Another High Street Rebrand

[james2001]

So a mini-revival of British Rail is coming, with Network Rail updating their Station Signage and Wayfinding guidelines, and the government's plan to unify the Railways under the Great British Railways name, and a re-assertion of the "Double Arrows" icon.

Great British Railways will use updated versions of the classic ‘double arrow’ logo as well as the Rail Alphabet typeface, used in this document. Even after 25 years of privatisation, the logo remains the most widely-used and best-recognised symbol of the railways. It is the standard marker on road signs. It appears on most tickets, online, and at the vast majority of stations. It will stay in those places and increasingly appear on trains, uniforms and publicity material too as and when these are upgraded or replaced as a single, unifying brand for the railways. Keeping it also avoids spending money on yet another new railway logo.

Glad to see the black-on-white Rail Alphabet (or at least an updating of it) signage returning, I've never liked any of the replacement styles used by Network Rail or any of the TOCs, not to mention the fact that when TOCs changed they had to either spend money replacing the signs or keeping up signs in a former company's corporate style. I never felt the old British Rail style of signage had dated even though it was from the mid-60s.

Ironic that the likes of GWR and Transport for Wales have only recently stopped using Rail Alphabet signage and started replacing signs in their new corporate styles, and now we're going back wholesale to it.

[Jonwo]

I assume that the likes of London Overground and Merseyrail will keep their branding when GBR launches especially since the former is owned by TFL but operated by Arriva Rail.

[WillPS]

I assume that the likes of London Overground and Merseyrail will keep their branding when GBR launches especially since the former is owned by TFL but operated by Arriva Rail.

Yes, the existing 'concession' arrangements will continue as-is.

The Merseyrail brand predates privatisation by a good 20 years, so you can be pretty sure that one will stick around.

[thegeek]

New design, colour and font for Currys PC World’s instore signage. Not sure whether it’s part of a full rebrand yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for any more changes.

It does appear to be:



https://www.futurebrand.com/our-work/currys

I saw it on the wild on the side of a truck the other day - just on the door, the rest of the vehicle still had Knowhow branding.

[WillPS]

How long do we reckon for Currys as a retail presence then? I've actually used Currys online a fair bit in the last couple of years as they've become very competitive for Switch games and hardware, particularly when combined with the discounted gift cards that are common on employee perk hubs.

The only times I've used their stores in the last 2 years has been to try and get price matches on Now TV stick bundles, which I gave up doing in the end because every time I tried it just felt like a different excuse as to why they wouldn't do it -
"we don't match B&M" (not stated anywhere in their policy)
"you have to prove it's in stock" (which I did with a picture)
"you have to prove it's in stock in x arbitary specific store at this exact moment in time (basically impossible).

Frankly whenever I've had cause to use their shops in the past I feel like I've been treated with distain by staff so I won't cry any tears if they do go online-only.

[thegeek]

I guess they're useful in an Argos kind of way - buy online and go and collect within a few hours. I'm not sure if they'll necessarily keep it post-Covid, but they offered a contact-free collect by car service where they'd drop your purchase straight into your boot.

(In practice, it wasn't so smooth when I tried to use it - despite checking in with their app, I still had to flag someone down in the store to go and get my order for me.)

[bilky asko]

I guess they're useful in an Argos kind of way - buy online and go and collect within a few hours. I'm not sure if they'll necessarily keep it post-Covid, but they offered a contact-free collect by car service where they'd drop your purchase straight into your boot.

(In practice, it wasn't so smooth when I tried to use it - despite checking in with their app, I still had to flag someone down in the store to go and get my order for me.)

I was quite impressed with that particular service, they even opened the boot themselves even though the app said they wouldn't be able to. All over and done with very quickly.

[Pete]

I went recently to buy a laptop. Every model on display that I considered was out of stock. I ended up using Amazon.

I also went to get an oven. It was out of stock.

So I settled on another oven. It was also out of stock.

I ordered from John Lewis instead and it came a few days later.

I did successfully buy a vax recently. But one out of three isn’t really great.

[cwathen]

I went recently to buy a laptop. Every model on display that I considered was out of stock. I ended up using Amazon.

I also went to get an oven. It was out of stock.

So I settled on another oven. It was also out of stock.

I ordered from John Lewis instead and it came a few days later.

I did successfully buy a vax recently. But one out of three isn’t really great.

One fundamental advantage a traditional retailer has going for it is immediacy; you see something, you buy it, you get it now. Granted if you live in a major city you might be able to get a few bits from Amazon delivered the same day but that's rare. In general if you buy something online you wait for it to be delivered. This is something traditional bricks & mortar retail could capitalise on far more than it does.

When it comes to white goods in particular, most purchases will be distressed so it is absolutely critical that items be in stock to either take away on the spot if you can or if you need delivery that this can be done quickly as a local operation same day/next day. If you're going to have to wait you may as well just buy on line and save the pennies (having first used Currys as a free showroom).

It's a case of too much breadth and not enough depth; far better to have a smaller range backed up with stock in store than to have a huge range on display but nothing out the back.

Argos seem to have fallen into a similar trap after they have (at least once, possibly twice?) massively extended their range as to what allegedly is available in a standard format Argos store (obviously Sainsburys concessions are different in terms of what they can hold) such that the final printed Argos book of last year was 3 times the thickness of that from 25 years ago, but on the ground I hardly ever seem to find my first choice of item in stock now, and if I've got to wait a day or two anyway I might as well have a quick look on Amazon. Yet back in the 90's you would venture out to buy something from Argos based only on seeing it in a paper catalogue printed months ago but would expect any Argos store to have that item if it was a standard stock item. And they almost always did. Of course stock outs happened, but they seemed to be rare. The model worked far better with a smaller range than it does now, and if it was still like that today that immediate availability could offer them an advantage which at present they are unable to capitalise on by trying to carry too much stuff.

[WillPS]

I'm not sure if Currys stores hold stocks of white goods beyond the display models do they? Certainly when I've asked it's been 'order here and we'll deliver in a few days', so no better than AO in that regard.

[WillPS]

HMV have rebranded using the slightly bizarre 80s variant 'the HMV shop' name: