Wellworths programme tonight on BBC1

[jane p]

Did anyone see it. Wellworths store was started in Dorchester in March by the old manageress of Woolies and her staff.

She has to take 38k a week to survive. Early trading has been good but it will the local people support the shop year in year out.

 

[Bri]

Did anyone see it. Wellworths store was started in Dorchester in March by the old manageress of Woolies and her staff.

She has to take 38k a week to survive. Early trading has been good but it will the local people support the shop year in year out.

about to start but we had a family feud before it(I think they were all affected by the hour long eastenders and thought they could be Archie). I read the article in the paper though a few weeks ago on their opening day, hope she does well.

 

[jane p]

I wonder why no-one else has done what she has?

I think it was that or become unemployed along with her hubby.

 

[deniser]

She has to take 38k a week to survive.

I didn't see that bit but if that is the case then it looks doomed to failure as they took only £8,000 on the first day with all the publicity fanfare and crowds.

Plus they don't sell any music, film or gaming (do they?) which made up half the sales floor of our deceased Woolworths? I didn't see any children's wear either.

They won't be making the same profit margins as Woolworths as they aren't buying for 800 stores.

I wish them well but am not very hopeful that a shop of that size in that location selling general merchandise which is sold everywhere else, can be successful.

 

[MH1]

I wonder why no-one else has done what she has?

Partly down too the location, the town has very little real competition, where most others do. It was one of Woolies profitable stores, most towns did not make money.

As for long term prospects, hard to say.

Biggest suprise for myself watching this last night was the womans faith in her 22 yr old buyer, she tended to let the staff get on with things without too much supervision, hard to know how much is done for the cameras, but a good publicity stunt either way.

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

I watched it and wish her well.
My main criticism would be she is still operating in the mindset of managing one of a chain of stores (which failed anyway) rather than one independent. For example, does one stand alone store really need a barcode system, with all the expense (and apparently trouble) that entails?

Barrie

 

[Alison Jones]

Me and husband watched it. Did make me feel better about things, seeing them get stressed out as me and husband set our gaming/internet cafe, IT franchise up just before Christmas when husband had full time job and I had near enough full time bookkeeping business already, and we got stressed out setting it up as had really tight deadlines to get open (2 weeks) in evenings and weekends and there were plenty of arguments. Seeing the Wellworths program with the staff arguing made me realise that other businesses go through the same.

I can't see how they can get £38,000 a week and can afford all the staff though.

Wish we had done a publicity stunt when we opened just did not have time, we got delayed with getting the keys.

Alison

 

[GRDCredit]

Biggest suprise for myself watching this last night was the womans faith in her 22 yr old buyer, she tended to let the staff get on with things without too much supervision, hard to know how much is done for the cameras, but a good publicity stunt either way.

What a pillock he was! Seemed to be trying to big himself up by talking about his love of heavy metal, getting 'slaughtered' and also bad language. Next stop -The Apprentice?

 

[PaddyPawsPetServices]

38k...good god...thats a lot of moolah to make in one store

 

[GRDCredit]

Certainly is a lot of toilet rolls, picture frames and pick and mix!

 

[Draugen]

I wish them well but am not very hopeful that a shop of that size in that location selling general merchandise which is sold everywhere else, can be successful.

My thoughts also.

It's a great story and I hope they do fantastically, but I don't really see what they're doing apart from selling generic tat by trading on goodwill, hype and nostalgia. It won't and can't last forever. If I were from Dorchester, I'd visit out of curiosity, but after having been once I imagine I'd be able to get everything they sell in the supermarket or in Wilkos!

Seemed to be trying to big himself up by talking about his love of heavy metal

I must say, I was awfully impressed to suddenly hear mentions of Nightwish, Amon Amarth and GWAR on primetime BBC1! Was that also a spot of Turisas playing on his phone?

 

[jane p]

I didn't see that bit but if that is the case then it looks doomed to failure as they took only £8,000 on the first day with all the publicity fanfare and crowds.


? i dont understand why you dont get the fact that she cant make 38k a week. If she took 8k on her first day then there are plenty more days left in the week to make the rest.

 

[jane p]

What a pillock he was! Seemed to be trying to big himself up by talking about his love of heavy metal, getting 'slaughtered' and also bad language. Next stop -The Apprentice?

i agree thought he was an idiot. Lowered the tone of the programme ha ha.

 

[druss]

I wish them all the best, they got off their backsides and did it.

