To be worried about House of Fraser

[Viviennemary]

Seems this is the next chain to be in trouble. And Debenhams hasn't been doing to well either lately according to the news tonight. I don't buy a great deal in either of these but would be really sad to see them go. Woolworths gone and then BHS. at the thought they might disappear

reallynearly I think Laura Ashley has been on its last legs for years. It's very overpriced and the quality is not great. It has changed so much in the last 15 years or so. I remember when you could buy bridal wear there, it was lovely and really good value for money.

Well shopping is political - if you like having a local high street you need to use it - if you don't think it's necessary these days then shop online. Both positions are fine IMO but I can't bear the hypocrisy of moaning about the high street being crap while shopping online. Obviously a town centre branch will not have the same range of stock as the full warehouse via the website so it's unrealistic to compare the two.

And Amazon? Well yes they're brilliant but they avoid corporation tax, in some cases swerve VAT and are by many accounts a terrible employer. If we all shopped there the impact on tax receipts and public services would be significant. So again, if you're fine with that, shop with Amazon and if you're not, shop elsewhere, but don't pretend these issues aren't part of the choice you're making - it's well documented.

The Debenhams near us is a scruffy and old fashioned place. HOF is a bunch of concessions squashed into too small space. M&S has old lady clothes and an awful lot of overly patterned nylon. It should have shrunk it’s stores and stuck to food, underwear, good quality clothing basics and Home.

House of Fraser seems to be all concessions these days That's the way Debenhams went and really it's become one of the most soulless shops and now avoid most of the time.

However, I do like House of Fraser and their concessions but there's not one I frequent regularly (not in my day-to-day locale) so I don't buy much from them.

I used to love Dickens and Jones on Regent Street - one of my favourite haunts in the 90s.

I think the all encompassing department stores have probably almost had their day - and shops like TK Maxx gives a cheaper and more random but similar experience.

I agree Muminho. I only buy stuff online that I can't find in shops.

a) I prefer to shop in real shops
b) I want to support local business and contribute to the local economy.

Disclaimer: I work part time and can go when it isn't busy, and I don't have small children to drag around.

Nanasueathome, yes.

The Mander Shopping Centre has a large collection of empty units, there's no Mothercare, Evans or Early Learning Centre and the centre closes down at 6pm.

Merry Hill stays open till 9pm on a weekday, Bentley Bridge stays open for 18 hours a day (Pure Gym and drive through takeaways on site not the shops) and both have free parking for customers.

Mander Centre charges every day except bank holidays.

The council and the centre managers are really doing their best to drive everyone away....

I'm stunned Debenhams have opened a store in Wolverhampton and spent so much money when they're clearly not doing well in larger, more established stores like the one in Merry Hill......

Our local HoF is actually quite smart, and it's one of the places I do stop in at when I'm shopping. It's well laid out, feels clean and is generally quite a pleasant shopping experience.

The Debenhams at the other end of the same Centre is the complete opposite. Grubby, badly laid out, terrible (cheap and nasty looking) concessions. All feels a bit like it hasn't moved on since the 80s. I wouldn't be surprised or sad if it went any time soon.

It's interesting as I was just reading an article on the same thing happening to established store brands in the US. Macy's, JC Penney, Sears and others - also Abercrombie & Fitch - are all struggling and closing stores. They have constant sales and the stores look like a jumble sale.

I think it's a combination of on line shopping and people have less money and also we all know that if we see something we like it will be on sale pretty quickly. I think Black Friday has not helped. Especially as it used to be actual brick stores but now it really seems driven by Amazon and it's the whole month not just a day.

The trouble with all these stores is that they sell all the same stuff - polyester cheap and nasty clothing, without actually being cheap and then they wonder why people go to Primark instead. I bought dd a bobble hat last week for £2 in Primark. It is really well made and I know I would have paid £10 for it elsewhere.
None of them stand out as having their own individual stock and are basically just a collection of concessions selling stuff you can buy in lots of other places in the same town.
Why would you buy perfume/make up from hof or debenhams when you can get it in Boots and gain the storecard points?

Plus these stores look like jumble sales in lots of towns, old fashioned, poorly set out, too hot, hard to navigate with kids.

The best hof I went to was in Cabot Circus in Bristol. They had good concessions, like Mulberry and lots of space, a nice cafe etc. If they were all like that, they'd give JL a run for their money. Interestingly there is no JL in Cabot Circus, so they are not competing and having to share the available money that customers have. That's got to help.
Was on Exeter last week, which has JL, D and HoF within spitting distance of each other. JL is nice but the other 2 are not great. There is not an infinite amount of money to go around, so they have to offer better quality if they want to survive. I did buy a top in D but I baulked at paying £20 for someyhibg I know won't last. The top is very pretty and I would have happily paid a bit more for it to have been made from better fabric. But that choice isn't there and it doesn't seem to matter where you shop or how much you pay. It's all polyester mix.

Some stores could be working harder on it all. HoF feels like a scruffy unloved warehouse full of cast-offs that didn't sell somewhere else.

I hate buying clothes online, so I go in store. I buy most of my bras from Debenhams, and one of the most irritating things about my local store is that I almost always have to hunt an assistant down to unlock the bra-fitting room.

It's a small thing, but the extra stage makes the rigmarole of finding a well-fitting bra take a bit longer, and makes me feel like I'm asking them to do me a favour, when I am spending £25+ per bra.

I had to buy yet another bra just recently, strapless this time, to go with a particular dress for an event. Went in Debenhams as usual and their limited range did not look promising at all, but I was going to try them anyway. But the changing room was locked. Again.

