High Street chain collapse sweepstake

[Alexia]

Got some slightly decent daps from Bank - 2 for £30.

Then a year later got some replacement decentish daps from Deichmann - 3 pairs for £40.

Deichmann ones were / are better.

[bilky asko]

Deichmann

I have only bought one pair of shoes from Deichmann (and, as I no longer live in Hull, that will probably be my only pair), but I have to say that they were certainly worth the money. It's like Brantano but cheaper, with nicer shoes, and better quality (and no sales staff staring at you because you're the only person in their vast, empty store).

I only ever walked past Bank (again, in Hull), but I seem to remember it being overpriced, and fairly busy. They seemed to have a certain sort of clientèle that didn't appeal to me, though.

[thegeek]

Fashion retailer Bank has entered administration today. I don't think I've ever entered any of their 84 shops.

I don't think I'd seen one until I was in Glasgow just before Christmas, and saw a big backlit "Bank" sign - my first thought was "I didn't know that Bank of Scotland had a branch there"

[cwathen]

DPD is by far the best courier in my experience. The only time they have let me down is when they arrived 10 minutes after the one hour delivery window they provided.

Perhaps it depends on who has booked them, but DPD were utter shite when Orange had booked them to deliver my phone last year (oh, the year before now, still seems strange)...gave me a 4 hour delivery slot. Called them when they were half an hour outside of it to find their customer service centre does nothing more than give you generic information you can already find out yourself from the website and apologise.

Got told that they can't contact the local depot, when pushing them on this point she then decided they could but only by email, and even then the depot has no way of contacting the drivers on their vans (which I found extremely unlikely). Asked to speak to a manager, but was told I couldn't as she was 'in a meeting' until I said I would hold when she suddenly appeared but still maintained that a delivery company has no way of finding out where it's delivery drivers are.

Eventually the phone turned up 2 hours out of the slot, to which the driver apologised copiously, confirmed it was utter bollocks that the depot can't contact the driver (and that the call centre can't contact the depot), and added that he could have told me at 8AM this morning that he wouldn't be able get to me within the timeslot but would have been able to tell me when he would get to me so I could get on with my day in the meantime. He also added that actually keeping customers in the loop is essentially a banned practice at the company.

[Andrew]

I'm surprised Bank are going under. There are a lot of people who wear that trendy branded stuff, and there isn't really that many places you can get that sort of thing

Of course if you are a 3 for £10 plain t-shirt type of person it wouldn't suit, but many people aren't in that category.

[barcode]

The trouble was, the Bank store in Livingston was a bit pointless since nearly all the brands it was showing off had there own store near by.

[Critique]

The trouble was, the Bank store in Livingston was a bit pointless since nearly all the brands it was showing off had there own store near by.

I'm not sure one branch of Bank was the reason they all went into administration...

[barcode]

what I meant was there were compete against the same shops there. Superdry and Jack jones are within metre from banks. Banks was never great to begin with. Republic was good but I've never seen any decent replacement, USC has also now fallen into Administration.

I dont think any of these shops have been selling good enough clothes, Blue inc is another one. I just think there trying to peedal crap, I can never find stuff I wont to buy, most time when I do visit the shop just in case other stuff appears , the shops are empty or people are just looking.

[AJ]

Not a collapse, but my local BHS in Reading has closed down in the last couple of weeks.

Unsurprisingly, due to the size of the shop, it's left a pretty big hole in the high street. I'm not quite sure what retailer will take the unit either - there's already a large Debenhams, John Lewis, House of Fraser, Primark and M&S here. And one of the Poundland stores here (which could be a likely candidate) got shut down by bailiffs last year.

Seems like a strange move to close it - the store had only just had a £2.5million refurbishment a few years back. That said - I can't remember the last time I ever bought anything in a BHS (aside from the occasional breakfast).

Fun fact: a woman once got locked in that particular store, having fallen asleep on the toilet.

[JAS84]

Wait, Poundland got evicted by bailiffs? So I guess the rent wasn't getting paid? How on Earth could they not afford it?

[WillPS]

Wait, Poundland got evicted by bailiffs? So I guess the rent wasn't getting paid? How on Earth could they not afford it?

Many big retailers make a lot of their profit simply by holding out on paying invoices for as long as they can and accruing interest on their cash balance. This is particularly prevalent in the discount sector - and indeed some stores historically made all their money by selling goods at or even slightly below cost and holding off on payments as long as possible (this is called the "baby shark" method).

When a commercial rent falls in to arrears, landlords can instruct agents to recover the property and goods/cash to cover the debt at no notice if they so choose. Poundland obviously played hardball and the landlords called their bluff.