The death of the high street.

[bristolracer]

Borghetto said:

snuffy said:

Our Which Survey said : Smiths are st

Smiths said : Oh no we're not

Oh yes they are

They did make the point that they havent been closing branches like all the others on the high street.
st shops do seem to do well

B and M home bargains
Halfords
Currys pc world
TK maxx
SCS sofas
Sports direct

All ste and all surviving, maybe Mary Portas needs to change her advice,"Quality individuality and service? No ste is what sells"

[snuffy]

bristolracer said:

TK maxx

All ste and all surviving, maybe Mary Portas needs to change her advice,"Quality individuality and service? No ste is what sells"

I once ventured into TXMaxx to get out of the rain. It made me feel quite unwell.

[bristolracer]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Most pension funds?

[anonymous-user]

BrabusMog said:

A few days ago, outside Reading station, a very well-to-do looking gentleman got a sarky comment off of one of these chuggers when he said he was in a rush (I presume that's what he said). He turned around and went absolutely ballistic at them, it was bloody hilarious to watch lol! The chugger looked terrified

Our local chuggers go mad if you pull out cash and offer that, they only want direct debits. One went totally ballistic, when I had knocked her back and she asked if i cared about her charity and I replied "No I don't care about kids with cancer, its cats, donkeys and gorillas for me"

She chased after me shouting at everyone else in the precinct that I didn't care about kids with cancer. The more I laughed the more incensed she got.

[NickCQ]

BrabusMog said:

Just googled Chappell, he rents a mansion in Dorset and leases a FFRR how prudent.

Don't forget the series of racing yachts called... 'Maverick'

[bloomen]

bristolracer said:

Most pension funds?

More and more it's councils themselves desperately looking to plug holes in funding. Maybe it'll inspire them to mull over the power they have to influence their direction.

No matter what it's not good news for taxpayers.

[kev1974]

It's the terrible lighting that puts me off going in High St W H Smiths. Always so dim/dirty/switched off. The airport branches don't suffer from that. They need to get the guy that does the lights in the airport branches, tell him to go and fix up the high street branches with LED tubes/panels and so on.

[red_slr]

M&S may drop off the FTSE100 next month. Not good for them if they do.

[Gecko1978]

this thread got me thinking what is actually doing well on the high st. The pret a manger, Costa, nero etc will only survive if people visit a town centre, big department stores even John Lewis are struggling and M&S too. Sports direct has a website so you have to assume alot of revenue comes from that. But what is doing well what do we not like to buy on line or is the high st as was toll the late 90s a thing of the past like coal mines, factories without robots, farm labour etc just a thing of the past.

I have said it many times.on here before when working from home becomes the norm town centres and public transport is over.

Automation will see the end of bus an train drivers and goods will no longer be held at supermarkets but amazon like warehouses and be delivered by driverless cars or drone. Today its hard to imagine but in 1990 the smart phone was pure star treck and yet hear it is.

[red_slr]

[quote=Gecko1978]this thread got me thinking what is actually doing well on the high st. The pret a manger, Costa, nero etc will only survive if people visit a town centre, big department stores even John Lewis are struggling and M&S too. Sports direct has a website so you have to assume alot of revenue comes from that. But what is doing well what do we not like to buy on line or is the high st as was toll the late 90s a thing of the past like coal mines, factories without robots, farm labour etc just a thing of the past.

I have said it many times.on here before when working from home becomes the norm town centres and public transport is over.

Automation will see the end of bus an train drivers and goods will no longer be held at supermarkets but amazon like warehouses and be delivered by driverless cars or drone. Today its hard to imagine but in 1990 the smart phone was pure star treck and yet hear it is.[/quote

I agree to an extent but it will take one of the big tech companies to make a big push for the next leap. Maybe Amazon are looking most likely.

[bristolracer]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

My first job when I left school was at M+S, they were unassailable,kings of the high street.
Own brand all the way, you bought st. Michael or nothing
Credit cards? Up yours we are marks and Spencer we aren't paying your fees.
Top salaries for the high street, great perks for workers,all my mates in retail wanted my job at marks.
Profits up every year without fail.

My how they have fallen, if they had innovated and embraced the change they could have been Asos.

[Stan the Bat]

snuffy said:

Truckosaurus said:

The WHSmiths near my office does its best to discourage punters by often having charity chuggers loitering inside the doorway.

The Chester one used to have some energy or phone company just inside the doorway. If I saw that I never went in so I reckon it will have put others off as well. So that's a great business idea for Smiths then !

Sometimes the Chester branch has the added attraction of a 'homeless' person nicely tucked in his duvet outside.

