High Street chain collapse sweepstake

[scottishtv]

In November last year, Caffè Nero told 69 landlords of their worst performing stores not to expect any rent for the next 3 years. This resulted in legal action, including from local authority landlords. Maybe the intention was to get out of the leases but at least with other High Street chains, they've bit the bullet on store closures and are being a bit more honest.

In other food and drink news, Pret emailed me a survey this week asking if loyalty points would cheapen their brand, and if they should offer meal deals.

[Martin Phillp]

Jessops again.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/j ... n=sharebar

[rob]

Peacocks saved.

[thegeek]

Frasers took down the sign from the listed Jenner's building in Edinburgh the other week - now they've been told they need to put it back.

[thegeek]

The EAT branch in Westfield Stratford, which closed at the end of January, isn't showing much sign of reopening as a Pret. I didn't think they'd have had a huge amount of work to do to switch brands, so I'm curious to know how far along they got in February/March before it all ground to a halt, and at what point they decide whether it's worth opening again at all.

(It's still covered in 'Pret opening soon' decals - you'd think they'd at least update them to direct people to their other branch)

I'm surprised they haven't closed the other branch and opened this one instead. The footfall outside the old Eat is huge compared to the one by Sports Direct.

I think there was a fair amount of work going on in there pre-lockdown though so maybe it remains unfinished.

It has, at last, opened. Judging by the balloons on the tables, I'd imagine yesterday or today.

[gottago]

The EAT branch in Westfield Stratford, which closed at the end of January, isn't showing much sign of reopening as a Pret. I didn't think they'd have had a huge amount of work to do to switch brands, so I'm curious to know how far along they got in February/March before it all ground to a halt, and at what point they decide whether it's worth opening again at all.

(It's still covered in 'Pret opening soon' decals - you'd think they'd at least update them to direct people to their other branch)

I'm surprised they haven't closed the other branch and opened this one instead. The footfall outside the old Eat is huge compared to the one by Sports Direct.

I think there was a fair amount of work going on in there pre-lockdown though so maybe it remains unfinished.

It has, at last, opened. Judging by the balloons on the tables, I'd imagine yesterday or today.

I noticed that, I assume it no longer has the old Eat's bizarre opening time of 4:45am!

After all the misery Pret went through over the last year I'm amazed we haven't seen them announce tonnes more store closures. With towns getting busy again I assume they'll be keeping and soon reopening what they've still got.

[Charlie Wells]

Over the past few weeks whilst out shopping with the wife I've visited three different Wilko stores. In all of them there have been quite a few noticeable gaps on the shelves. I wonder whether that could be due to the Suez canal backlog, Brexit, or cashflow problems.

[Jonwo]

Over the past few weeks whilst out shopping with the wife I've visited three different Wilko stores. In all of them there have been quite a few noticeable gaps on the shelves. I wonder whether that could be due to the Suez canal backlog, Brexit, or cashflow problems.

Probably a combination of the first two, they don't seem to be struggling as far as I'm aware.

[Martin Phillp]

Over the past few weeks whilst out shopping with the wife I've visited three different Wilko stores. In all of them there have been quite a few noticeable gaps on the shelves. I wonder whether that could be due to the Suez canal backlog, Brexit, or cashflow problems.

Since lockdown Wilko have had issues with deliveries, my local store only receives one delivery per week which is why it resembles the early days of panic buying on some shelves.

Incidentally I hate what they've done to the tills, turning them into card only self-service machines which are so useless that there's always a staff member who ends up doing it for the customer anyway! So it's no surprise that there's a massive queue for the one staffed till that accepts cash.

They'd be better off ripping those standard tills out and using the self checkouts used at IKEA.

[BBC TV Centre]

I've never noticed any particular signifcant gaps in my local Wilko, there are one or two items that are sold out, but the place does not look ransacked. Maybe it's a regional thing?

I suppose the self-service mode on Wilko tills is a bit of a quick-thinking kludge in response to the pandemic, since the UI appears to be what the cashiers use daily. As in it's the actual till software but the cash drawer/other functions disabled for self-service use.

I mean, it's cheaper to modify what they have rather than go to the cost of writing an entirely new system, or buying in dedicated self-service hardware. I think it's quite clever the way they have done it, as they have used what they have and can presumably flex the positions between self-service and manned by just turning the screen around and logging in the self-service user..

Whilst it is not as intuitive as some of the dedicated self service checkouts, it is by no means hard to use.

Since we are on the topic of self-service tills, I have never understood the logic of why supermarkets do not let you remove items of shopping from your session without operator intervention, yet if you pick up one of the handheld scanners you are free to delete as you so wish?

[all new Phil]

I can remember one supermarket (possibly Asda) trialling a till system that allowed it to be both manned or self serve, with the screen spinning round and the interface changing depending on what mode it was in. Never really seen them since so I guess it was logistically a bit of a challenge - not overly clear where was manned and where wasn’t.