Is it farewell for TGJones?

[MN2025]

Just read an article online that the future of TGJones (former WHSmith High Street) business is to be decided in the coming days. It’s not surprising if the business does collapse into administration.

It is a massive shame - as someone who has been in the education profession for nearly 40 years - I always shopped there until the convenience of online shopping came in.

TGJ/WHS priced themselves out and failed to adapt with the times.

i do think that the post office is the only reason stores have managed to survive..

Feel sorry for all the staff who work there.

Cha

Boots in person is pretty disappointing but they’re second to none online, to be honest

Agreed. I had to pay £4.99 for a bottle of water in one of their airport shops. I wouldnt spend a single penny in one of their high street shops just for that reason

I wouldn't miss it tbh. Our local TG Jones has very little stock, just a weird selection so i have stopped going in there as they never had what i wanted. It seems shoddy and poorly run. I am a big book and magazine buyer. Our old WH Smith was far better, and actually was a close second when shopping for books to my favourite, Waterstones here.

We have Magazine Heaven on the retail park, it does seem popular and they have a nice cafe, I quite like it in there, they have every magazine you could possibly want so I guess they will have the obscure ones and I think some people still have subscriptions. Supermarkets still sell the popular ones. Our W H Smiths closed a few years ago

Oh, yes, I remember that and didn't want to show my boarding pass

Out local WHSmith has a post office in so I do go there occasionally but it's awful it's like a dungeon! The stationary section is tiny and really overpriced (you can buy exact same thing from Asda or anywhere really for half the price). Cards are expensive. Only thing I occasionally buy are books.

I don’t think that’s the only problem. There’s nothing you can buy there that isn’t better elsewhere. They have no USP. My local shop (Brighton) is always empty. Waterstones always full of people. It’s dated and unappealing.

Quite. Lloyds pharmacy closed last year I think, and are only online now.

The massive shame was when they went from being great to being utterly crap.

But yes, seeing yet another traditional British brand disappear is very sad but tbh changing the name to TG Jones was desperate, and was obviously never going to work.

Another private equity disaster...

It is sad to see more High St shops close and people lose their jobs.

However I must say I have always found it and WHSmith before that completely overpriced and the displays are just really unattractive and confusing and the whole thing just looks dated.

They’ve been shite for decades. There was a Twitter account dedicated to how bad they were - ripped carpet, ridiculous ‘offers’, old and outdated stock. The sad fact is that most of us don’t need stationery anymore. The days of popping into a WH Smith’s for a £60 Filofax are long gone. In the end, they were just too uncompetitive and the market voted with its feet.

And even if you do need stationery, there are so many nicer places to get it!

I always found WHS/TGJ to be overpriced, could nearly always find anything they stocked cheaper elsewhere. Not in the least surprised.

I think they are really gloomy and don't really care that much other than it's yet again (largely) womens' jobs that will go. And yet another shop gone from the High St to be replaced by something dodgy.

But they do sell a lot of magazines and I wonder if it will have a knock-on effect and put a lot of magazines out of business as well.

They didn't do enough research when they bought WHSmith now they say it's too expensive to bring all the shops up to scratch. Crap business model. Stop anyone in the street and they could have told them WHSmith were shite. My local large one often had only ONE visible member of staff and that poor sod was on the tills.

I was thinking about magazines the other day. Smiths/Jones is the only shop in town that had a decent range of magazines. The three town centre supermarkets - Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s - don’t have a huge selection and just stock the popular titles and there isn’t a newsagents or an independent shop selling magazines in the town centre. We haven’t long moved here so not sure about anywhere else on the outskirts but I know that there isn’t one in our area, just a Co Op which again just has a limited range.