will bolster the stores.

I was always confused by the appeal of Pandora until a male colleague told me that its existence was a huge relief to him, because it meant that he had ten years of birthday, Christmas and anniversary presents for his wife sorted. Just buy a bead every time.

WHSmith own most of the buildings they gave their shops in unlike 99% of other retailers. It’s their airport and train station stores that support all their other stores.

Err me! Probably depends what other shops you have in your town. We have three chain shops, smiths, fat face and boots - please don’t let them shut down! I think fat face has two sales a year.

@RedRiverShore2
Next is the High Streets most successful, it's going nowhere, it's online sales exceed 100 million orders pa, more than able to keep the stores afloat.

Body shop, Accecorize, Jojo Maman

Gap.

Who wants to buy clothes with 'Gap' emblazoned on them?

I saw it on tv once, WHSmiths makes all it's money to survive at Christmas time, the rest of the year it makes no money.

Are you sure about this? I’d be surprised if this were the case. Are you getting your information from the sae place as the poster who claimed that WH Smith have some weird monopoly on Pepsi that means that nobody within a ten mile radius can sell it?

Exactly this. I live in a market town. We like it because the schools are excellent and there's a great sense of community. But the shopping options are dire.
We do have a Peacocks and a Shoe Zone. Shoe Zone is next door to Clarks and is always busier. I confess I used to get the DCs school PE trainers from there as they end up either destroyed or lost. Though now they just take their normal trainers in on PE day.
We also have a massive WH Smiths. The only thing it was good for was when DS was collecting those Premier League football cards as you could buy the tins of them there.

I buy a lot of magazines. I'd love to see Smiths revamped with a really interesting interior, a shop that has real atmosphere. I understand they probably can't afford to do that though. It's a shame that their shop windows look like junk shops. Even charity shops are better presented.

Is that the really yellow shop?

I’m with you - who the actual fuck wears all that Disney shit? So much of it in grown up sizes too. The only use for it would be if you are going to Disneyworld and want to wear a Minnie T-Shirt but not pay Disney prices!

I went into WHS last week to get a bar of chocolate... I was very pleased to see A History of Britain's Railways reduced from £30 to £10...Ds2 will be very happy!!

I immediately thought of WHsmiths before I even opened the thread.
And then Clinton's (also mentioned on page 1)
I was sure they were on the brink of going into administration about 4 years ago.
Someone mentioned Edinburgh Wool Mill and I was sure they had gone bust.

I prefer shopping in actual shops for clothes, but admit other things are often easier to get online. Recently I've wanted to buy a dress and some boots. I ordered 2 dresses and 2 pairs of boots. I returned one dress and both pairs of boots, but the local evri drop off was a petrol station about 4 miles away. Then just this week I ordered 3 more pairs of boots (wanted to choose between then to go with a specific outfit) one pair is really nice but way too big. Ideally I'd try the next size down but I can't really bear to order again (and pay for delivery again)

The thing about WH Smiths is that they stock a lot of magazines which aren't sold in supermarkets.....relating to particular hobbies and sports, for example. However, these are so tightly packed together on the shelves that it's impossible to find what you might be looking for.

Another WH Smith here. I went in one the other day it was like going into a 90s time warp. My kids always get WH Smith vouchers from a certain relative for Christmas and can never find anything they want, they end up using them to buy vouchers for other shops!

fat face

Crewe clothing

Yes, I quite like the handwash and hand cream but as it is a luxury buy I prefer to wait until M&S have a 20% off offer, I wouldn't just pop in there to buy some soap.

Interesting thread!

Agree about WHSmith. It’s always grubby and over-priced. My understanding is that their monopoly on stations, airports and hospitals is a big money spinner. A quick Google revealed that they make decent profits and are opening tons of new shops in other countries. Bizarre!
www.business-live.co.uk/retail-consumer/wh-smith-returns-profit-amid-25479672

Body Shop deserves to go. Crap products, trading on an ethos they left behind about 40 years ago. I would never shop there because of this… www.cityam.com/the-body-shop-accused-of-bullying-jk-rowling-after-wading-into-trans-rights-debate/

Shop I would like to see go is Primark. The human and environmental cost of their clothes and also their rush to introduce unisex changing rooms.