Credit crunch shop closures

**MinionZombie** · 06-Dec-2008

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** · 06-Dec-2008

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

capncnut · 08-Jan-2009

Will Marks and Sparks be next?

Click for article.

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

**Mike70** · 08-Jan-2009

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** · 08-Jan-2009

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.