38k is a lot but if they keep their prices competitive and their stock relevant to customers needs then there is no reason why they wont succeed.

 

[Alison Jones]

? i dont understand why you dont get the fact that she cant make 38k a week. If she took 8k on her first day then there are plenty more days left in the week to make the rest.[/quote]

The 8K on the first day was because it was hyped up by the media, this attracted many more people then normally would. Once the hype has died down can they really make that much money. With new business like that it is normally 1 month possibly 2 months on that you can really judge it.

Alison

 

[i234i]

What channel was this?

 

[Alison Jones]

What channel was this?

BBC 1 so if you have Virgin Media could get it on demand for next 7 days.

Alison

 

[druss]

Watch online

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...Wellies_One_Womans_Fight_for_the_High_Street/

 

[jane p]

My thoughts also.

It's a great story and I hope they do fantastically, but I don't really see what they're doing apart from selling generic tat by trading on goodwill, hype and nostalgia. It won't and can't last forever. If I were from Dorchester, I'd visit out of curiosity, but after having been once I imagine I'd be able to get everything they sell in the supermarket or in Wilkos!



I must say, I was awfully impressed to suddenly hear mentions of Nightwish, Amon Amarth and GWAR on primetime BBC1! Was that also a spot of Turisas playing on his phone?

Why do you mention supermarkets, we need individual shops for variety and competition. We dont want supermarkets to become one stop shops once they have driven competition out they can charge what they like. There are some people who cant get to supermarkets either.

Supermarkets are grocers

 

[stevesolo]

Presumably she had experience of the store's sales figures when it was Woolies and also knowledge of bestselling lines and most profitable ones, and she did her budget on that basis. She came over as amazingly cool and calm. I do not think we would have set herself the target of £38K per week unless she thought it was achievable.

 

[chalkie99]

She came over as amazingly cool and calm.

If you can keep your nerve when all around are losing theirs ........


............ you just don't understand the situation!

 

[stevesolo]

Not just a bit of a cynic, are you Chalkie?

 

[MH1]

I do not think we would have set herself the target of £38K per week unless she thought it was achievable.

I think this target was set more as the minimum amount required to pay the rent, staff etc and to break even, rather than realistically looking at sales figures.

Once the hype has died down in three to five months they will get a better idea of whether they will survive. They obviously were trying new lines, such as the large number of picture frames etc which were a slow seller, but they were on sale or return.

Maybe the bags of charcoal will sell better, seemed a bit early in the year for charcoal too myself, I would have waited another month before ordering them in.

 

[PaddyPawsPetServices]

Dan seemed a bit of a jumped up little boy...or maybe thats just me

 

[oberta]

There seems little prospect of attaining £38k a week to cover costs, if the biggest and best day your ever going to see gets you £8k.

Well done for getting up and running, but they are going to need to be very agile moving forward to maintain revenue.

They also need to make better use of space than 500 picture frames. That could have been a line that actually sells.

 

[wood1e2]

Have to say why would you need a buyer when you are the manager and you have an assistant manager?

And what experience can he have with buying? Do picture frames really sell that fast with high GP?

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

Presumably she had experience of the store's sales figures when it was Woolies and also knowledge of bestselling lines and most profitable ones, and she did her budget on that basis.

If this is so, why did she allow so much of the space and stock to be taken up by picture frames? It failed as Woolworths, and I did not see anything that was much different.

Barrie

 

[Encantador]

There wasn`t any discussion about who actually owns the business. I think there was mention of her being `given`£100,000. I got the impression that the landlord was a lot more involved than was apparent.

Maybe that`s why she came across as calm, she hasn`t got her own money tied up in it.

Must admit i thought the same about only taking £8000 on the first day.

 

[Alison Jones]

Watching the program made me think it may be ok for them now whilst it is new, but when the company who took some of the woolworths for online shop

http://www.woolworthsblog.co.uk/

get up and running it may be hard for Wellworths to compete against the online shop.

Alison

 

[Matt1959]

old ladies who have worked in the same shop for 22 years - sooooooo depressing:redface: I think that mild mannered manager deserves a medal!!!

 

[Draugen]

Why do you mention supermarkets, we need individual shops for variety and competition. We dont want supermarkets to become one stop shops once they have driven competition out they can charge what they like. There are some people who cant get to supermarkets either.

Supermarkets are grocers

I mention supermarkets because, as you even seem to be noting yourself, they are one of the biggest threats to a general merchandise retailer such as Wellworths. If they want their business to be a success they need to be able to provide better products, service and/or prices than, amongst other retailers, the supermarkets. Just common sense really!

