Not to buy stuff online from companies that think the North doesn't exist?

[wordgirl]

I'm looking at you Uniqlo - loads of branches in London and Home Counties and nothing at all in the rest of the country. Is our money not good enough?
Today I have had an e-mail from Rituals inviting me to attend a special evening. Very nice but I'm in Leeds and my closest branch is over 100 miles away in Leicester whereas there are 11 branches in London. I'm not likely to buy smelly stuff online without being able to sniff it beforehand so what's the point?

If uniglo opened a branch in Liverpool or Manchester it would thrive.

I don't think a 'business decision' is the reason they aren't in the north....perhaps they are wary of the white walkers?

Stereotype much cream?

Spare a thought for us in NI- no Waitrose, no John Lewis, no Selfridges, Harvey Nicols or Uniqlo, no Victoria's Secret, no Forever 21, no White Company, no Anthropologie. Somehow we manage with online ordering.

Gah. They aren't just 'not in the north'. They aren't anywhere outside London!!!

I wonder why Don't

For the same reason as there aren't many Waitrose's in the North, Dolphin

I can't actually work out what your response and smiley mean.

There used to a Rituals in York but it's closed down 'permanently'.

I fancy a massive scone now. Apparently its a 4 hour drive to Booths. Is it worth it?

I'm in the south west and have the same issue. Fed up with being told Bristol or Southampton are my nearest shopping options. (Happily I only ever seem to want to buy wellington boots these days, so it doesn't really matter!)

Uniqlo used to have twenty-one stores in the UK (inc Liverpool, Manchester, Solihull etc) but they did very badly and they closed all but five in 2003. They were badly burned and I'm not surprised that they are reluctant to expand again. All five are in London with the sole exception of Bluewater, which is within a few hundred metres of the M25. There are none in the Home Counties.

The high street looked very different then, though, and at the time Uniqlo couldn't compete with Gap. Now that Gap is on its uppers there is a bigger gap in the market.

sarahjconnor that is a lovely story. :)

Leeds isn't the North...

Well it certainly isn’t the Midlands or the South.

Beware of ordering from Uniqlo. They only use Hermes, and I never received an order that contained Christmas presents as “they couldn’t find my house” - multiple failed attempts on the online tracking. I love their clothes but I’d never order from them online again. The customer service was also woeful when I was trying to find my package.

Limited disposable income in many northern areas. Towns there seem to be dominated by book makers, charity shops and money lending places

Given the enormous cost of housing in London and the South East, I would be surprised if median disposable incomes were significantly higher than in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc.

Or perhaps they believe the Mumsnet myth that there are no jobs outside London and if they are they are all zero hours NMW gigs (clue - we still have doctors, nurses, fire fighters, teachers, accountants, etc in the North and they are paid a wage that can allow a comfortable lifestyle, ability to purchase an entire house and have disposable income too).

OP I agree, it is short sighted and unfair that the likes of Uniqlo concentrate all their shops in London. I do shop with them. I simply order everything I like the look of in multiple sizes and send back 80/90% of what I order.

If that doesn't suit them, they can damn well put a shop in my nearest city and I will go there, like most other people who live nearby .

There was one in Manchester ( and Birmingham) I think about ten years ago. Not heard anything since this article but there is building work at the old bhs so might be right.. apologies if link doesn't work, not sure how to post them www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/manchester-arndale-bhs-uniqlo-opening-12886402

North West here and have a waitrose 2 mins from work and another a couple of miles from my house. Not that it matters when Ocado and waitrose deliver anyway. Alot of the usual stereotypes going on in this thread

You could say this about loads of companies. I live in the south and there's 1 Bravissimo about an hour and half away but it seems they have loads up north.

maybe ladies in the north have bigger boobs (jealous)

I live in the Western Isles, so I haven't seen joined-up shops for quite some time. I don't care about where the shops are, just if they will deliver here and not charge me an arm and a leg.

Thanks buxbaum. So they did have stores all over! I wish people would rtft before wildly speculating about why Uniqlo hates the north

Leeds is most certainly the north of England.

Waitrose location map:

http://www.kevinlaurence.net/googlemaps/waitrose.html

I'm in one of the northern areas that has one.

As to non-food shops - well, obviously what matters up here is the availability of warm clothes and goretex, there's no shortage of outdoors shops.

But there's a huge difference between living on a remote island with a tiny population and living in some of the UKs largest cities.

You don't expect every shop etc on your doorstep when you live somewhere very remote, but there isn't much shop/restaurant-wise that exists in London that doesn't feature in Leeds, Manchester Birmingham etc, so you do notice when it doesn't.

Ha ha. That glaring gap on the Waitrose map between Newcastle and approx the M62 pretty much outlines where all the Booths stores are.

Waitrose clearly realise that there's no point setting up shop on Booths doorstep, as they would be the downmarket relation for once.

We have one Waitrose (preston) but lots of Booths..