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!

@RhubarbFairy I think we live in the same town - does it begin with Ch??

I was just going to post about Shoezone beside Clarks - Shoezone is generally busier.

Our only women's clothing options in town are Peacocks and New Look, so I usually end up in Peacocks for basics.

Dorothy Perkins and Woolworths still much missed in this house 😆

Not suprised Tapi carpets are awful, within a year of having ours a dark patch appeared by our patio doors, not faded as you might expect from sun but proper dark, looks awful. Took them weeks to come and look and the ‘independent expert’ sent them a report saying not a fault so they did nothing, £500 down the pan

Ooh do tell!
I stopped buying the boddy butters when they repackaged them and tried to palm them off as "luxury" at 18 quid a tub 🤣
(Don't get me wrong, I'll pay a premium price for a premium product, but fucking body shop crap at that price?! HAHAHAAAAA no.)

I find it odd when items have a stand alone store but then sell through somewhere big at a discount!

I agree completely about the Body Shop - I haven't put a toe over the door since that tweet, and I used to be a regular customer as they were for a while the only place that sold shampoo that I wasn't allergic to.

M&S don't have the full range, I think they just have the popular items, but yes it is odd and probably one of the reasons stores no longer become viable

Oh and a word of warning about WH Smith.

I bought a phone charger in a Smiths at a huge motorway service station on the M3. Drove off and found it didn’t work so took it back to nearest high street shop who laughed at me and said surely I must know another shop couldn’t possibly take it as a return and I needed to send it in the post to a special address.

Had to contact another division to get the address and was passed around endlessly. After eventually finding the M3 service station team, I was told they were ‘southbound’ and I needed the ‘northbound’ dept. Who, of course, never replied.

Beyond sh*t customer service.

In my area the post office is in WH Smith's. As it is upstairs you have to walk through most of the store to get there. They have a really good selection of stationery, birthday cards, books etc. I actually bought a few Christmas presents in there! It's my go to shop at the station for a random bag of crisps, umbrella, bottle of water or anything I need for the train. They're not bad. I'd miss them if they weren't around.

WHSmiths sell a bit of everything though. Yes you get stationary at Rymans or books at Waterstones but not newspapers and magazines or chocolate and water for that matter.
Most high street shops are a bit shit really until you need something and want to try it on or see what you’re buying. Then even the over priced ones have value.

Their High St division is still profitable independent of the travel division. Their accounts are online showing each division's profitability. Obviously travel is a lot more profitable than High St but, no, travel doesn't finance High St. Why would it continue with High St if it was loss making?

I agree with The Body Shop - it’s sad as I can fondly remember shopping with friends in the 90’s.

DH and I frequently joke that WH Smith must be a money laundering operation as it’s always empty.

Ann summers - not one but two in my nearest city.

Late to the party here but WH Smith was the first place I thought of, followed by Waterstones as there's never anyone in the latter when I pass by.

I think I read that WH Smith bought out Funky Pigeon so maybe that is helping to keep it afloat?

Lush
(the one with bath bombs that make you itch)
body shop
(old fashioned)
new look
(even my teens have moved on from this)
big shopping centre WH Smith's with everything and discounts can be quite good

Iloveblue interesting what you say about Waterstones. The one where I live is always busy and I was heartened by the big queues at the tills at Xmas as I'd hate to lose it.

I went into a large HMV a few weeks ago ~ it was full of DVDs and CDs which I thought nobody bought any more but I must be wrong as the shop was very busy and buzzing with people .

@Coffeetable123 good shout. I used to love House of Fraser when I was younger. Now it looks so unloved, the staff look depressed and can't be bothered to look at you, let alone help you. It's full of tatty bits and pieces. They have never got their online experience sorted.

I find Boots depressing. Our is pretty small and unless you want No 7, not much point going in.

I can buy a lot of the other stuff from supermarkets and my local Waitrose (same town) has more upmarket toiletries and skin care.

However, other larger Boots have upmarket brands but I find the stores somehow soulless. If I want premium make up, I go to J Lewis.

Shoezone closed in my town ages ago.

Regarding Lush…they do make the BEST bath bombs. I have tried so many others and they don’t come close.

My previous employer is mentioned on this thread.
When I was still working there it was bought out by two different companies in relatively quick succession. I was 50% convinced it was being used for money laundering.
Why? Well we used to have a stock receiver who checked every delivery in so we knew exactly what was arriving and regular stock checks to keep inventory straight.
Yeah, that all stopped. Boxes would arrive, go on our system as exactly what had been ordered and were very often totally wrong. We were told to do stock counts a lot less and to please stop reporting so much stock as "delivery errors". There was much fiddling about with stock numbers. Non existent products would arrive, we'd have to pretend they did and manually "adjust" figures later.
It's a great way to launder money. Buy something that doesn't exist and then pretend it never happened. So glad I'm out of retail.

Our nearest Boots has got rid of all staff except the Pharmacy staff (usually the pharmacist and an assistant making up prescriptions). If you want anything other than a prescription you still have to join the prescription queue.The queue is always enormous. I have given up going in for anything like mascara, toiletries etc . I can get them all from Tesco up the road when I do my food shop.

There is a time and a place for WH Smith (like for A1 coloured card for school projects, revision guides, etc.), but it's not a great retail experience. Crowded, lots of the stuff is very overpriced and generally depressing feeling.

Shops like Body Shop and HoF have really lost their way since being taken over .

The physical shops that are left are just becoming more and more generic in many ways. Part of the issue is the march of the 'buy everything under one roof' supermarkets.

Agree that Amazon prices have gone up loads recently. Books are barely any cheaper than on the high street whereas they used to be generally half-price.

The problem with everything going online is that it's just not the same experience in any shape or form. You can't easily assess quality, check sizing and there's no real joy in it (other than it making retail a 24/7 pastime).

TK Maxx seems to be super successful but it is very much a lucky dip retail experience compared with say John Lewis.

Seasalt has gone over in the past 2-3 years, way past its Cornish indie artsy charm. The big money has diluted the brand.

Too expensive for what it is, too much mainstream bordering on drab, too many styles through the season so the design is diluted for mass appeal. Nowt Cornish about it no matter what it’s called or where the stuff is photographed.

My local M&S has returned Seasalt stock on the sale rail this week, the stuff was drab - no wonder returned - & by comparison some of the M&S stuff looked stylish.

Even with my hefty NHS discount, I rarely find anything on the Seasalt site worth ordering. I chose some knitwear last week at a good price in the sale that I could have got at Hobbs or M&S, nothing uniquely Seasalt about it.

Next likely to survive no matter the high street offer as it offers excellent distribution of brands to further flung bits of the UK, e.g. next day delivery to St Ives.

And yes, Boots seems to have lost its mojo too. Very underwhelming nowadays (and noticeably a lot less busy!), with expensive stock - much of which can be bought considerably cheaper elsewhere.

I glanced at the Christmas present offerings once in there this year and really was very disappointed by the limited choice and lack of 'wow' factor. I'm not even sure they were running their usual 3for2 offer?

Cheltenham House of Fraser was the place to go when we were at college 35 years ago. When a beautiful new John Lewis opened a few years ago most of the staff seemed to head off there. Can't blame them. JL is beautiful and shiny. HOF looks like tumbleweed actually blows down the aisles. The higher up you go in the store the more depressing it is. It was last done up in the 60s so the stairs look and smell like secondary school.

Ann summers - not one but two in my nearest city.

Who buys their crap? And whoever they are, do they need it all promoted to them in shop windows in a high street? Always looks so out of place.