Along with a load of Jamie oliver restaurants and and Prezzo shutting 100 restaurants, along with numerous bike shop closures,add in the bank and building society closures the city shopping centres are going to look even more barren and empty.
And thats just the begining for this year many more to follow probably,
I will miss Maplins and toys R us, but they where dated concepts, as most stuff was is available on the internet, also sad for the staff as retail constricts.
but it's alright because the government keeps telling us unemployment is going down....
Zero hour contracts for all!
I wonder what could possibly be contributing to all this?
Businesses with crap business model failing to adapt and going bust shocker
I wonder what could possibly be contributing to all this?
Probably the fact that they were a bit shit.
House of Fraser next by all accounts.
We’ve allowed eBay and Amazon to break the high street.
Modernity. No one buys toys or electric gizmos from a high Street shop anymore.
And no. It's not brexit
True they missed the boat on online but the consequence of this is massive to the economy. It's less jobs, more unemployment and benefits needed. It's probably less tax paid to the UK
I'm not saying keeping bad business going is a good thing but we need to look at how the competition pays it's share.
To paraphrase from elsewhere
When people tell you all government does is take your money and give it to people who don't try remember they built the roads your business needs, educated and looked after the workers, made the trade deals etc. They need to collect for businesses to grow
Don’t cry for Maplin or Toys R Us.
Its not indicative of a failing economy, just the natural selection of the weak and stupid for extinction - we won’t spend any less, we’ll just spend more elsewhere.
They failed to adapt to changing conditions - TRU were following a business model from the 80s. If they’d closed their massive stores 5 years ago and used their name for a great web store they would have survived.
Maplin were horribly over-priced but at the same time didn’t have that “it’s cheaper online but I need it NOW” market because they only seemed to have the same crap that even Currys sold cheaper. £160 for a common or garden 500GB SATA drive, erm no thanks.
we won’t spend any less, we’ll just spend more elsewhere.
And generate less vat, less corporation tax, less ni and less income tax.
Just remembered Maplins had a huge paid for catalogue for mail order, perhaps they should hav e closed all the shops and just gone on internet or mail order via a catalogue, probably Debenhams will be next or Wilko,s both seem dated and oldie world.
as much as i liked maplin for OH shit purchases.
it was an utter **** to get to area of town in a nasty place with a height restricted carpark......
it really was only used in oh shit electronics componant purchases.... as the time it took for me to drive from my house they had delivered it like . maplin should have been a screwfix style model along time ago.
Argos next
Can't remember what I went for but the last time I was in Maplins I was astounded at how expensive they were, & that was about 6 years ago.
I came away without buying anything & never bothered with them since.
Two more examples of how Government has failed to deal with the now unstoppable march of Amazon.
TRU & Maplin may have had outdated business models but that, in my view, is the lesser part of the problem.
No corporation tax from TRU or Maplin now - and how much from Amazon?
A further hit to the Pension Protection Fund which, when combined with Carillion and others, will likely result in an increase to the levy paid by pension schemes - and a reduction in pension values.
Inept governments failing to develop and robustly implement an appropriate tax system for trans-national/global online businesses will stand as a testament to political incompetence.
probably Debenhams will be next or Wilko,s both seem dated and oldie world.
Hope not, wilkos is a great store to have locally, always seems busy and stores not to shabby. WH Smith however...
wtf is with companies being allowed to raid their pension funds ?
that shit should be ring fenced its not theirs to play with.
Argos next? Not a chance.
Overpriced & rubbish unfortunately. .
Surprised the usual whiners havent blamed trump & the Russians yet though.
Debenhams or HoF next. Debenhams is stuck in that middle ground where it's not fashionable and not cheap. HoF needs to shrink and specialise in higher end stuff but they've got huge stores with equally big rents.
Sainsbury’s own Argos so they won’t go next, they will close over 100 branches and move them into nearby Sainsbury’s stores, already have a few of these locally, you can’t pick up at the same time they work like Tesco click collect.
