Credit crunch shop closures

[capncnut]

First it was Blockbusters and now it's Woolworths and MFI.

www.guardian.co.uk/business (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/27/woolworths-mfi-rescue-madelson)


Looks like Curry's and PC World are next for the chop.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7751786.stm)


:stunned:

[AcesandEights]

Yup. As someone said to me a week or so ago: "Be careful about buying giftcards for people this Christmas, you never know which chains are going to survive much longer past the holidays."

[MinionZombie]

Currys and PC World?! Surely those would still be used a fair amount for all electronic gear by people who just wanna buy sh*t off a shelf and not spend three months meticulously speccing up a super-duper-awesome rig like I've been doing. :D

F*ck I just hope the shop I'm gonna use will still be around, eep! :eek:

Just waiting for December 1st, then I can submit my spec to get a final price and get a measily thirty notes off a purchase of around 1300 smackers. Gee, thanks Gordon ... I mean Darling ... no, I did mean Gordon, that prat still thinks he's Chancellor ... and he still thinks he's awesome at the job ... even though he never was.

Lying, manipulating, obscuring and generally being obtuse ... that is what Gordon twatface Brown is awesome at. :mad::annoyed::mad:

...

I guess I'm like a lot of people, I really like the Woolies brand, but I don't really shop there. I get my clothes elsewhere, I buy media online mostly, I don't buy pick'n'mix and I'm not in need of a toaster.

Woolies was once a must-do of my childhood though, out on day trips with my family, we'd walk around and see stuff and then always go to Woolies, often getting some Mini Cans of fizzy drink and a pick'n'mix ... then a while later it was about me going in to find cheap videos - such as Day of the Dead, my first ever GAR flick, which I bought in a Woolies for £5.99 ... aahhh memories.

The MFI nearest us shut up shop ages ago, must have been one of the first stores in the brand to close.

Well ... thanks a bunch Gordon ... thanks a sh*t-pissing bunch. :mad:

[capncnut]

Ol' Brownie reckons he will 'offer all the help and support' to the 31,000 workers facing the chop. Erm, like how? Gonna give 'em a job
like? :rockbrow:

In other words, sign on the dole and the useless back to work jobclub schemes will do what they can to help. C**t.

[MaximusIncredulous]

You guys still had Woolworths? They closed them up here in the US back in the very late 90s somewhere about. They were a useful chain of stores. Certainly a lot more useful than the overpriced Banana Republic that is now where my old Woolworths was.

[MikePizzoff]

You guys still had Woolworths? They closed them up here in the US back in the very late 90s somewhere about. They were a useful chain of stores. Certainly a lot more useful than the overpriced Banana Republic that is now where my old Woolworths was.

The Woolworth around here closed it's doors around '95. Followed shortly by Bradlees and Clover. RIP!

[Danny]

my grandad went to check on his order of a kitchen suite from mfi and found a massive que with signs about wanting there money back, they cashed his check the day after they whent bust and there being dodgy about refunding him.

Now he's 70, but hes been a soldier, a fire chief, a mechanic, you name it he doesnt look older than 50 so he could take all the bull****, but just the fact that they would do this to anyone over the ae of 60 is taking the piss, telling him to try adn get the kitchen there himself!:eek:

[Chic Freak]

I guess I'm like a lot of people, I really like the Woolies brand, but I don't really shop there. I get my clothes elsewhere

Woolworth's sell clothes?

I'm working in a boutique today and it looks like my wages are going to amount to more than the day's profits :stunned:

[MinionZombie]

Capn - here-here.

Have you noticed over the past few weeks how Brown has something to say about absolutely everything, and will do 'everything' to stop whatever happening - *ahem*, yeah, here in reality that doesn't happen.

And nor should the gubment be propping up anything and everything - it's our sodding money they're doing it with!

Oh yeah - and Brown, who is apparently working 'night and day' to fix the economy, had enough time to write letters to the finalists of The X Factor...:eek:...also, you know who should be working night and day just on the economy (which Brown is claiming to do) - the Chancellor! Brown isn't that guy anymore, although clearly he still wants to be, and do two jobs at once, that Darling is just a stooge, a puppet, a waste of time.

A Prime Minister is there to cover a whole array of issues, and just because there's a recession about - doesn't mean that the entire world stop revolving and nothing is happening anywhere at all.

And also - they keep saying "extreme measures for extreme times" and going on about how 'exceptional' this recession is, yet at the very same time they're saying we'll be coming out of it mid-way through next year ... that doesn't sound like an extreme time needing extreme measures, exceptional or otherwise ... i.e. two completely opposing things at the exact same time ... and they still have time to sniff out and silence leaks who are doing a bloody good job trying to let the British people know about damning information against the gubment - Labour was perfectly happy to suck every single shred of leaked info in the dying days of the old Conservative government, and now it's apparently an arrestable offence under the terrorism act?! :eek:

That is absolutely shocking in the worst way possible, just the fact that they'd drawn up a list of people who were likely to vote against the 42 day detention issue (when Labour wanted votes in favour of it), shows that Labour don't give a flying f*ck about democracy, or at the very least they have some bizarre, extremely warped version of the term.

*gasps*

Sorry, a right old rant there, but I've been ranting all afternoon, this arrest thing has really gotten me irate.

...

