Metropol

Sports Direct to close House of Fraser's Manchester store
Kendals department store in Deansgate, open for 182 years, will shut in new year

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -deansgate

Debenhams is understood to be seeking to close 50 of its 166 stores in a radical overhaul as it prepares to reveal a record £500m loss.

The struggling department store chain has previously said 10 stores were earmarked for closure over the next five years but has raised that target.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45972428?

ASDA to cut up to 2500 jobs as part of Sainsbury's merger.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45989912

more falling sales from M&S, unsurprisingly sales have dropped because they've been closing stores...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46122177

Yeah. If they close a branch down in Glasgow, will those people go to the one in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, or Dundee instead? A lot of people would go to a competitor that still has a store in Glasgow instead, or just shop online. Not everyone has a car they can use to go to other branches!

MarkAshley wrote: ↑Wed 07 Nov, 2018 19.30

GeekyJames wrote: ↑Wed 07 Nov, 2018 18.20sales have dropped because they've been closing stores

This is what always gets me: the surprise that fewer people will shop in your stores if you close them down.

It’s a surprise to the media who still did the story despite profits being up. They were obviously short of a negative retail story this week.

That ‘retail analyst’ they always drag in must have more money than Mike Ashley the amount of times they call on her to give an opinion that anyone could come out with.

Martin Phillp wrote: ↑Fri 12 Oct, 2018 20.18 The plan for WHSmith Local is that the brand will gradually disappear as contracts run out with each retailer.

There was some mildly interesting stuff in the coverage of WHSmith's results this week - travel stores now making more than half of the profits, high street stores adopting a strategy of pushing up margins rather than going for volume, an aborted attempt to acquire Barnes & Noble and the tidbit that they get an average discount of 27% at lease renewal and pay no rent at all on 15 of their stores. High margins, low/no rent and famously low investment in the store environment is presumably how they manage to eek out a profit from branches in moribund town centres, deserted by almost everyone else.

Reversal of fortunes - it now seems the Intu House of Fraser sites are closing - Lakeside, Metrocentre, Norwich and Nottingham all set to close next year.

Are Eat doing badly? Two branches in the Tottenham Court Road area and one in Covent Garden that I know of have closed down relatively recently, surely two of the busiest areas for the lunchtime trade in the UK. The quality of their baguettes have gone through the floor over the last few years.

Talking of M&S, my area has gone from having no stores for miles around to two in a half mile distance, (first is a Foodhall) with a Simply Food branded store next to the rail station which opened on Thursday. There's also another M&S Simply Food less than a mile away from there in the local hospital, this despite food being loss making.

MarkAshley wrote: ↑Wed 14 Nov, 2018 21.54 Just walked past Bank branch of HoF (City of London) looking shabby and bleak, but littered with dozens of Closing Down 20% Off posters lovingly created in the Simpsons font.

Hull has had the same posters up since they announced that branch's demise, though they've now been amended with the 2 covered up with a 6.