An American Sweetshop in London

[Thankyou4calling]

Obviously I’m a Mayfair and St. James’ man but I took a detour down Oxford Street this week and was surprised to see a whole host of shops selling American sweets -Candy.

I don’t mean a couple there were at least 15 and big shops too.

Is there a big demand for these Hershey heavens?

They must have done some decent deals on the rent as they were in prime spots, is it just a London thing?

How many sweets must they sell to pay the bills.

I’m intrigued.

[sherman]

Several of them in Edinburgh too. Even one on the royal mile.

[pidsy]

They’re all over the place in central London.
Oxford street, Leicester Square has a few too.

I don’t get it - how many people are Willing to pay £5 for a bottle of snapple or £12 for a box of cereal?

[Pothole]

Thankyou4calling said:

How many sweets must they sell to pay the bills.

I’m intrigued.

pidsy said:

I don’t get it - how many people are Willing to pay £5 for a bottle of snapple or £12 for a box of cereal?

It's easy money, apparently: https://www.timeout.com/london/shopping/why-is-cen...

[Deesee]

Just good old fashioned money laundering.. at worst drugs / people trafficking..

Buy anything from these places with the company number/vat number on with a receipt..LoL. They will change hands every 6/8 months..to avoid this.

Edit yes it is the same ships that sold the British toot previously that were masquerading as a tourist shop.

Edited by Deesee on Thursday 18th November 19:11

[Truckosaurus]

To be fair, I will sometimes pay good money for some overpriced Pretzel M&Ms.

[ZedLeg]

Aye, money laundering. They take advantage of cheap rent offered to fill empty units, once the deal’s done they just close it.

Same with nail salons and the surprising amount of ice cream parlours that seem to run through Scottish winters

[Thankyou4calling]

Any evidence of this money laundering?

If it is I’m surprised they are so visible.

[RedWhiteMonkey]

Hershey's chocolate tastes foul.

[Deesee]

Thankyou4calling said:

Any evidence of this money laundering?

If it is I’m surprised they are so visible.

Here’s a private eye article around the former souvenir tenants.

https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/pr...

[Thankyou4calling]

The souvenir shops are still there.

These are much bigger premises, double fronted 4 or 5 thousand square feet.

And yes give me Galaxy all day long and hold the Hershey’s and Oreos for that matter.

[The Ferret]

Thankyou4calling said:

Any evidence of this money laundering?

If it is I’m surprised they are so visible.

That's the whole point of money laundering, it isn't visible, quite the opposite.

You won't find any evidence, but if you look at it carefully it's really not needed.

While the individual items might look expensive for what they are, in reality the cost of stocking one of these shops isn't going to be huge in the scheme of things. A decent size wall filled with 200 cans of Pizza or Cheesseburger Pringles looks impressive, but probably only costs a few hundred quid. Most of the stock is very random and in vast quantities, with fairly short use by dates. I'd hazard a guess over half of it goes in the bin. That's simply not how a viable business would operate. They sell a bit of stock, as massively inflated prices, possibly not even enough to cover the cost of buying it all in.......but of course when its all a front it doesn't matter.

[Truckosaurus]

Plus, nice extra profits if you aren't paying any tax or VAT and just dissolving the company as per that Private Eye story.

(I suspect if you were truly laundering money from outside sources your tax would be, superficially, squeaky clean and paid up)

[Type R Tom]

Not been to the west end for a while so wasn't aware of this but was in Seattle a few years ago around Halloween and walking around the tons of sweets they had for sale the thought had crossed my mind knowing what things go for in the "foreign" aisle at Tesco.

Ended up bring back a bag of glow in the dark Reese for the office.

[normalbloke]

Raids for counterfeit gear etc, sweet shops mentioned…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59351...

[Pothole]

normalbloke said:

Raids for counterfeit gear etc, sweet shops mentioned…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59351...

What point are you trying to make?

BBC article said:

Officers took unsafe toys, counterfeit clothing, and incorrectly-labelled nicotine products off the street.

The shops which sell American sweets don't generally sell that stuff.

[normalbloke]

Pothole said:

normalbloke said:

Raids for counterfeit gear etc, sweet shops mentioned…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59351...

What point are you trying to make?

BBC article said:

Officers took unsafe toys, counterfeit clothing, and incorrectly-labelled nicotine products off the street.

The shops which sell American sweets don't generally sell that stuff.

No point to make, so make of it what you will. Just thought it was interesting given the timing of this and the thread. I’ll wait for some more solid info from a couple of other sources before jumping on any bandwagons or leaping to any conclusions.

[dapprman]

Actually the write up I saw of the raid said it did include some sweet shops - I presume the smaller ones.

[Pothole]

dapprman said:

Actually the write up I saw of the raid said it did include some sweet shops - I presume the smaller ones.

Actually so did the article linked to, but it didn't mention the huge ones which only do American sweets.

[dapprman]

Pothole said:

ctually so did the article linked to, but it didn't mention the huge ones which only do American sweets.

Fair enough.