I put the bras back and just walked out and went to M&S, where the range of strapless bras turned out to be much broader and I didn't have to ask for the bra section's changing room to be unlocked for me.

Oh, and I also found the perfect strapless bra for £22.50.

The only reason Debenhams is keeping me as a customer is their local monopoly on Shock Absorber bras. If M&S sold them, I'd always go there first.

I bloody hate Debenhams but we have 3 Debenhams within a 25 mile radius and our nearest HoF is almost 50 miles away, so Debenhams gets a fair bit of my custom. Nearest JL is even further!

I much prefer HoF and used to buy a lot of stuff there when I lived in London.

The only thing I rate Debenhams for is their own brand bras in big sizes. So much better than M&S, and cheaper.

It's small independent shops or specialist shops such as Waterstones we should all be supporting, the likes of Debenhams can fend for themselves.

I purchased some of the books I bought as Christmas presents in Waterstones and only ordered the ones they didn’t have in stock from Amazon (quicker than Waterstones online). I don’t mind paying a bit of a premium to have a store in my nearest town that I can go & browse in.

I try to use Waterstones for books. I know they are more expensive but I have their card which gives you points which equals to cash and also their card that you get stamped. I've had a few 'freebies' that way. I know it's not free but it balances out a bit against Amazon and supermarket prices. The staff are really good in ours and one guy in particular always recommends something good. I know he is upselling but I have always enjoyed his recommendations.

IWanna - we must be in same area! I haven't actually been to Cabot Circus but I go to Cribbs regularly for JL and a bigger M&S than we have. I got to Exeter too - find HofF a bit of a warren which I know is because it is in an old building. Not keen on the D there. I prefer the one in Taunton.

It's mostly homeware that I tend to hit on debenhams and hof for.

Though what I would miss most about debenhams is the fairly reliable loos. There's some local towns that I wouldn't be able to shop in with ds2 anymore if debenhams went because nowhere else has a disabled loo that's not too rank for him to be able to take his shoes off and get changed.

Lonicera I find your plea for those of us who hate shops to use them a bit strange
It's like if someone said to you "please buy meat in the supermarket instead of the butcher so mass farmed meat doesn't vanish".

We're not big consumers at all, but I only ever buy clothes online, I would rather try it on at home and return via post office and people like yourself, who want to shop in actual shops, will do that.

Some great autocorrects on here
Humble sale
Confessions in dept stores
Laura legs!

Agree to some point on Smith's delete but they have cornered the airport and service station market which I think props up the high street branches. I do wonder how much ours sells apart from newspapers. Everything else in there is hideously overpriced

A few years ago, they closed our only post office and replaced it with a post office counter in Smiths. I swear that's the only reason anyone goes in there. If you want a newspaper it's actually quicker to get one from Waitrose, which is just around the corner. And if you have a Waitrose card and buy a few bits at the same time, the newspaper's free!

There's no point in going in there for books, either. There's a Waterstones very close by, and you don't have to wade through the post office queue to get to the books (although you do have to wait ages to pay, as they seem to prioritise selling coffee and cake over selling books).

After visiting next yesterday I wonder how they keep going.

I agree that Whsmith is mega chaotic but I really miss our local branch. Sometimes I just want to buy some pens, colouring books etc. Plus I do find it useful for cards as now we only have the independent card shop (which I use a lot) or a crappy range in Sainsbury’s.

I also love my Laura Ashley sofa & wouldn’t ever buy one without trying it first. I do love JL but don’t shop there for fashion although they have defo upped their game.

I wouldn't miss either of them. Especially Debenhams. It used to be my go to shop. Especially in the sales but over the last few years the quality has gone downhill.

Our nearest house of Fraser is at Bluewater and it's a stone throw from John Lewis - no contest!

"It's small independent shops or specialist shops such as Waterstones we should all be supporting, the likes of Debenhams can fend for themselves."

What a ridiculous statement!

So if a couple of hundred people lose their jobs because the local Debenhams closes down that's OK then?

And if the company closes all of its stores that puts over 8,000 people out of work - and that is also OK?

Also the thing with only shopping online is that it’s quite hard for new brands to establish themselves, (concessions are good for this). It’s fine for the likes of Zara that we have all shopped in & know their styling, fit but how to you discover that new brand. Retailers will concentrate on chasing the youth with the likes of prettylittlething etc.

It's a small thing, but the extra stage makes the rigmarole of finding a well-fitting bra take a bit longer, and makes me feel like I'm asking them to do me a favour, when I am spending £25+ per bra.

Would you (and others) be happy to pay £30 for that same bra in order to have fitting rooms (which are only kept locked due to shoplifting) permanently manned?

I like buying from shops. I want to see the cour, feel the fabric, see hiw things hang, handle a book, turn a saucepan over, gauge the marbling in a piece of beef.

What i love is my local dress shop where they serve, bring other accessories, similar things that i might not have thought about.

I really don't want to see the decline of actual shopping.

It all ties in with the disaster of our economy. People on zero hours contracts, being paid beneath the living wage, prices of everything sky rocketing but wages not following, people can't afford House of Fraser when you can buy what you need (not necessarily want, note the difference) in pound stores and cheapie websites. I did most of my Christmas shopping online because a) I work all the hours on a shitty wage to pay my mortgage so no time for leisurely shopping, and b) i can find everything much cheaper online. I love shops and shopping but I can't afford the time or the money. Some of my colleagues took unpaid leave to go shopping without their kids - I simply can't afford that.