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Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 16.35
by g67bbx
Charlie Wells wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 14.30 Perhaps worth noting that quite a few of these stores have local Post Offices within them, sometimes with separately staffed counters/areas within the store.
It is not unheard of for stores to "close" but the post office to continue trading.

WHSmith Aldershot for example. Shop closed but post office counter reopened within a couple of days run by someone else. And a big empty shop.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 16.39
by WillPS
g67bbx wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 16.35
Charlie Wells wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 14.30 Perhaps worth noting that quite a few of these stores have local Post Offices within them, sometimes with separately staffed counters/areas within the store.
It is not unheard of for stores to "close" but the post office to continue trading.

WHSmith Aldershot for example. Shop closed but post office counter reopened within a couple of days run by someone else. And a big empty shop.
I feel like I mention this every 6 months - Sheffield Co-op Department Store held the city's main Post Office on its 1st floor for a good 5 or 6 years beyond the date when the Department Store closed. There was a little boxed in corridor guiding people from a side door up a ramp to it.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 18.10
by JAS84
Issa brothers interested too. Asda Vs Morrisons!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61351412

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 19.35
by all new Phil
The idea of the Issa brothers taking it on is interesting, especially as Asda haven’t really ventured too far into the convenience world.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 19.39
by Martin Phillp
g67bbx wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 16.35
Charlie Wells wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 14.30 Perhaps worth noting that quite a few of these stores have local Post Offices within them, sometimes with separately staffed counters/areas within the store.
It is not unheard of for stores to "close" but the post office to continue trading.

WHSmith Aldershot for example. Shop closed but post office counter reopened within a couple of days run by someone else. And a big empty shop.
We had that locally for at least two years. The convenience store closed but the sub-post office carried on, it moved to another convenience store up the road but closed after three months.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 19.56
by WillPS
all new Phil wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 19.35 The idea of the Issa brothers taking it on is interesting, especially as Asda haven’t really ventured too far into the convenience world.
EG Group are rolling out 'Asda On The Move' quite rapidly at the moment, replacing their larger Spar forecourts.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 20.44
by cwathen
Was really unsure where chat about the McColl's collapse > potential Morrisons takeover > potential EG Group takeover should go, glad it has been decided upon.

Really looking at this from the Morrisons angle. Before Morrisons Daily, before the relaunch of the Safeway Brand, and even before M Local, what Sainsbury's and Tesco got right about their small format stores was they were offering something that whilst far short of a full supermarket was still recognisably part of the same group, located in residential areas where previously the best you could hope for would be a small independent booze & cigarette shop, or indeed something like a McColl's. When Morrisons did M Local, what they got right was they had launched a bonefide small-format version of a Morrisons supermarket. What they got wrong was the belief they had to hit the ground running with a large portfolio of these stores, and that could best be achieved by taking on loads of ex-Blockbuster units. Those units were typically located in central areas where a small-format Morrisons store just wasn't the right offering and rather predictably it flopped. Had they gone about it more organically and bothered to research sites in out of town areas where there were either no convenience stores or where Tesco/Sainsbury's were not present then M Local could have been a credible player.

Then a couple of years later when Morrison's went into the supply deal with McColl's and relaunched the dormant Safeway brand to avoid their own brand being used in these locations that was a surprising, but seemingly well-managed move. They don't get the Kudos of having a small format store that the other 2 have, but they can still make the money from it.

And then we got Morrison's Daily. That was really, really weird. Having put so much effort into keeping their brand out of McColl's stores only a year or so previously suddenly they had it plastered on the fascia of them. And no real change has necessarily gone on inside these shops. I was at the one in Minehead last week and it is still just a tatty old McColl's store inside with a limited range yet says Morrisons on the front. This is not the way to compete with Tesco and Sainsbury's on small-format stores.

Then for any potential buyer there is the question of where McColl's sits and what actually needs to be done with the business to turn it around. For me, McColl's despite it's ubiquity has always sat rather awkwardly in terms of who it is supposed to appeal to. A true small format supermarket from Tesco or Sainsbury's is a big draw in a residential area, whilst small independents build up loyalty and have their own appeal. But who actually *wants* a McColl's to be their local convenience store? I just see them as something that is accepted and tolerated and viewed as better than nothing than rather than what anyone's ideal solution for local convenience shopping should be.

But when they often have zero competition in the immediate area, and that they are largely making their money selling products that would already be high margin that are then pushed even higher with their heavily inflated prices, with very few perishables to cause stock loss, and when they are very long established with generally very well sited locations, how on earth can they fail? Any purchaser needs to think about what they are going to do differently. I did actually assume Morrison's would get the gig and go down a second disastrous attempt to launch small-format stores where they imagined changing the fascia on thousands of stores would somehow put them up there with Tesco Express and Sainsbury's Local.

Trouble is now EG, although they will probably do a better job than Morrison's at turning the shops around, look set to do a pre-pack which could screw over the pension scheme.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 21.50
by thegeek
It occurred to me today that I don't really know what a McColls is. In my head the first thing that springs to mind is RS McColls, the newsagent chain that I visited as a child in Glasgow, and I think has a bit of shared parentage. But they've got no footprint in any of the bits of London I've lived in - I'm guessing they're more like a Londis or Nisa, but company owned rather than a symbol group.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 22.02
by WillPS
thegeek wrote: Fri 06 May, 2022 21.50 It occurred to me today that I don't really know what a McColls is. In my head the first thing that springs to mind is RS McColls, the newsagent chain that I visited as a child in Glasgow, and I think has a bit of shared parentage. But they've got no footprint in any of the bits of London I've lived in - I'm guessing they're more like a Londis or Nisa, but company owned rather than a symbol group.
That's the badger. They were a chain of newsagents, not unlike GT News, and took over some other newsagents as late as the 00s.. Fourbouys was a notable one.

They kind of missed the boat on convenience retailing - they developed their range a bit in the 00s but then went through a period where they tried to copy Bargain Booze for a bit. It's a right old mess of a shop frankly, very cynically operated. Their co-op acquisitions looks exactly as they did when they were co-ops and the rest of their stores look like were last fitted out in the 90s (probably because that's true).

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Fri 06 May, 2022 23.21
by Martin Phillp
My memories of McColl's was it being a second rate WHSmith when they were both in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon years ago.

There was also a local newsagent sized store in Dulwich Village which closed a few years ago where they had the footfall, but nobody was buying anything. The nearest one now is a hospital shop in Lewisham.

Already mentioned is how Sainsbury's and Tesco's managed to get into that market and yet they still feel and look like a smaller version of their supermarkets and with some items, the prices are nearly as cheap as the larger stores, but still cheaper than going to the local independent convenience store.

You can't say that for the franchise Costcutter/Nisa etc stores where it's a real mixed bag of average to tatty looking interiors.

Re: High Street chain collapse sweepstake

Posted: Sat 07 May, 2022 07.01
by thegeek
I feel like the Tesco Express/Sainsbury's Local (especially ones in, say, newbuild blocks of flats), are as close as they can get to 280m² - ie not too big to fall foul of the Sunday Trading Act, but big enough to have that 'small supermarket' feel and have enough ranges to make it worthwhile.

I can't think of too many other indie corner shops that go for that tactic. Except for maybe the posh Spar and not-quite-so-posh Nisa in Walthamstow.