A IBU to predict which shops will close next?

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I am pretty sure I won't be allowed to name them on here but it seems to me that the places where customer service is poor or resting on its laurels are the shops that will be closing down before those where staff actually try to engage with their customers and find out how they can help them. In my town it seems to be well established high street stores (going since at least the 80s) who are just not doing what they could to offer good customer service. And they.ll be next to close....

Oh and meant to say that as Dorothy Perkins was mentioned here, I took a look at their website and they seem to have lots of lovely stuff atm so I hope they don't go anywhere soon. I'm not a frequent DP shopper tho' so know nothing of quality, customer service etc....

DOH - sorry - Nancy - just saw you said it had tripled. Ignore me.

Matesnptdates, yes I believe their profits the year before were around 30mil, I think if you look at the whole range their plain stuff is good quality useful items, slot of it gets hidden by the mother of the bride stuff that you see as soon as you walk in the shop. The children's wear does do very well for them, they also do very well from their sales, they actually sell much less of the ball gown bridesmaid dresses than they used to. I did work for them for some years so I know that they also have a very loyal customer base, women that go in every season and spend lots of money!

Nancy - I think you are bang on with their sales. They at least do a 'proper' sale, good discounts, not just old tat brought out specially. Always packed at sales time.

I heart Monsoon. Their clothes are lovely, last really well, they do proper sales and kind sizing. I always get nice comments about my clothes and I'm not a 50 year old. The clothes this season are a bit meh but that's because I am fat and most of the styles at the moment look foul on a size 20

nancy - I am one of those women. Literally all my clothes come from Monsoon as I know I won't have a sizing-related meltdown in the fitting room and I will find something I like for a price I am prepared to pay. Ventures into other stores have always ended in tears

I think high st rents have to come down. There is still going to be^ a big retail shake out - maybe not brands going bust but reducing stores and going online.

Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Our local Wyevale garden centre is usually empty and very overpriced. I looked in the bargain bit where they were selling off almost dead plants for ££££'s

Not sure that it is automatically the shops that do not appear to be busy that will go. There is a specialist shop in a major shopping centre here, which makes a loss almost every week of the year. However, at Christmas and in the week leading up to father's Day, it makes enough money to put it in profit for the whole year! I know somebody who works there and she says that they can go for a week without making a sale, yet there balance sheet is very healthy just because of those few weeks when they sell, sell, sell. I guess it's as much about knowing your market as anything else.

Personally, I don't understand how W H Smith keep going - ours used to be a fantastic place, but they reduced the size of it dramatically and which department did they reduce? Yes, the books! With the advent of e-readers, I really can't see how they will be able to continue much longer.

BHS, I hope they are ok, because DH and DS fit their clothes and would otherwise find it extremely difficult to buy trousers! BUt they do need to work on customer service. They have also halved the size of the one near us.

I think Boots is pretty healthy and robust actually. And WHSmith's is holding up.

Bodyshop - cannot fathom how they are still trading. Our local one is always empty and the brand seems horribly dated.

I'm still gutted Woolworths went - I need Woolies for dc stuff...toys, presents, WELLIES, gym stuff, pyjamas...

"BHS, I hope they are ok, because DH and DS fit their clothes and would otherwise find it extremely difficult to buy trousers! BUt they do need to work on customer service."

I have found the customer service in their Meadowhall store absolutely brilliant. Perhaps you were unlucky.

Bunbaker, you may be right. I think that it maybe that particular store that has a problem. It is just that everytime we use it,there is always a problem - the tills do not recognise offers that are clearly advertised throughout the store and on the clothes, the changing rooms are locked and it taked forever to find a member of staff who then has to go and ask 'Joan' to find 'Betty' to tell 'Mary' that the key is missing. The staff do not appear to have been trained in the art of customer service - whenever they have to try to sort out a problem, they leave you hanging around for ages and do not keep you updated on progress. It is not so bad if it is only a few minutes, but last time we were kept waiting over 20 minutes! If it weren't for the fact that DS and DH really, genuinely have found it impossible to buy trousers that fit elsewhere, we would have abandoned BHS long ago.

Oh, and we've even tried shopping on their website and found that to be just as much of a problem since if things don't fir when they arrive, it is a faff to have to return them whether by post or via the above mentioned store.

monkeymomma TJ Hughes went due to some very stupid decision making imo. The stuff they brought at times was very Add to that, they couldn't buy a load of new stuff until they shifted the old stuff. And so it went on. They had literally no staff at all on the shop floor a lot of the time and the one person on the till was having to stretch themselves to do a dozen different jobs as well as serve the customers. People got pissed off and stopped shopping there.

They should have been basking in success during the recession as people looked for cheaper alternatives. It is very, very sad they went.