[Gecko1978]

red_slr said:

Gecko1978 said:

this thread got me thinking what is actually doing well on the high st. The pret a manger, Costa, nero etc will only survive if people visit a town centre, big department stores even John Lewis are struggling and M&S too. Sports direct has a website so you have to assume alot of revenue comes from that. But what is doing well what do we not like to buy on line or is the high st as was toll the late 90s a thing of the past like coal mines, factories without robots, farm labour etc just a thing of the past.

I have said it many times.on here before when working from home becomes the norm town centres and public transport is over.

Automation will see the end of bus an train drivers and goods will no longer be held at supermarkets but amazon like warehouses and be delivered by driverless cars or drone. Today its hard to imagine but in 1990 the smart phone was pure star treck and yet hear it is.[/quote

I agree to an extent but it will take one of the big tech companies to make a big push for the next leap. Maybe Amazon are looking most likely.

I am fairly certain amazon, Google and the like are looking at automation in a big way even Apple was working on a car. Seems today driverless tech is away off but 10 years from now I would not bet against it.

[Bullett]

I've thought for years that the focus on sustainable transport and more capacity (HS2, Crossrail, motorway upgrades etc.) is the wrong approach. We should be focusing on reducing the need and therefore working from home. Very few office jobs need you in the office 9-5 every day.
The technology has existed for years, it's a management and presenteeism culture that is stopping it.
I read that during school holidays the traffic only drops by around 10% but it feels like much more.
Targeting 10% home workers would free up massive capacity for so many people and improve Quality of life, reduce pollution etc. I think you could see an uplift in small high street businesses and people are around in the day and as they self manage can pop out for jobs.

[anonymous-user]

sparkythecat said:

PurpleTurtle said:

Really?

1) It's a British-based Italian restaurant chain which made big of the fact that it used genuine Italian sourced ingriedients. Those have increased in price since he EU referendum as a direct result of the fall in the value of the Pound against the Euro. Surely a significant dent in their already slim margin?

The food on the plate typically represents around 30% of the cost of running a restaurant.
Since June 2016, the pound has fallen around 15% against the euro.
This would have put up overall restaurant running costs by only 4.5% over a three year period.
The business must have been in a poor state anyway very if that was enough to finish it off.

The £/€ rate is almost identical to the rate when JO launched most of his places, year average between 2009 and 2011 was 0.87. 2019 average so far is 0.87

The £ was unusually strong against the € in the runup to the referedum and has been at the same rate as when JO did his costings for opening.

[anonymous-user]

Bullett said:

I've thought for years that the focus on sustainable transport and more capacity (HS2, Crossrail, motorway upgrades etc.) is the wrong approach. We should be focusing on reducing the need and therefore working from home. Very few office jobs need you in the office 9-5 every day.
The technology has existed for years, it's a management and presenteeism culture that is stopping it.
I read that during school holidays the traffic only drops by around 10% but it feels like much more.
Targeting 10% home workers would free up massive capacity for so many people and improve Quality of life, reduce pollution etc. I think you could see an uplift in small high street businesses and people are around in the day and as they self manage can pop out for jobs.

People need the personal interaction to function healthily, working from home can isolate people.

This is why its never taken off, despite the technology being available for a couple of decades.

[Johnnytheboy]

The powers that be probably realise how many jobs relate to looking after offices and ofice workers, which would be lost if people worked from home.

[anonymous-user]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[Paul Dishman]

Burwood said:

eltawater said:

I don't think most of the posters on this thread fit into the core demographics of Boots on the high street

It's quite a useful destination for:

• Parents of young children (toys, baby food, vitamins, ointments etc)

• Make up counters

• Foreign holiday supplies (sunscreens, sunglasses etc)

• Photo printing

• The lunchtime office food rush

as well as the usual Pharmacy prescriptions. Don't forget there's almost always at least 1 Boots airside at major UK airports where you can bag a cheapish bottle of water and a sandwich compared to some of the hideously overpriced duty free shops.

Yes, you can get quite a few of these things at a large Tesco etc but quite often the range is very limited to a few aisles of products compared to a typical medium sized Boots.

It still makes a st load of money so it’s not going broke anytime soon

There's talk of 200 branches closing, when leases expire. Staff morale has gone down the toilet since Pessina flogged them to Walgreens and culled front line staff.

Lloyds have been closing and selling off pharmacies, often to smaller chains. They've also been selling off the health centre pharmacies that they bought over the past couple of decades, presumably because the government has cut pharmacy renumeration and NHS rents have shot up.

[anonymous-user]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

What odds are you offering ?

The scenario you outline most likely requires a significant financial stakeholder to pull support and force the issue. That stakeholder may not yet even be in the M&S money and if so would need to be buying into the debt /bonds. Underlying this would be a desire to take control and either manage the turnaround or effect a sale of parts unencumbered by legacy cost issues.

While it isn’t impossible I don’t see that happening in the next year or so and most certainly not under Archie’s watch.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 30th May 10:18