Originally Posted by malpasc:
“Our local branch has just been done up, along with the shopping centre it forms part of. I'd imagine their rent probably went up to cover the cost of the renovation of the entire shopping centre.”
Usually the way it works is the shopping centre's owners will be doing the renovation and other shops are given money towards renovation for things such as shop fronts. INTU are currently renovating their shopping centres since their rebrand from Capital Shopping Centres and their shopping centres are now INTU branded.
Originally Posted by malpasc:
“BHS seems like a pointless shop to me - the clothes are dowdy and boring, and many are concessions of other shops which seems particularly silly if the BHS store is in the same location as actual individual branches of the concession brands.”
As mentioned before this was mainly down to the Arcadia Group making it a concessions store for their brands. The shop can be turned around though, in the spring time people start buying summer clothing which will help pay their debtors.
Originally Posted by malpasc:
“I think they've lost their purpose, a bit like Woolworths did in the end - they don't sell anything that can't be purchased elsewhere for less money, or better quality.”
In the end Woolworths troubles came from being unable to pay their debt or find another company that would lend them money or company that would buy them with their debt. For what it was Woolworths really needed time more than money as they could have come up with a plan and turned it around but like many people they were expecting a buy out or government investment because they were a huge company that could have returned a profit. BBC worldwide were going to buy Woolworth's 40% share in 2entertain, had they sold it they would have paid off some of their debt but the value of Woolworths would've gone down.
Like BHS Woolworths were in a similar situation in the late 80s, they reduced the size of their shops where they could. Landlords that could find other shops to take part of the Woolworth stores let Woolworths become smaller and where they couldn't sell the leases or make the shops smaller they would use their at the time sister company Superdrug to take part or all of some stores. Many of the Superdrug stores today were previously a small Woolworths store or part of a large Woolworths store. Before the 90s Woolworths was more of a department store selling electrical items, groceries and adult clothing but they were making losses so they changed to selling less ranges that were more profitable for them such as music, videos, toys, children's clothing and stationary. Unlike BHS and Allders they didn't turn Woolworth in to a Kingfisher concessions store although they did used to sell Superdrug products in some stores.
According to their company accounts the net worth of BHS took a sharp drop from a net worth of £2,519,000.00 in 2010 to -£256,288,000.00 in 2014 but most of that would probably be due to the arcadia group using them as a concessions shop.
Originally Posted by Charnham:
“I went into John Lewis TV department last year, and something occurred to me, TVs now are massive, and how many can a store like John Lewis, never mind a small store actually display, the phrase "show rooming" im sure is a thing, but how many 60 inch TVs can you show room, regardless of if the person who looks at, buys it in store or online?”
TVs are bigger however they probably take up the same surface area and TVs used to come with a stand / cabinet. In department stores they usually have a shared stockroom located on a different floor which is where they would be stored. There are many people who would rather go to a shop and get the product instantly and know it works that but it online.
Originally Posted by Charnham:
“I get why out of town shopping centres exisit, but the one I was talking about is not one, its a neighborhood centre which got greedy, and whilst locals would consider themselves very well served, the vast amount of empty space, makes the whole thing seem like a failure.
I actually can not see any time ever, when Orton Gate will be full, or have many more stores than it has now.”
There are some cases where local councils have pushed through planning permission to compete with other towns or other parts of their town. An example I can think of is Croydon in South London where they had a large shopping centre which was renovated in the mid 1990s and so all the shops filled quickly with companies wanting to rent them but then they granted planning permission for an extension to a shopping centre across the road making it the same size as the other. The issue they have now is they have shops that have never been occupied in the 13 years the extended shopping centre and some shops moved out of the older shopping centre and shops in the older one have been empty for about the same time and I think there is a double unit that never opened after the renovation in the mid 90s. They had a large amount of former Gas factories and power stations which closed and redeveloped in to retail parks. With retail parks they usually have restrictions on the sizes of the units such as a minimum size so the shops aren't so small that they would take shops from the town centre or maximum size so they take all the customers from the town centre but it depends on the location.
Originally Posted by TUTV Viewer:
“They are also part of the TJ Maxx empire - the only reason they were renamed for the UK market was to avoid confusion with TJ Hughes.
With over 1000 stores to stock across the world (including HomeSense and Marshalls), they have to rely on more than just overstock and auctions. A considerable volume of their stock is "own brand" - check the label for the details of the manufacturer or often the stock is "special purchase" that has been made exclusively for the TJX group of companies as part of a bulk order.”
The "own brand" products would be there to make up for stores with lack of stock because there are companies that have lower over heads and they can sell products in temporary stores or online.
Originally Posted by
Gordie1:
“I'm stunned that store 21 is still going.
”
Clothing can be a hit or miss thing. I remember in around 2000 M&S were in financial problems because their clothing wasn't popular but they got celebrities and designers to make new clothing designs and started advertising more and rebranded.