Usually what happens is a retail park company acquires a factory that recently closed down or wasteland from some unknown person, company or council who is selling their assets. This then makes neighbouring towns improve their town centres and retail areas.


In business it's very unlikely that the past year has had an effect on the company and if you look at the BHS accounts it been going down for the past few years. If he has no retail experience it wouldn't matter because BHS would have managers and people who make retail decisions. £500,000 per year is probably very low because BHS probably have a turnover in the tens or hundreds of millions which he as the person in charge he would have helped bring the company millions of pounds. BHS' money problems would have been from the past few years and will still have an effect for another few years due to deals with suppliers or rent agreements from the previous owners.


Part of the reason I think comet closed a year after being bought is that the company that bought it did so because they owned Game at the time who had concessions in Comet stores which did well because people would buy TVs, games consoles and games at the same time and with comet closing Game would've lost many of their locations.


If the directors have experience running companies and turning around the fortunes of low performing companies then they would be worth the £3million they are getting paid. £3million is probably only a fraction of BHS' turnover and like with many companies in their position they would have liabilities from the previous owners that they are paying interest on or are losing money on. Arcadia group probably agreed to loss making deals that would've benefit their other companies and still does now.

Bit of topic, or maybe not. What confuses me is that we are always being told of the dire state shops and especially town centers are in, yet when you try and rent or buy a shop they are a fortune. Something like half a million pounds a year for a modest Trafford Center shop. £122,000 for a 1300sf for a shop in King St Manchester?

its already been posted in this thread, that keeping rents high is to keep out the riff raff. No point having a Poundland, eCig World, or a Bookies in your expensive shopping center.

Talking of the cheap end of the market, I cant say im surprise that someone who buys a chain for £1 (along with the debt) is not always going to be the kind of business person the public can warm to easily,

Most shopping centres and town centres don't want certain types of shops and many councils won't approve of change of use to estate agents, bookmakers, charity shops or takeaway shops unless there is a problem with finding shops. As a retailer the issue I see is many town centres were made in the pre 60s when shops were small which means you don't get anchor shops and so you get a lot of restaurants because they can adjust their seating area to fit in the small shops but don't attract people because people go to restaurants while shopping, they don't go shopping to go to restaurants. They also get a lot of charity shops and the large shops are discount shops which attract people on benefits who have no or little concept of managing money and would prefer to buy 100 items they don't need in a pound shop because they want to buy a lot of items than items they need.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...1kUEM-HK6IysDg Brits are the biggest online spenders in the developed world, so more people spending online means less people shopping in the high streets. Cheaper for the supplier and the public, over heads are alot lower because you dont need to be based in town, city centers

I don't buy that but really if I don't want a pound shop in my space I do not rent the premises it to that company.

Online shops have one huge disadvantage in that it takes two, three or even 14 days to get your item. OK it is possible to pay for express delivery but it becomes substantially more expensive. Far easier to nip into town, if only things were available and cost less

The cost of renting/leasing shops must put of many as you need to make a lot of money just to cover costs and puts it beyond these who might want to open a retail shop but can't find the funding or can justify the rent

I stopped bothering going to the Trafford Centre after all the interesting little shops disappeared out of it, presumably because they couldn't afford to stay there. Now it's just and endless array of boring designer clothes shops.

That is the problem with most town centers and shopping centers, endless chains of the same shops. A small retailer can not afford the overheads.

I always think of online shopping like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, I have been selling online twice as long as physical shops and all shop locations except one have greatly higher sales compared to online sales via ebay and amazon. It is one of those things like if radio was invented after TV or ereaders were invented before paper, people would be talking about the advantages of how with radio you can take it with you and drive and paper never runs out of batteries. Online shops costs less but the return is much lower. Most people still prefer to pay more and get their products instantly.

There are also issues with the commitment to being open at whatever crazy hours the centre decides to be open.

Sorry but if people prefer to pay and get there products instantly, then high streets would not be seeing less footfall, and less people visiting shops, and internet sales shopping would not be increasing all of the time.