It is interesting however that JL seem to be like Teflon- nothing seems to affect their profits at all. I guess they must have a very loyal customer fanbase. I certainly know a few people who are loyal to them and buy all their stuff from there. (Not me, sadly I've not got that kind of money)

I haven't visited anyone in years who has had any body shop products in their bathrooms, the mind really boggles at that one

I really love All Saints but keep hearing rumours that they are on the verge of vanishing. I don't know if that is true or just speculation based on the problems they had a couple of years ago. I hope they don't vanish (where else am I going to find faded grown up goth rags?), although I wish they'd knock their prices down a bit.

On the other hand, I think my crafting friends would be quite pleased about the sudden glut of second hand Singer sewing machines on the market if All Saints vanished...

I know someone in the rag trade and the likes of gant, Fenn Wright Mason, Phase Eight have had huge growth since the recession...

I suppose it's the market they're aimed at - people with money who may be tightening their belts by not going on holidays as much or buying a brand new car but still treating themselves with the feel good factor of a new frock.

Apparantly lipstick sales soar in recessions too for the same reason.

Booky, Waterstone's made the world ruled by amazon when they began taking money from publishers to put crap books in the front of the shop. They also abandoned the Net Book Agreement, hoping to make a killing, and that's what the supermarkets have benefited from. You didn't see Tim Waterstone crying over the independent bookstores he put out of business daily. IMHO they have only themselves to blame if customers now don't value them. Moreover, most publishers now have no interest in anything but grabbing money - hence the ridiculous pricing of ebooks. Books are treated as commodities; fine, but then no special pleading, please.

I think bookselling on the street will become much more niche and upmarket and rarefied, and everything else will be mail order and supermarkets.

Thorntons and the Body shop. Both sell exactly the same stuff as they did 25 years ago.

Hotel chocolat has take over nice mass produced chocolate market.

Who still buys stuff from the body shop? It deserves to go, it was once an ethical store and there was a reason to buy there but now, ethics gone it's stock looks like supermarket own brand. Nothing special.

sieglinde Your post struck a chord with me. My boss used to own a bookshop that he had to sell once the net book agreement was abandoned. It was the best bookshop in the town and a lot of people lamented its loss. It was the death knell of independent bookshops.

BHS is an awful shop. Same price as M&S but overheated, messy shops. Last time I went in I was accosted by women trying to give me "free" makeup which I found out was only free if I bought makeup set for £25. It really annoyed me and lowers the tone of the shop.

Thortons shops may not close as they are probably keeping afloat by all the "half price" boxes of chocolates sold in tesco.

I will really miss going to a book shop if whs and waterstones close. I don't know how people buy books for their children online. Unless it is a book by a known author in a series I really need to have a good look inside a book to see what sort of writing it has, how detailed it is, how it is laid out, if it has good illustrations etc.

Agree that wallis has gone downhill. Some are now relocating into BHS!

I feel quite depressed thinking Monsoon is aimed at me (33). Wouldn't be seen dead in 99% of it!

mmeGuillotine: All Saints nearly went last year, hopefully it is safe now. Go to T K Maxx, All Saints have sold loads of dead stock to them, there has been loads and it is really cheap, especially compared to the full retail price. Not too much of it left now, but they seem to have a good stock of it as new bits appear every so often.

There are a few shops that I expect will start vanishing soon:
HMV
American Apparel
New Look

All three have had financial/profit problems, and NL & AA expanded quite rapidly with a lot of repeat stores in the same area, which can't be sustained if the sales aren't there.

Interested now in what, if anything, we WOULD like to save?

I think ALL chainstores are evil, actually; they are ruthless about little independent shops and about exploiting cheap labour in sweatshops. A thing about France is that while chains exist, there are also more small single-owner boutique retailers.

Again IMHO, but they - chains - have made the very faceless Tescazon world about which they are now complaining. ALL OF THEM. Including Tesco

All fashion chains work the same misery cycle - forgive me, I'm 50 - 1. Interesting original designs based on the size/shape of the average 30+ woman 2. Desperate rebranding and relaunching to chase the Size 2 look for women under 30 3. Failure of 2, and terminal decline into dreary mumsy fashion. (See Laura Ashley, Boden, Zara, Monsoon, Toast... ) Happens because some rattleheads at Head Office take command, ignoring the actual customers.

I could also say all the same things about clothing chains as I did about Waterstones; they could care less about the individual dressmakers and tailors they closed down, the stupid throwaway rather than make and mend culture they created. Now, boohoo, they are in their own leghold trap. Why should Gap or Primark command ANY loyalty?

Who owns Sketchley?

I imagine loads of people have cut back on dry cleaning

I can't see many high street music/game retailers lasting much longer. I was genuinely gutted when our GAME store closed down, I loved going in there, but places like Amazon and Play can afford to sell games so much cheaper without the overheads of running stores and paying more staff.

We used to have independent game and music shops and they're all gone now :(