And supermarkets are grocers? Have you visited one in the last decade?

 

[new2bus]

I watched it and wish her well.
My main criticism would be she is still operating in the mindset of managing one of a chain of stores (which failed anyway) rather than one independent. For example, does one stand alone store really need a barcode system, with all the expense (and apparently trouble) that entails?

Barrie

Yes, because it links in to the point of sale and it would take too long to explain if you do not understand that..

to answer a few other points

The 38k is a target not a break even.

The internet Woolworths is hardly going to have an impact on Wellworths.

She is not selling music and DVDs etc because they were unprofitable for Woolworths.

 

[silvermusic]

She is not selling music and DVDs etc because they were unprofitable for Woolworths.

Not so, EUK (Entertainment UK) had huge buying power, about 25% of the entire UK market was supplied by them I use to be one of their customers, they were actually one of the few parts of the Woolworths group that was profitable in it's own right.

The reason music, DVD and games are not being sold is due to the quantities you need to buy in order to compete with the big players. When Woolworths and EUK went down it totally devistated the market taking down many large and small wholesalers and retailers Pinnacle and Zavvi being the biggest examples. Look on the high street today and there's only HMV left.

For the small players in the industry the last few months has been make or break getting a supply chain back in place, many have been unable to and gone to the wall. In my own case I'm now operating directly with a limited numbers of labels and some wholesalers as far as possible, but getting certain ranges is proving impossible. To that end, I've speicalised in the areas I can get stock of and also moved into other products on a second site. For someone like Wellworths they isn't a one stop supplier of everything anymore, to invest the time and energy needed to stock a decent range isn't practcal. It would be a full time job for one person in it's own right and the margins ain't that great either compared to other product ranges.

As for the whole Wellworths thing, I wish them well, but I have deep reservations of them surviving long term. She's had a lot of help and third party investment. Building a business on the goodwill and publicity is fine, but it's longer term I have doubts about.

 

[website]

I BET you this time next year wellworths will be a franchice.

 

[Lasting Designs]

I would imagine that they are pretty well placed to respond to getting new lines as and when they become available, unlike woolies who were frequently taking a punt on lines for the entire business and often taking a hit. As a business they couldn't keep doing that, the more they tried, the less they knew what kind of business they were.
As an individual store, you might get away with that, but to keep on taking the hits on a national scale, the end was on the cards. The worst thing was that Woolworth buyers were buying almost a year in advance, their own lines, but the buyers weren't too clued up on some stuff.

I used to work for a printer who produced the gift tags and wrapping paper for both Woolworths and WHS, the difference was vastly different, it always seemed that Woolies were a year behind. It was an in house joke, that when WHS placed their order, we'd say " and we'll be doing the same for woolies next year" Woolies seldom innovated anything that they could call their own.

Wellworths can if they buy wisely remain in viable as a business, but unlike Woolies, they should get rid of the buyer they've taken on and get somebody with a track record.

 

[new2bus]

Not so, EUK (Entertainment UK) had huge buying power, about 25% of the entire UK market was supplied by them I use to be one of their customers, they were actually one of the few parts of the Woolworths group that was profitable in it's own right.

I stand corrected, I thought I had read otherwise.

 

[silvermusic]

I stand corrected, I thought I had read otherwise.

No worries. They tried really hard selling that part on it's own but never managed too, The investment needed and outstanding debt was too much of a risk, the insurance companies wouldn't give the credit guarantees needed to run it. For two months I watched it like a hawk unfolding hour by hour on muliple news feeds. IMHO Woolworths stores were a lost cause from the start, but i really hoped they could make EUK work. but the whole indsutry fell apart like a deck of cards so quickly. As a side note, valuable lessons have been learnt by everyone in this crazy industry. One monster size player in the current and future financial climate is not a good thing, besides which the industry is rapidly changing...

but that's a whole subject in it's own right.

 

[i234i]

Just watched this online, hope it all goes well and all the best to them.

Im not 100% who owns the business and what part the landlord takes in the owner ship and running of it all. But they said owned by local people..

Only time will tell.. hopefully they have it figured out. The buyer Dan seemed a bit over confident at times and a bit early with the coal.

 

[i234i]

Should of added, i thought it was a great watch though - Really enjoyed it!

Wouldnt mind more with other high street stores, even ones that are running

 

[markbaxter]

Does anyone one know how i can get hold of Claire Robertson, i have products to talk to her about.