Monday, 29 December 2008

Another one bites the dust...

At the moment it seems as though every time I either turn on the news or look at the BBC or Sky News websites there is another high street retailer on the brink of collapse and entering the black hole known as administration. I know we’re now in what is known as a recession but I can't help but think that there seem to be a lot of big companies on the verge of disappearing; most of them I would have thought would have the foresight to prepare for something like this. I do not even pretend to understand the major financial factors that have all played their part as things like interest rates etc don't appear high on my "things I need to understand" list but I cannot help thinking that somewhere in the non too distant past greed may have played its part; expanding when the money being freely spent over the last few years but not covering themselves when it dried up.

Most of the companies disappearing so far seem to fall into the "non-essential" bracket such as Pier, Whittards, and now USC but I cannot help think Woolworths could have been a victim of it's own doing. When I think of Woolworths I can remember every Saturday morning meeting up with school friends outside Woolworths in Chester-le-Street where we would all wander in and come away with either a cassette single, sweets or something completely useless; we knew almost exactly what they sold. Unfortunately over the last few days in conversation I asked a few people if they knew what Woolworths actually sold everybody said CD&s and Pick and Mix; although unfortunately from a recent visit the number of CD's they sold was extremely minimal and the Pick and Mix selection was tiny. So although they were a major high street brand and almost an institution does anybody actually what they sold apart from - just stuff

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