I heard that BHS is in serious trouble so they may be next and also Next are in financial trouble.

Next? Are you sure?

They made £800m profit last year.

BHS was saved yesterday I read ..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35888829. Retailer Next has seen its shares fall 15% after it forecast that 2016 would be a "challenging year" for its business, "with much uncertainty in the global economy".

They aren't in financial trouble though, they have forecast a challenging year.

Their profits went up to £836m.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35890260. Weak demand for clothing hits shops

The volume of goods sold in UK shops in February fell by 0.4% from the previous month, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The fall was less than feared, but it came after a higher-than-expected rise of 2.3% in January.

The ONS said the fall was partly a reflection of weak demand for the new season's clothing ranges.

All very interesting but in no way by and definition of the words are Next in 'financial trouble'.

Trouble is most the high streets are in trouble, online is were the money is going. Analysis: Jonty Bloom, business correspondent

It's not a double whammy, more of a treble whammy. The UK's High Streets are being hit by three problems.

There has been a long-term trend of shopping moving online: sales there are rising by more than 12% a year.

Online is also contributing to another problem: prices are falling in stores by 2.5% a year. That is a huge hit for shops. They can charge less and less each year, in part because online retailers have lower costs, but also squeezed consumers are searching for bargains these days.

The third whammy is that retail spending looks likely to slow down this year, as the economy both here and abroad is weakening. Online competition, slowing sales and lower prices: no wonder Next is warning this could be the worst year since 2008.

High Street footfall is lower because the high rent of shops and shops not being suitable. Renting space in retail parks are cheaper than in high streets and they are more of a suitable size. There are many towns which don't have shops which are over 2,000 sqft because when most towns were built shops were smaller and in the past 30+ years the range of products shops stock have increased and so those small shops aren't suitable and many landlords keep their shops empty because it costs less than rebuilding them and one day a company might rent that shop.

Many small independents and specialists have moved online because when you take in to account the shop rent, paying people minimum wage and theft of products it will lose them money compared to selling online.

In the 90s they said that all shopping will be online but it hasn't and the same was said about mail order companies.

There has been a long-term trend of shopping moving online: sales there are rising by more than 12% a year., read the report that came out this week post 117

That is a misunderstanding of statistics and percentages. An increase of 12% depends on what the amount before the increase. Compared to physical shop sales online would be lower. For me 80% of my sales are from physical shops every £1 I make 20p comes from online sales. Assuming they are referring a 12% increase in sales (items) and sales (cash) an increase of 12% it would be less than 3p per £1 however a 3p per pound increase in physical sales would be 3.75%. Percentages don't tell the whole story, my sales on Amazon have increased by 1024% this month compared to the same month last year but the reason for that is this month last year I was using ebay more and barely using Amazon, my ebay sales decreased by over 1000% because I don't use ebay as much because ebay isn't a safe place to trade.

What do you mean by 'Ebay isn't a safe place to trade'? There are millions of sellers who would disagree with you.

I have used eBay as a seller for almost 11 years and I have found loads of flaws in the way their buyer protection works. It is possible for a buyer to buy something and claim they didn't receive it despite signing for it and eBay will refund them and tell you to claim with the delivery company. In the last 6 months of 2015 we had over 120 claims saying they didn't receive their order despite all items being tracked. They were all appealed and most were reimbursed by eBay after 1 to 3 attempts. There are also flaws with some tracking where eBay can't tell if it's been delivered and they will refund buyers because on their system it shows as in transit even if the courier's website says it's been delivered or if the buyer chooses non tracked services. Buyers can literally buy items, receive them, claim they didn't receive them and get their money and the item and leave feedback and low detail seller ratings for the item being as described and delivery speed despite them claiming they didn't receive the item to be able to rate those things.

But when it talks about internet sales, it does not just mean places like Ebay, Amazon, it means internet sales, from things like major high street retailers, so companies like curries pc world are seeing online sales increase and a decrease of sales in there physical stores, same as the major supermarkets have all seen online shopping increase and less people visiting the physical stores.