Metropol

Store Twenty One had their own custom Closing Down Sale stuff when they were in administration. They didn't close in the end though, at least not at Crystal Peaks Sheffield.

They closed nearly 80 stores but kept over 100 open.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36841471

An interesting article on WHSmith which I fear is true:

http://life.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/wh- ... arrassment

How would you turn around WHSmith? I think if it moved closer to Waterstone's model that could work...

My local WHSmith (retail) is the only WHSmith store still open locally after other stores which didn't gain Post Office franchises closed. It's a two floor store with the books relegated upstairs with a largely populist choice. It also stocks some DVD's supplied by another company. Staff levels are also low that they don't always have a sales assistant upstairs, so if you buy a DVD, you have to go downstairs, they get the DVD from the upstairs desk and then return. Frustrating things like this that keep WHSmith in the 1980s, despite the new fitted blue carpet.

When I was a child, it was the place to go to get records and the Beano and Dandy which I couldn't get in my local newsagent. When I went in there recently, they didn't even have a copy of Computeractive magazine, which I found in the Travel store in Charing Cross, which bizarrely wasn't shelved with the other PC magazines.

The self-service tills have improved though, I wasn't offered a range of upsell stock before paying and was given the option to have a receipt or not.

Solent James wrote:An interesting article on WHSmith which I fear is true:

http://life.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/wh- ... arrassment

How would you turn around WHSmith? I think if it moved closer to Waterstone's model that could work...

The article is a bit mixed up though, as they seem to be discussing high street stores and travel stores in the same breath. You don't get the bizzare wooden ducks and scarecrows on the high street.

It's not fair to say that books have been relegated to the back. Its always the case that if the store is single fronted it'll be mags at the front, if its double fronted it'll be mags one side, books at the other side.

I do wonder if they ever sell some of those ridiculously priced non-core products that they insist on selling though, like the £6.99 mince pies.

Not always, Andrew. WHSmith in Hull's Prospect Centre has sale stock near the front entrance, and a clearance section at the back, along with the Post Office. The papers and magazines are on one of the side walls, next to the checkouts. The books are in the middle of the shop.

£6.99 for mince pies? £1 is quite enough, for a pack of six (and I don't even mean own brand, you can get Mr Kipling's for a quid).

As long as they have their monopoly with their overpriced travel stores, they aren't going anywhere. Once you're through airport security and fancy a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps you have little choice but to pay their inflated prices. I imagine the ban on taking liquids through secruity has helped them there to, as you can't just take your own drinks.

Magazines have moved to the very back of the (long!) Meadowhall shop too, beside a Costa concession and ModelZone area.

rob wrote:Staples brand to disappear from the High Street.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38013806

I went into a Staples on Sunday. The windows were plastered with posters declaring "BIGGEST EVER SALE! Up to 50% OFF!" in that sortof closing down sale style. Anyway, inside there were only about two small shelves of "SALE" stuff, and the rest of the store was totally as normal - with the usual eye-watering prices.

I bought a couple of things, and asked the till girl if they were going to be closing down. She looked quite shocked and said: "Oh no, no. No. Not at all. We're just getting a new name, we'll be re-branded."
Me: "Oh, and you'll still be open here and selling stationery?"
Her: "Hope so! lol."

If anything untoward does come to pass it wouldn't be the first time corporate management has been less than honest with its front line staff.

I'll always have my "That was easy" button to remember them by.