Slow Death Of An Old Friend

Mention Woolworths to anybody of a certain age and it's almost guaranteed that they will, within the first thirty seconds of conversation, mention the words 'Broken Biscuits Counter.' For anybody whose teenage years were before the 1980's those three words were as much a rite of passage as your first glimpse of female pubic hair in a well thumbed copy of Health & Efficiency.

However whilst H & E may have been the first of many encounters with naked flesh, Woolworths has remained stuck firmly in the fifties, save for the Broken Biscuits Counter which has gone the same way as Brylcreem and white dog shit, a shop marooned on its own island in a sea of progressive consumerism.

I recently watched an interview with the CEO of Poundland who explained the success of that High Street phenomenon by stating that they had secured the best possible deals with all their major suppliers. That's why if you ever visit a Poundland you'll find the big names at the front of the shop and the no marks at the back. Woolworths on the other hand looks as if the purchasing was by Stevie Wonder and the shop layout designed by Ray Charles on advice from Helen Keller.

There can be few more dispiriting shopping experiences than entering your local Woolworths, it feels desperate. To return to the island metaphor, it's missed the boat completely. Once upon a time the nations under-10's were, in the majority of cases, clothed in the Laydbird range, these days Woolworths cannot compete with the supermarkets for either quality or cost. It stopped selling CD's of any note, outside the obligatory charts, when sales started to decline under pressure from Internet downloads, and yet the CD's it does sell are more expensive than the High Street competitors it sells to through its wholesale business - go figure! The own brand CD's/DVD's etc are more expensive and why does it continue to sell confectionery at prices higher than everybody else.

When the most recent Chief Executive took over in September the first thing he noticed was that the shops under his command sell fifty four different brands of pencil case and not one brand of ladies tights. But why on earth would Woolworths want to sell tights in a market dominated by Supermarkets and Superdrug?

Last Friday the shop began it's biggest ever sale, Woolworths have traditionally taken ninety per cent of their annual turnover in the six weeks leading up to Christmas. This year they would have needed record levels of income to reverse the losses incurred in the first half of the year, the wonder of Woolies was going to have to be spectacular indeed if it was going to turn the fortunes round of a well loved, but largely ignored, old friend. For staff up and down the country the implosion is part of a triple whammy, losing your job at Christmas (or close to it) combined with a huge deficit in the company's pension funds and little prospect of finding similar work during the economic downturn isn't a laughing matter. What the company needs is a buyer with big pockets, somebody who will be honest and say "it's broken, we can't fix it but there is some goodwill left." The most ironic thing is that in many towns Woolworths historically occupies the best site on the High Street, and like the kid who hits puberty early and stands out from the crowd there's no hiding place, and that prominent position will most likely go to Aldi or Lidl, two supermarket chains who are almost brazen in their cheapness.

Over the course of three days last weekend, I visited stores in Ringwood, Salisbury and Southampton and on each occasion it was like attending a wake, the shoppers taking the part of long lost relatives coming in for a final look to see if there was anything worth having before the body is buried. I haven't really used Woolworths for years and despite searching the aisles I couldn't find anything to buy that I couldn't buy cheaper elsewhere, it's a shame but ultimately the shop didn't move beyond it's comfort zone and got forgotten.