House of Fraser - end of the high st?

[buddhasbelly]

With house of fraser announcing store closures, do you reckon this is the beginning of the end for the high st?

There was a thread a while back about stores we could see closing and HoF and debenhams were mentioned quite a bit.

My money is on wh Smith closing high st branches but keeping train station shops open?

What do wise MNers think?

There’s a H of F in Wolverhampton
Often, the number of staff exceed the number of customers
Not good at all
Then...just before Christmas..Debenhams opened a store in the city centre
That one is beyond dire
Cannot, for the life of me, see either store carrying on for much longer
There’s also a Sainsbury’s and Asda within a mile or so of each other
There’s massive shopping centre in Birmingham and the metro makes travelling there so much easier
I don’t really know anyone who shops in Wolverhampton now

I think there are a number of problems with HOF but overall it’s because of a lack of investment. In stores, marketing, branding. They’ve lost their way. I always seem to turn to John Lewis over HOF or Debenhams.

Also as JL match competitors discounts it doesn’t make sense to go to HOF. JL’s stores are tidier, the displays are better.

I have shopped on-line at HOF but they seem to have a massive unfocused collection of ‘stuff’. There is no defined market.

John Lewis has a huge number of organised customers and provides ready-made kits on behalf of corporate customers that individuals then purchase.

I think the train station stores would be replaced by another brand. I doubt that any high street store chain will remain open in a decade or so when the internet is simply has more choice.

The local butcher and greengrocer are long gone (much cheaper at the supermarket).

Our local greengrocer(s) carry about 20% of what the supermarket does.

Local butcher(s) are even worse.

We had a butcher across the road until not so long ago but last time I went I got sausages that tasted a bit rubbish and fatty.

My friends husband on the other hand, works in one and does fantastic stuff.

Me? I've been doing the m&s 3 for £10 on meat. The chickens don't shrink (so not much water content) and has a good mix of stuff in it (sea bass fillets, duck legs, steak mince). I can't justify the extra from a butcher.

A department store would look ridiculous on most high streets in towns and villages

The Express paper online has just reported that HoF are undergoing crisis talks this weekend to avoid going into administration. If anyone has any HoF vouchers I would suggest going and spending them asap.

I was brought up to be a H of F shopper. Of course the store in my hometown Glasgow is outstanding. It's got everything you'd expect from a department store in terms of variety and customer service. Every other H of F store sucks in comparison. The website is good though but I usually go for John Lewis as I can do click and collect in Waitrose.

I went in a HoF a few weeks back. The staff were appalling! 5 of them stood around the changing rooms but none would engage until I walked past and then they wanted to count items.

And when I asked one for a different size she looked at me like I had a fish for a head.

You don't get that bollocks in JL.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44394948?ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_mchannel=social

It does not surprise me that much. The one local to me is only frequented for the toilets and the staff are completely disinterested.

Yesterday I went to the one on Victoria Street in London and for the first time in almost four years I could see it was busy. This was during lunch hour "rush", usually not even the cosmetics counters are busy with a lot of staff just standing around doing nothing. And there are a lot of potential shoppers around this particular HoF.

Online shopping is the true killer of the high street why would you buy in a store when 9 times out of 10 the online store is cheaper because they have less over heads (Renting a werehouses is cheaper then retail stores) less staff needed Shops cannot compete with online stores.

Shops cannot compete with online stores.

I think niche shops will. Despite it being possible (and cheaper) for me to get homebrew kit online, I prefer to visit a real shop.

The bottom line is very simple: what are high street shops adding to the value of what you are buying ? And is that enough to justify their costs ?

DW and I have long given up looking for stuff in shops after a succession of laughable failures. Cookshops that don't know what a grapefruit knife is. Craft shops that don't know what a chain loop hanger is. Chemists that don't stock TENS pads (looks at Boots). Even Poundshops that can't keep something in stock for five minutes.

All ordered via Amazon (and less often eBay).

Most recent example was glass pipettes. Didn't waste a second trying anywhere in store. Ordered on Amazon, delivered 6 days later from China at £4.80 for 3 (inc. P&P).

A couple of weeks ago, our milk frother thermometer broke. As we were going out anyway, a Google suggested Currys/PC-World actually stocked them. Popped in to be told by the staff "we'd have to order it in.". You can guess where it came from.

DW uses a wheelchair, so gets no pleasure from trying to navigate the highways and byways of questionable accessibility "just in case". And even when accessibility into the store is possible, the never ending quest for end displays and narrow aisles is hardly pleasant.

I think John Lewis have gone massively downhill over the last couple of decades. In terms of both quality and service. Really the only things I would consider buying fro them now are household appliances because the warranties are reasonable and reliable.

They are starting to struggle too. Their current CEO came up through the business and got ahead by restoring profitability to home wares by switching to Chinese/Indian production and being more trend led. This has led to a decline in quality. They are outsourcing more and more.

So I think JL is on the same curve as HoF, maybe 5-10 years behind.

This is apparently the future of shopping- sub high streets with lots of small independent/independent looking shops

How to bring a high st back from the dead

This is apparently the future of shopping- sub high streets with lots of small independent/independent looking shops

There would need to be a sea change and root'n'branch rewriting of tax and business rates first. And since that will happen .... never (even if there were any political will for it) we have to dream instead.

Anyway, did we solve the housing crisis when I popped out for a cup of tea ? You'd think acres of freed-up real estate would be a godsend to a country supposedly struggling with housing.

I’ve never stepped foot in one. Couldn’t even tell you what they sold. Online shopping is much more convenient and cheaper. I wanted a hydrometer £25 local shop manual, £2.09 delivered from eBay and digital.

Ours got rid of everything I went in for - (most of the) Home ware and kitchen ware. They don’t stock kids clothes. They have a massive space just for the pick up service which looks shit.
It sells clothes for teenagers who never go in there.
I don’t think these places know who their customers are at all to be honest.

Ours got rid of everything I went in for - (most of the) Home ware and kitchen ware.

But it's not, really is it ? It's just the popular stuff that Bake Off/Masterchef or whatever have plugged this week. A real kitchen shop would have a grapefruit knife, or filleting knife - but not HoF. Or Debenhams. Or indeed the hipster kitchen shop Stihl. Although they did have cutesy baking cups in a variety of colours.

But then our local butcher doesn't do gammon, rabbit, mutton veal or venison.

I'm sure there's a Monty Python sketch here ...

"Edam ?"
"Always fresh at the beginning of the week, sir."
"Cheddar ?"
"No much call for it round here, sir..."

A lot of my DMs life makes sense now ....

Actually ours had a fabulous kitchen ware section, lots of specialty items. Now have to travel over 50 miles for anything similar.

We must be years behind time, but our local towns have excellent butchers, stock veal, rabbit, gammon, and game in season, at prices that compare well to the supermarkets. Other goods, especially anything out of the ordinary, Amazon is probably better and cheaper... but the delivery vans!

We must be years behind time, but our local towns have excellent butchers, stock veal, rabbit, gammon, and game in season, at prices that compare well to the supermarkets.

I have to thank MrsRossetti for a (bleeding obvious) suggestion of phoning round. (Sometimes old school is best ). Which has saved a lot of time, as so far, we haven't found a butcher that actually has game in. Yes, they "can get it in" .. but that's not quite the same.

Anyway, returning to high street crises, Dixons-CPW have reported a 24% drop in annual profits. Given that they are almost the poster child for no-added-value sales, I wonder how much longer they can stay afloat ?