Im guessing as they move into bigger hyper Sainsbury’s stores they will have the same service, locally they have moved into small Sainsbury’s stores.
Didnt maplin start off as mail order? Remember seeing them in pc shopper back in the 90’s
Argos next
Nah, Argos is now good, often cheaper and more convenient than Amazon. Of course their owner Sainsbury's could go under, but Asda will go first.
+1 for house of fraser and/or debenhams.
Expensive high street locations. Not really special service (debenhams in particular).
Shame, because their own brand stuff we find quite good (hof pans, mattress, some cookware etc).
I occasionally visit the hof store in Birkenhead - I mean, I know it once was affluent but that was a long time ago! I'd suspect most of their stock moves by shoplifters these days.
It's probably the turn of some more restaurant chains to go under soon...
Internet Banking
CRC and bike-components
Amazon
e-bay
Thomann
On a guitar thread the advice wil be to buy a harley Benton, Yamaha, or Squier from Thomann, Woodbrass or Andertons. It's not bad advice if your main consideration is price or you live near one of those shops. But it still pains a little as the local shops can't compete as they don't get the same volume discounts and end of line offers as the Internet giants. I still buy most of my music and ski stuff from local shops because I like playing/trying before buying and they do what they can to get close to on-line prices - but I haven't bought from a bike shop within 50km of where i live for years.
You do wonder if we starting to export our economy/ wealth.
What does amazon contibute to the economy? Automation will reduce the workforce in the warehouses, so less money into local economy and less NI andnincome tax, their tax stratergy is well known.
Thats not to pick on amazon just an example that some online retailers are not good for general uk economics.
Is it time for an honest discussion on the economic path the country is moving to? All low skill/ wage jobs seem to be either disapearing or going zero hours and dispite what the education politicians say not everyone is genius destined to high skill employment.
Another problem, the company's that have replaced them (Amazon and eBay) pay **** all tax.
So it's not just the employees that have been screwed, it's all of us.
If the equal pay claim actually goes through and there pension black hole it’s not rosey at Tesco, they need to make £1.5b in cuts, it won’t be pretty if when they go belly up!
Whsmith have there newspaper business to fall back on but the high street store could go next.
<div class="bbp-reply-author">oldtalent</div>
<div class="bbp-reply-content">Surprised the usual whiners havent blamed trump & the Russians yet though.
</div>
Surprised the usual whiner hasn't been on to throw about straw men. <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Ohh wait.</span>
W h smith has definitely lost its way,poor selection of books and now magazines moved to back of store.
Pity amazon didnt buy argos, would have fitted in well, no catalogues just internet shopping with storesstocking limited stock and pick up or drop from stores.
Maplins demise has been on the wall for a while now. Mostly they seemed to stock cheap chinese tat at 4x the price and were always out of stock of whatever you wanted and their stores almost always empty of customers.
They were handy for the odd 50p resistor etc but not much else.
Can't believe they have lasted as long as they have.
Maplins was so-o-o shit, there are few words adequate enough to describe its shit-ness.
Not only was it a relic of the early 1980s, it didn't even [I]try[/I] with customer service, and it was colossally overpriced. I mean, what did they expect?
For the life of me, I cannot understand businesses that pay large salaries to CEOs, yet are unable to read the clearest possible signs of the times.
Amazon may well pay low tax but their business model is more akin to an infrastructure play whereby any profit is reinvested back into more infrastructure - over decades. In that scenario where capital investment is high profit will always be low (especially so if borrowing is leveraged to accelerate the investment). Low tax in isolation doesn’t tell us anything - you have to look at the P&L for the whole story.
Low tax in isolation doesn’t tell us anything – you have to look at the P&L for the whole story.
In this example the treasury's take is the key figure, their business model keeps any profit off shore, reduces workers and by that tax income. Amazon want to trade in the UK how much should the UK charge them?
