Three once great brands of various ages are falling by the wayside and according to some commentators are set to be far from the last.
Woolworths was probably the most obvious as their mix and match stores contained nothing essential and they had surprisingly failed to grab the power of the web. MFI were the victim, also, of an inexplicable lack of innovation in the face of increasing competition and recently worsening economic conditions. Lycos Europe - formerly top dog in the market - is suffering the consequences of missing countless opportunities, according to those who know more about it than me.
I remember Lycos in the early days of mass internet use - I believe it was the first search engine I used. If it wasn't Lycos, it was Ask. I certainly remember using Lycos content to read news and so on, although I don't think I used their email. Still, the last time I visited Lycos was probably 2002. And I have used the internet virtually daily since 2000.
Woolworths will leave a psychological hole in Britain though I couldn't truthfully claim to be expecting to miss them - jobs lost notwithstanding. I can't remember the last time I shopped in MFI - if I ever did. My two stores are B&Q and Ikea and always have been. Occasionally, I would venture into Homebase but only when they had a sale on that would help them get down to B&Q prices.
But, you see, these failures aren't entirely down to poor management but the ever tightening credit markets. Insurers ceased to cover Woolworth's stock orders and so Woolies had to pay in cash and service their £385m of debt. The lenders couldn't take any more and pulled the plug.
MFI couldn't pay the rent (literally) and lines of credit are now non-existant. Lycos couldn't convince banks that they could break even as early as 2011 and so fairwell.
These were only the very weakest of companies and so they are hitting the wall first but they are the tip of the iceburg - especially if retail insurers are getting as miserly as lending banks - and so we must hold our breath.
The talk is that the entire banking system is going to have to be nationalised on both sides of the Atlantic before liquidity truly returns and, frankly, I don't see how this can be avoided if governments want to minimise pain. The thing is, I do feel like this pain needs to be felt and then at the other end we may have a better system. Nationalising banking will cause untold ructions in societies who will be dead against government running banking for a host of reasons. "So I'll be lending to myself?" types of questions will abound and, of course, government banks are likely to be sensationally inefficient. But it could be argued that inefficient is better than collapsed.
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1 comment:
If you start getting nostalgic for C&A and Woolworth on the high street, you can always visit a major town or city center in Germany to relive the experience.
And you failed to mention that Woolworth in the UKofGB&NI was founded in Liverpool and had its headquarters there.
The modern store was never as popular though when it was moved from Church Street (into which W H Smith moved) to the Saint John's Shopping Centre.
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