Woolworths makes way for something new.

In the beginning

I was in Nairn today, although I travel around a bit in my roll I do not have the time to visit shops, I have become one of those people that shops online for everything but food.  Today was different I was with client, who just asked if I could post some cards for them. This gave me the excuse to walk down the high street.

For those who do not know Nairn is a small Scottish town that had a glorious past, in its hay day Charlie Chaplin and he family would holiday through the summer. It still has a fantastic golf course that is on every golfers must play list.

Having posted the Xmas cards I went into Woolworths, it was packed with customers taking advantage of this retail beast in its death throws. The shelves looking bare in places with 30% or 40% discount signs everywhere. I do feel for the staff in this situation they are probable getting more infomation from the media about their future employment prospects than their management can tell them. Just as I was parking the car the news had announced that all stores will be closed by the 7th of January unless a buyer can be found and that 25,000 staff face redundancy with only the statury payments on offer.  Still the store was busy and these staff are certainly earning the money and doing a good job in difficult circumstance.

Walking around the store I looked at the bits and pieces that I have often bought in the past, Things for shoes like polish or insoles, Clothing dyes, toys and well just about anything. I will be sad to see this institution pass into history.

Yet we are going to see the high Street change over the next few years and Woolworth and MFI are the first big names from the past that will go. Woolworth tried to become all things to all people, it has always sold low price product. Over the last few years it has struggled to find its place in the market while running a growing £400m deficit. In these credit crunch times that is hard.   Guardian.co.uk

MFI is a different story they were the first with the flat pack furniture 20 years ago and now they are not alone and others do it better.

While it is sad to see the changes and devastating for those that lose a secure job, all business is destined to fail eventually. Nothing lasts for ever so change needs to be embraced, I struggle with this as much as the next person.

This brings me to my point to survive in these different time every business must know what their customers want, that means defining who they are and  targeting them specifically. Do not join the list of has beens. Profile your customers to know who they are, Survey your customers to undersatnd their needs and alway always give better value than they expect,

What we are seeing in these high profile failures is business that have been missing these point and surviving on the buoyancy of the market. Once that liquidity passed there was nothing left to hold them up. The changes on the high street will be painful for some and there may be more to come, however it will bring the opportunity for something new to appear and where there is opportunity there is hope.