Maplins was a truely crap shop.
Toys R Us has been overtaken by better new rivals
Just like Woolworths and C&A no one will notice they are gone in a few months. Staff will get work elsewhere.
Homebase next.
I hate to say this but Brexit has nothing to do with this particular scenario.
Far outdated business model, failure to keep up with internet profile/selling model and a huge/colossal overhead.
Recipe for disaster.
It is sad to hear of the folks loosing their jobs, but there could be opportunities for some of them in buy outs if the administrators can find a decent solution. I doubt they will, because asset stripping and paying off creditors is thier only model for dealing with businesses in this situation.
We can whine all we like about Amazon and the like but we’re all guilty in some small way of making them vastly successful. The government in this or its previous incarnation would not have done anything but support the business model that Amazon employ, because this government isn’t/doesn’t care about tax evasion or any limits imposed that would restrict thier operations.
There will be more that fall, subsequent job losses are inevitable. Better get used to the UK in the 21st century.
just5 - your analogy is spurious; using your line of thinking, what is the end point?
One super global mega corp? Dodging tax in every country where they operate?
There is nothing ethical about the Amazon business model - and that includes multiple examples in the US of how it opens 'fulfilment centres', usually supported by 'incentives' from local government, and suckers locals into believing their dream job has landed but then subjects them to big brother style management and control; not a dream job but a nightmare employer.
Too few people appear to understand how Amazon and others are undermining the UK retail world and the damaging effect they have on the UK tax take in it's many forms. By the time that realisation dawns, it will be too late.
Staff will get work elsewhere.
Same terms? How long will it take? Which retail is expanding?
Or will this be more zero hours sports direct stuff?
The last innovation in the warehouse was smart lighting that only lit up in the relevant zones, the next gen don't need lights.
The sooner they make Amazon and eBay jointly liable for VAT with the sellers the better
I stopped using Amazon, avoid Starbucks, never used Uber etc, etc
Outdated business model certainly a major factor, but they also pay tax, the likes of amazon don't, certainly not on the same scale and they don't have to pay the overheads associated with retail stores, its just warehouses and logistics so it's not hard to understand why they are going bust.
but they also pay tax,
you sure about that? One of the things that killed them is reportedly a 15M unpaid vat bill! They’ll only pay corporation tax on profits, and truly profitable companies can usually find buyers. If they were highly profitable it would have been easier to correct the pension anomaly.
For the life of me, I cannot understand businesses that pay large salaries to CEOs, yet are unable to read the clearest possible signs of the times.
Its an an interesting issue isn’t it. Keep in mind the shareholders here are private equity funds. They aren’t necessarily interested in improving the business (in terms that the consumer, staff etc would care about) but are focussed on increasing the short term value so they can sell it and give the shareholders a return. That might involve high risk restructuring, getting rid of painful liabilities, etc if you have a sour pension scheme and a load of really long property leases and high staff costs getting rid of those things needs both experienced and callous individuals who don’t come cheap. Their focus is will whatever decision I make today help me sell the business for more tomorrow. The shareholder is rewarding them for that alignment with their interests.
It might not be the thread for it, but most online retailers don't help themselves. Amazon is good because it's so easy to buy something, about two clicks is all it takes.
I'd buy alot more from other online retailers if I didn't have to spend ten minutes filling in delivery addresses, billing addresses, card details etc. And then they send you promotional texts and emails and whatever else. They really don't help themselves. Let me pay in two clicks FFS.
While these two retailers were a bit shit, it's probably that plus the extortionate cost of having a retail estate which killed them.
UK.gov really need to get on top of this and modernise the tax system. There is too much taxation burden on having a physical presence. In my mind the cost of that needs to be levelled with the online retailers. Physical presence = staff.
We have vat already, which seems simple enough ... maybe expand that and reduce the myriad of other avoidable business taxes?