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doubt that will ever happen as they would need to offer offer something totally different to succeed again over here. Perhaps they should have taken notice of Wilko's and then they may have survived.
Saying that they obviously didn't have much business clout as launching "big W" was one of the biggest retail disasters of all time, and to think they lost all that money because they didnt have any stuff ready for the Charles and Dianna wedding and then spent millions on stuff ready for Will and Kates wedding but went under before thier big day.
I wonder how the woolworths website is doing though.
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Banned
Going into administration and having all your stores closed, name sold and assets sold is a little beyond restructuring isn't it!
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Barnie
no because woolworths germnay gmbh would have been seperate from woolworths uk ltd.
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Banned
Did they not split from UK Woolworths in the late 90's so a totally separate company a decade before Wollies went queer?
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Barretts Shoes goes (sorry) toes up in 2009, leaving all it's creditors with a haircut, (getting only a % of that amount due).
Main Barrett man Micky Ziff buys 160 of the shops, reopens as (please don't fall off that chair) Barretts.
FFWD>>>>
Barretts Shoes goes (sorry) toes up in 2012, leaving all it's creditors with a haircut, (getting only a % of that amount due).
Main Barrett man Micky Ziff buys 89 of the shops, reopens as (please don't fall off that chair) Barretts.
Patient creditors. Where they are patients I don't know.
Main Barrett man Micky Ziff buys 160 of the shops, reopens as (please don't fall off that chair) Barretts.
FFWD>>>>
Barretts Shoes goes (sorry) toes up in 2012, leaving all it's creditors with a haircut, (getting only a % of that amount due).
Main Barrett man Micky Ziff buys 89 of the shops, reopens as (please don't fall off that chair) Barretts.
Patient creditors. Where they are patients I don't know.
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I wonder about Carphone Warehouse. I spent a good few hours trailing around mobile phone shops at the weekend, and they all had 2/3 people in looking at phones and 2/3 staff talking to customers etc. Went into CW and there were 3 staff behind the counter totally engrossed in telling each other about their night out - never even looked over to me, let alone asked if I needed any help. I saw several other customers walk in and out without any sign of attention from the sales staff. There I was, ready to buy, and they couldn't be bothered! Needless to say, phone bought elsewhere. It's about time these big chains got their staffing sorted out. It's not all about the recession.
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I experience this type of service numerous times throughout the year. The last time I was in a Vodafone shop the single employee to hand was on her phone having a muffled argument I presume with her boyfriend
The Carphone Warehouse are one of the better run businesses, or at least they used to be, I've not researched them for a few years.
HMV in a last desperate attempt to survive are selling off their profitable live venue side of their business in order to pay for revamping their stores to be more consumer electronic-centric.
I want to know what decade the HMV management think they are in :|
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Past Times goes into administration
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16582233
Past Times was owned by Epic Private Equity, a firm specialising in "distressed" companies, which bought it out of administration for £7.75m in 2005.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16582233
Past Times was owned by Epic Private Equity, a firm specialising in "distressed" companies, which bought it out of administration for £7.75m in 2005.
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I didnt even know they exsisted, dont think I have ever seen one of thier stores even though there is meant to be one in the city where I live.
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I used to buy stuff from them when they were just a catalogue shop.
But I have never set foot in one of their shops, I am one of those people who just perfers to do it online.
I have been shopping online since 1994, the days when it used to take a maths degree just to get online and you had to send a postal order, and then wait 2 mths to get the goods.
Before Amazon and ebay and paypal.
I killed the high street.
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Barretts opened an online store a few years back which has rising turnover year on year.
This is obviously one of the reasons they 'go and come back', to streamline the retails shops and close the sites that are loss making.
My prediction...............another 2 years, another batch of shops will go.
Some creditors who have lost money from a customer, when going into administration, are ready to go back and supply the same customer when they have reopened under a different guise, all be it on different terms.
In Barretts case, maybe it shows how desperate some suppliers are to get business, taking into account Barretts recent history of trading, or maybe the Barretts online store has an influence on their suppliers thinking.
A crazy world, maybe.
Ron
MYOFFICEINCHINA
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You, and billions of others, that have realised that how you buy things has evolved.
Ron
MYOFFICEINCHINA
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Why wouldn't a supplier continue to supply to a business that has gone under and phoenixed? What good does it do to take the moral high ground and refuse to supply? The lost money is lost, not supplying in future won't help that.
The main thing must be to only supply in future if you are confident of being paid - probably by limiting credit terms, i.e. lower outstanding balances and shorter payment timescales, or maybe taking security or getting guarantees, or whatever.
