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?

frogsoup and buxbaum a branch has just opened in Oxford (well December last year sort of time) so they are no longer confined to London and Bluewater... Maybe it is the start of a spread north.

Whilst the north may have less wealth overall, it is mad not to acknowledge Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle all of which would be entirely capable of supporting branches of shops. At least as capable as Oxford...

But Haribol all the towns in the north are just charity shops and pay day loans people, surely?

Ah, thanks Eddie - I didn't know about that one. We're in the Midlands so Oxford is within striking distance for us [plans trip]

Are people all over the country desperately crying out for a local Uniqlo then? It's OK to pick up a few practical staples but in the main is pretty boring and drab. I can understand why they don't have shops all over the UK tbh.

Er get over it- efficiency is key to a company being liquid and viable, expansion too soon or in areas without strong supply chains quickly aide issues. Without supply and demand along the way it's usually unviable
A company that launched in Manchester for example would not open a second branch in London before say Liverpool or Sheffield.
I am not south BTW

Buxbaum, their website must be out of date then as I can see eight in London plus Surrey, Oxford and Kent.
Anyway it appears IABU but BarbaraofSeville gets it - it's the fact that Leeds is a major city and there are plenty of people with money here (otherwise I'm sure Harvey Nichols wouldn't have bothered).
I get that it's their business model but it still pisses me off! I think I will do the mass ordering and returning thing though - I hadn't thought of that!

A what about Muji?
They only have a shop in Birmingham and a concession in the Trafford centre.

I sympathise but with the advance in online shopping stores generally all over are closing. It's all about profit after all

There are a distinct lack of Waitroses up north

There's 2 in Edinburgh - that far enough north for you?

I live in the South and I'm so grateful we now have Morrisons, it sells proper food and ingredients rather than endless shelves of ready meals. It's own brand Muscadet is very nice too. We don't have a B&M though - I hear about it on MN and would love to visit one of these places of wondrous bargains.

OTH we spend 8-10 weeks a year in the rural north of Ireland and there is not a single Waitrose in the whole of Ireland. Not one! It's inhumane. How am I supposed to go to get my pistachio and almond chocolate and my 50:50mfresh picked crab meat?

wordgirl

I mentioned that Bluewater was the only one outside of the M25 - by a few hundred metres. That's the Kent one.

The Surrey one is in Kingston, which is within the M25, part of Greater London, and in TfL zone 6.

I didn't know about the brand-new Oxford branch until Eddie mentioned it upthread.

Like craicdealer said - spare a thought for us in Northern Ireland- none of these lovely stores and if you order online you take your chances with delivery costs with companies who decide that the little bit of water will add £10 onto delivery. Even though Royal Mail service us with the same costs! And even Hermes manage to do it! Seriously, despite differing political viewpoints - we are technically part of the uk and should be treated as such - the same goes for the Highlands and Islands who are lumped into the same you're too far away we will charge you more. Humph - rant over

Although to be pedantic, Oxfordshire isn't a home county.

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

The one at Lane Ends closed. not a naice enough area, I suppose, to compete with Tesco metro. Also, booths may be in some financial straits www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/26/grocer-booths-up-for-sale-says-report-supermarket-chain

Joking apart, there isn't so much disposable income up north, and it's likely to get worse.

It's all just 'down south' to me

I can get to a Waitrose and a Booths quite easily — Cheshire (golden triangle).

Isn’t Budgens the southern version of Booths? Or were my southern relatives just clutching at straws?

What exactly is Booths? I'm in Scotland, I don't think we have any here. (I'm too lazy to Google)

Booths is a posh supermarket - posher than Waitrose, if you can imagine that!

Budgets has franchises and if you get a good one (like ours) they are fantastic. The bog standard ones are shite

That wealth map is such a load of tosh and not related to disposable income at all. For a lot of companies there is short-sightedness about comparative spending power of regions and demographics and they often make choices based on perceptions rather than research.

I remember conducting customer analysis for a company once that was determined it was going to target affluent Londoners and wanted us to conduct sessions across the different boroughs. We suggested perhaps looking at the Midlands / North England / Scotland as well because our experience was that it would be a good place for them and eventually they very reluctantly agreed to one afternoon session in Manchester.

Of course, as we'd predicted, the proposition was much better received in Manchester, the consumers showed much higher levels of disposable income and higher propensity to spend rather than being forced to pay higher housing costs and save towards housing deposits etc. They had loads more sessions across Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Cardiff after that which showed similar results and changed their strategy although they still decided to target the trendy twenties age rather than the considerably more likely to spend 30-50 age range.

I thought, incorrectly it seems, that Budgens was like a downmarket Iceland.

Thank you Wordgirl. Ill have to try to visit one sometime.

buxbaum the Oxford branch is part of a new shopping, food and cinema complex in the city centre so actually quite trip worthy as it has all few things I'd never heard of - though a friend from London tells me they were all trendy a few years ago and are now a bit mainstream!

(and of course there's still all the colleges and history and stuff)