Goodbye Woolies!

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I took a trip to the town where I was born and bred and had a wander around with my camera earlier today. It's been a good while since I've had a walk around the shops.......and it was quite saddening to see how much the town has changed.....and not for the better!

It was once a thriving market town! However there are now empty shops.......and soon to be one more!

Goodbye Woolies! :wave:


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Such a shame for all the staff involved, thousands of people bringing in the new year, with no financial security, and soon to be no job. This, for some, will result in divorce, loss of home, and I bet worse.

Happy new year, Not.

Gary.
 
EdinburghGary said:
Such a shame for all the staff involved, thousands of people bringing in the new year, with no financial security, and soon to be no job. This, for some, will result in divorce, loss of home, and I bet worse.

Happy new year, Not.

Gary.
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:agree: A very bad time :(
 
Was in my local store looking at the fixtures to see if there was anything I could use, the staff, as expected, looked really downhearted, it must be terrible for them to be selling the fixtures, even the staff lockers had a price on them.:(:(:(
 
I've still got my uniform and name badge from there when I worked there while at Uni. :(
 
It's a real shame, I was in on of the Glasgow stores at the weekend and it was really sad to see, as Galaxy66 says, all the fittings priced up too. Unfortunately, just like everything else in the store the fixtures and fittings were out of date and over priced, so they'll probably struggle even to shift those.

The staff were all blaming it on the credit crunch, but in Woolworths' case years and years of poor management are every bit as much to blame. Not that that will be of any consolation to all those poor souls who are finding themselves jobless as the new year dawns, through no fault of their own :(
 
You can blame the credit crunch and bad management, but there isnt any getting away from the fact that WE the public have a hand in closing high street companies, which could result in killing towns and villages.
 
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Picture 1, it looks distinctly like someone has even purchased the external sign, which i assume would have been illuminated above the doors!
 
dcash29 said:
You can blame the credit crunch and bad management, but there isnt any getting away from the fact that WE the public have a hand in closing high street companies, which could result in killing towns and villages.
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I would disagree with that statement, Woolies (as a company) in particular brought most of this on themselves, the death of small town high streets has been mainly down to the big players relocating to huge out of town retail parks.

The buying public will go where the shops are - if there were no huge shopping centres and all the big stores were still in town centres then the other local businesses would still get passing trade.

On a related note it's ironic that the C of E are making such a big noise about everyone living beyond their means and being materialistic when their property portfolio contains some of the biggest shopping centres in the country...
 
i noticed as well with woolies they were more expensive for most things so where would u go to a place where you pay more or to a cheaper place and save some pennies. if they had been price competitive perhaps they would have been saved
 
I would disagree with that statement, Woolies (as a company) in particular brought most of this on themselves, the death of small town high streets has been mainly down to the big players relocating to huge out of town retail parks.

The buying public will go where the shops are - if there were no huge shopping centres and all the big stores were still in town centres then the other local businesses would still get passing trade.
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There are still local shops, they add a unit on a retail park in most instances, stop shopping there and the shops would survive.

i noticed as well with woolies they were more expensive for most things so where would u go to a place where you pay more or to a cheaper place and save some pennies. if they had been price competitive perhaps they would have been saved
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If i can i buy locally i do even though its marginally dearer or ask the shop to match

Eg. local shop selling top brand A3 inkjet paper, buy one get one free. Thats half the price of 7 day shop
 
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the death of small town high streets has been mainly down to the big players relocating to huge out of town retail parks.
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... and many greedy councils who still keep raising the rates for the town centre shop owners instead of lowering them to attract more custom. Tamworth town centre has already lost around 20% of its town centre businesses, will the remaining cover the cost of this in higher rates for 2009, I dont think they will be able to afford to and still be competitive .... or will the council accept the loss and try to get it out of us, the council tax payers?
 
Yeah.....Adams has also gone into administration! Who's it going to be next? :(
 
My mum worked in woolies for years as a youngster, she is 74 now and nearly in tears when we went in just before christmas, all the staff looked so down
 
Just popped in now and saw a single, lonely cola bottle in one of those pic'n'mix containers. The ones that used to be full to bursting point.

RIP Woolies.
 
Such a sad state of affairs and unfortunately there's more to come. Woolies will be greatly missed on the high street. In Edinburgh (Big W) people were actually fighting and causing major disturbances when Woolies started their death sale, the Police had to be called to restore order. Such a shame that people threaten shop staff trying to bag a bargain. I really feel sorry for everyone who works for woolies and my heart goes out to them all :(
 
Such a shame. For every one Woolies must be one of the abbiding memories of their local towns high street. I've used Woolies all of my life, and continued to up till it's demise.