At the end of the day, the supplier has probably made more profit out of the failed company over several years than the amount they've lost when it goes under, so overall, it was a successful relationship despite the lost.
I'd agree that a supplier would be crazy to continue to supply if there was no better guarantee of being paid. That's just plain stupid to do the same again and risk losing again.
The main thing must be to only supply in future if you are confident of being paid - probably by limiting credit terms, i.e. lower outstanding balances and shorter payment timescales, or maybe taking security or getting guarantees, or whatever.
At the end of the day, the supplier has probably made more profit out of the failed company over several years than the amount they've lost when it goes under, so overall, it was a successful relationship despite the lost.
I'd agree that a supplier would be crazy to continue to supply if there was no better guarantee of being paid. That's just plain stupid to do the same again and risk losing again.
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Well if my experience of shopping in Comet this morning is anything to go by they will gone before the end of the week. I spent a good 5/10 minutes looking at various different memory sticks, clearly not sure which one to buy, no one proffered any assistance so I naturally just plumped for the cheapest. Went to the till to pay to be watched by three members of staff, not one made any effort to serve me, next the phone started ringing and one of the staff walked past me to answer it, I threw the memory stick on the counter and walked out, on the way one of the staff said I was just on my way to serve you despite him being stood just watching me. I rang HO to make my complaint and the guy just said sorry, when I retorted with 'is that it just sorry' he said what else do you want me to do ? Me I would have at least asked which store it was!!
Days left I tell ya, days....you don't get that sort of service on the internet.
Days left I tell ya, days....you don't get that sort of service on the internet.
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Comet were sold in November to another bunch of Turn Around Specialists/Asset Strippers/Hedge Fund Monkeys. The staff are waiting to find out how many closures and redundancies there will be.
They probably think, "Shucks, I'm on min wage, probably going to be canned whatever I do, making sales won't help my job prospects, uck'em"
Which helps nobody really, but is understandable.
They probably think, "Shucks, I'm on min wage, probably going to be canned whatever I do, making sales won't help my job prospects, uck'em"
Which helps nobody really, but is understandable.
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I agree.
The point I was trying to make that there is no 'punishment' for a business to go into administration and start up again.
They probably protect (and pay) the suppliers they know they will need to use in their next venture.
Surely that can't be right.
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Banned
Actually the one thing you can't do is show favouritism to certain suppliers. If this can be shown to have happened in the last few months of trading the directors will be prosecuted.
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I haven't read the entire thread and apologise for the slight hijack but your post caught my eye bob....
When I started selling advertising on a local free newspaper I contacted Mr Don Lewin (Clinton -after whom the card shops are named- Lewins father) to offer him his usual quarter page on the front. There were no discounts on front page ads but he insisted on paying pre rate increase prices, an extra fiver from memory, so I had the artwork reduced by a cm in height, which the copy could stand without any loss of impact. He done his pieces, threw his toys out of the pram and pulled the ad completely. 'I want my 10% and if you go into any of my stores and ask for 10% off you'll get it'. Pity he hadn't told his staff that
From that day forth, some 30 years ago I have never spent a penny in one of his shops and I for one will show little remorse should the empire crumble.
In contrast Philip (now Baron) Harris of Harris/QueenswayCarpetright fame was an absolute gent and treated salespeople with respect.
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Well if my experience of shopping in Comet this morning is anything to go by they will gone before the end of the week. I spent a good 5/10 minutes looking at various different memory sticks, clearly not sure which one to buy, no one proffered any assistance so I naturally just plumped for the cheapest. Went to the till to pay to be watched by three members of staff, not one made any effort to serve me, next the phone started ringing and one of the staff walked past me to answer it, I threw the memory stick on the counter and walked out, on the way one of the staff said I was just on my way to serve you despite him being stood just watching me. I rang HO to make my complaint and the guy just said sorry, when I retorted with 'is that it just sorry' he said what else do you want me to do ? Me I would have at least asked which store it was!!
Days left I tell ya, days....you don't get that sort of service on the internet.
Not quite as bad, but go in on a weekend and you'll get decent service. Go in on a Monday when the staff are all recovering from a busy one and you'll be playing find the monkey.
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Banned
And then some employees seem quite keen to help the demise of their retail employers. Unbelievable that they think striking for a pay rise will help, then again they are being goaded on by the unions who have a history of destroying businesses.
http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/...-workers-back-call-for-strike/5032956.article
http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/...-workers-back-call-for-strike/5032956.article
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Crazy, do you think someone should tell them - there is an army of people on JSA who the DWP will put in their for free
Pops ~xx~
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