Chic - yes, they do sell clothes, maybe not many ... and perhaps it's mostly kids clothes actually, but well ... once upon a time my mum bought me clothes from there when I was a kid. Perhaps the bigger stores still do some clothes, they're one of those 'anything and everything' stores practically.

[Chic Freak]

Do you think The Dark Knight counts as a kids' film enough for Woolies to sell the merch?? I would go for a sale-price lunchbox :hyper:

[MinionZombie]

Do you think The Dark Knight counts as a kids' film enough for Woolies to sell the merch?? I would go for a sale-price lunchbox :hyper:
Well, it's 12A, just like the Spider-Man films (one or two of them at least), and there's certainly plenty of merch connected to it.

Speaking of which, got my copy of the DVD in the post today, woo! Two days early! :cool:

[Chic Freak]

Well, it's 12A, just like the Spider-Man films (one or two of them at least), and there's certainly plenty of merch connected to it.

Speaking of which, got my copy of the DVD in the post today, woo! Two days early! :cool:

Cool, what are the special features?

I really want to keep my sandwiches in something with Heath Ledger's painted face on it now. Hmm.

[MinionZombie]

Cool, what are the special features?

I really want to keep my sandwiches in something with Heath Ledger's painted face on it now. Hmm.
It's not packed with special features (and I've got the two disc), but what there is on it, is interesting.

You can see the IMAX scenes in their proper ratio on their own, and there's six episodes of "Gotham Tonight", the political talk show (a bit like Newsnight here, kinda) which I'm now going through (actually quite interesting, and does round up some story threads left elsewhere, as well as recap some character arcs and such, and actually got me thinking about cool ways they could go with a 3rd Bale/Nolan outing).

The main thing on the extras is a series of featurettes about things like the Bat Suit re-design, the music, the stunts (including the fantastic hospital explosion) and so on.

Not as many features as Batman Begins got with its 2-disc, but nor is it to be sniffed at. Hopefully they don't do a double-dip, although you never know, but they never really did that with Begins, so...

Anyway, wicked-cool to finally have it in my possession, but tonight I'm instead gonna watch X-Files: I Want To Believe, woo! :cool::)

[Tricky]

The problem with woolworths was that over the past 10-15 years its just sold a whole lot of nothing!ok when i was a kid i used to buy star wars figures,pic n mix & the latest "NOW 24" or whatever music cd's (the shame :o ) but that was it, as an adult i never thought they sold anything worthwhile in there,other than console/PC games.

This recession is really starting to show now though,& starting to affect people i know & even the company i work for!luckily i work for a big company who should be able to weather the storm fairly unscathed,but a lot of the smaller companies that we deal with are cutting workers hours,banning overtime & even shutting production one day a week!thats not just uk companies either,they're feeling it just as much abroad.Gordon Brown really isnt helping matters though, the mans an arrogant control freak who shouldnt even be in office, i hope when he visits you guys in the U.S. he doesnt fool you all into thinking he's a decent bloke! :mad:

[capncnut]

It was said on the news that Woolies (or Wooleys if you zombs prefer ;)) are having a 50% off sale in a last ditch attempt to sort things out. So today I went in there with the intent on buying RZ's Halloween, which I saw for £4 two weeks ago (thinking I might get it for £2). Well to cut a long story short, it was £8. I think it's a pisstake considering that's the same price Zavvi are charging for it. :rockbrow:

[MinionZombie]

Mind you Zavvi are stocked by the Woolies brand though, correct? Their distributor.

Anyway, I should have a goosey down at my local Woolies, see if there's any cheap DVDs or games to nab.

To be honest, I've basically not used them in a very long time, I ended up buying DVDs and the like elsewhere, or shopping online.

I think Woolies were offering stuff you could find elsewhere, easier and cheaper, and people were finding they had less need or purpose to go there.

I mean, if you wanted to get a whole bunch of stuff, like moving into a new flat or something, you would be able to count on Woolies (although not so much now, as it'll be gone soon quite possibly), so ultimately I think they sleep-walked into it, they didn't update their business model to deal with the changing tides of modern retail.

[Tricky]

i refuse to recognise the name "zavvi" cos i think its absolute dogs knobs, it'll always be virgin megastore for me :rockbrow:

[capncnut]

Will Marks and Sparks be next?

Click (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5470157.ece) for article.

There's also rumours of Debenhams and Next going under too. :confused:

[Mike70]

speaking of the cause of all this - the mortage crisis. i was reading an article in newsweek about the whole thing that was quite interesting. the jist of it is that the people who think that people simply not being able to pay their mortages is the cause of all this are totally out of their minds. the problem was banks and brokerage houses borrowing huge sums of money against these things.

for instance, did you know that bear stearns had $33 of debt against every $1 of real assets? no one forced them to do that sort of shit. fannie mae engaged in similar borrowing practices and that is why they are screwed now too.

[MinionZombie]

I like to boil it all down to this:

A bunch of corporate morons lent stupid amounts of money they didn't have, to a bunch of individual morons who couldn't afford to borrow the stupid amounts of money ... and everybody involved was all-too happy to be a part of it.

'nuff said really. :p

And to think there's an average of 6 or 7 savers for every 1 borrower ... ... makes you think, doesn't it?

[DubiousComforts]

cos i think its absolute dogs knobs
Now there's a phrase you don't hear everyday, at least not on this side of the pond. :D