It was poor management, the same as with the banks, that has brought about the present predicament. We the general public, as allways will bear the brunt off their stupidity and greed.
 
In Warrington they built a huge new shopping centre which is just full of brand names like every other shopping centre in the UK, all it did was move the shopping area 400 yards as all the big names upped sticks and moved into the new centre, this has had a big effect on the rest of the shops left on the "wrong" side of town as most of their passing trade has gone
 
dcash29 said:
There are still local shops, they add a unit on a retail park in most instances, stop shopping there and the shops would survive.
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Unfortunately we have little choice. Most of what we need has moved to the retail parks. I would love to be able to get everything I need in the town centre, it would be easier to just park the once rather than move from retail park to retail park.

In any case, you can really blame the retail parks for the closure of Woollies. Their main competition was in the town/shopping centres alongside them.
 
It's upsetting, especially when so many of my friends around me are losing their jobs.
I'm only a student, so it's not as if my work is my living. But I didn't think that my life would be so eventful. Before me in the previous century we had 2 world wars, the creation of the nuclear bomb, technology had advanced an unreal amount, the moon landing, etc etc.

Now in the new century we have so far tallied up 9/11, 7/7, the credit crunch, the hanging of Saddam Hussein, fuel being priced at extortionate costs, to name a few. looks like this century has got off to a cracking start.
 
well sad it is, but with upto 70% off, my son was on a christmas lego mission (pictures to follow) we went to the till and the box he had was £34.00 after the discount, in tesco it was £29.00 instock and in argos (out of stock) it was £19.00 so why would you want to buy from a over sized pic and mix shop! before it shut down.

Michael
 
Woolworths have been stuck in a time warp for decades, they should have been taken over long ago from by a modern entrepreneur, who would have given what it needed, a damn good makeover including a new name / logo / colour scheme and a rigorous pricing structure after losing the non profit making lines.

Too late now. Theo "Profiterole" (dragon's den):D, or whatever his name is if I could spell it:D, could have done the business had the rot not already set in which is why he probably pulled out.
 
I heard Theo 'Profiterole' Paphitis :)lol:) pulled out because Deloitte didn't want to split Woolworths up. Apparently there were a number of offers to buy large stakes in Woolies but the administrators said no each time.... I find that really strange. If they were allowed say 75% of a company then surely that would have been a credible deal? In my opinion Deloitte handled it terribly and should be investigated for it's handling of it. It's also ironic that the government considers saving 15,000 jobs in the motor industry, yet doesn't lift a finger for a national symbol like Woolies (which is a British company, unlike Jaguar/Land Rover, owned by Indians)....

It's a shame for our small town, I bought many many DVD's from them. My fiancee was in tears during it's last days - we heard lots of shoppers were being abusive to the staff, so we went out and got some large boxes of chocs, and gave them to the manager. He'd helped us out when my fiancee had lost her credit card and was an absolute star. We don't have many shops here anyway, and the loss of a shop that has DVD's, Music, Toys and a decent range of sweets will be felt next Christmas season...

We'll miss you woolies :crying:
 
I cant remember the exact reason, but Im sure the was an incentive for the administrators not to sell wollies, I have a feeling its something to do with the land value of the shop but Ill ask around and find out what it was again.. also I heard that the managers got a £1000 bonus if they sold everything, including fittings, in their store.

Many entreprenaurs wouldnt step in before the business goes into administration because then you have to honour contracts. Most businessmen wait for a company to go to the administrators, then they snap it up as you can terminate contracts such as shop ones, so if you wanted to axe a dozen stores you could do so with no penalty. Also it didnt really make much sense for Paphitis to take over, considering it could be classed as competition for some of his brands like Rymans.

Regards, James
 
richrock said:
yet doesn't lift a finger for a national symbol like Woolies (which is a British company, unlike Jaguar/Land Rover, owned by Indians)....
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Can't disagree with the national symbol bit but it's not all that British either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Woolworth_Company

Like many people I worked at Woolies on a Saturdays whilst doing my A Levels but rarely used it in recent years as there was no reason to - grotty shops, not cheap etc etc

Basically it's business model was being performed far better by it's competition - not a recipe for success.
 
Sad to see it go in its centenary year. Heard that Wedgwood, which would have celebrated its 250th anniversary this year, is also going into administration. Tough times. Not good.
 
just a quick snap, but this is the shell of what used to be a bustling Woolies.

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