RIP: Blockbuster

M&S offers nearly that now. Order online for delivery to your local shop, where you can also return it if you don't like it. Don't need a warehouse at the local shop if the customer is prepared to wait the same time as for an Internet delivery to the home.

Bloody hell. I didn't know that. And my best mate works for them!

Good. The sooner the better.

Have to say, I rather thought many shops would have gone down a related route many years ago. When Sunday trading started, quite a lot of shops either stayed closed or opened completely with all the attendant overheads.

I can think of a tool shop not so far away which could, perhaps, have managed a serviced counter on Sundays (and maybe to open later into the evening) and by so doing would likely have picked up quite a lot of sales which instead went to the sheds, SF, etc.

Except for many the nearest M&S shop is quite a distance away. In our case about 30 miles... However getting stuff delivered to that shop specifically for you means they will have stock. B-)

I do make good use of the various store stock check systems. Going a few extra miles on a trip that is going to happen anyway knowing that either what you want is reserved or at least in stock is a lot better than going "on spec".

My father was involved in retail at the time and I got a running commentary. I see that Wikipedia documents it too, briefly.

Please let it be true.

No, that's already under new management I think the crappy clothes shops. Gap, Next Debenhams..

Customer returns would be higher, but probably much lower rates of shrinkage through theft and shop soiling.

Owain

They're at a dangerous age (founded 1937) q.v. Jessops (1935) and Comet (1933)

Except for IKEA, whose stock control system has an overactive imagination.

S'where I looked it up, innit.

En el artículo , Mike Tomlinson escribió:

H'm. Maybe not:

Several have gone already. There was a nice page on the BBC site that listed the retailers that had gone bust in recent years but can I find it now...

Debenhams might, doesn't have enough range just clothes and make up. At least that was all I could find the last time I went into a Debenhams maybe a decade ago, haven't been in since as they didn't appear to sell anything I want. No "hardware basement", white goods, kitchen ware, soft furnishings, furniture, etc.

With Comet gone I shouldn't think Currys is likely to go. I can't think of another whitegoods retailer I'd look in other than John Lewis but they don't have anything like the "High St" coverage of either Comet or Currys.

We don't shop at ikea...

I thought I had read Debenhams had an excellent pre-Christmas time?

Primark is attributing unexpected good results in part to a drop in cotton prices. That, no doubt, also benefits other clothes shops.

Colin Bignell

Nothing wrong with Next. I shopped there for the first timne only recently fo myself and interviuew suits for the two eldest kids. One was a very nice suit in fact, made in England from English cloth. Figured out the size and style in the shop then bought on-line in the sale and collected from the shop a few days later.

I wonder how many were previously bought by "venture capitalists" and then loaded with debt during better times?

Or how many were previously in trouble and "rescued" only to prolong the agony?

MBQ

Just reported good sales over Xmas at Currys and PC World.

MBQ