Yes....having thought about it a bit further....the "demo centre" works for high end items, but not low end.
Low end will be piled high and sold cheap, because that's it's differentiator. In the example of shoes, Brantano gets ahead because it's piled up self serve, as are the sports shops that have overtaken JJB in trainer sales.

I agree that the model wouldn't work on 'consumables' but not sure I agree on clothing.

I'd say that a lot more fashion retailers are shifting to a model of "come in and experience" rather than "come in and be sold to". The new Topshop/Man opened in Leeds just before Christmas and it's a world away from the previous store. Much more room to move, staff with iPads helping customers, personal shopping services and a much more pleasant environment - I certainly don't think that they're unique in that regard and Topshop is hardly "high-end". It's not Primark, but it's hardly Harvey Nichols.

I agree that we might see more 'manufacturer' stores in the coming years but I'm not convinced that Curry's couldn't follow a similar model to Apple for example. If Curry's can show customers that their product can do something clever or eye-catching (regardless of how special it actually is), then they'll get the attention of a lot of people - and some of those will open their wallets.

And on a similar line - how the hell did TK Maxx find their business model and make it work ?

1. Pile all of your stock out onto the shop floor and cram in as many racks as you can, each one stuffed tight with stock.
2. Make your showroom look like a badly organised church hall jumble sale.
3. Sell everything at the highest price you can think of and use the "its a designer name" as an excuse.

I prefer charity shops, at least everyone knows you're a cheapskate and if you're going to have to fight for something in your size its better to have to fight a pensioner for it.

Talking of John Lewis / Waitrose it has been doing well - sales of £9.5B against M&S ((a former world giant of retailing)'s £10B. I am concerned though that the CEO of Jonelle was making noises about opening lots of new stores. To me that could kill a good business - at present Jonelle do well because they occupy the key site in most large shopping centres and people are will ing to travel to them. Likewise Waitrose have a rarity value and concentrate on affluent areas. Why saddle yourself with the major overhead of new shops when current policy works?

Somerfield doing that (when they bought Kwiksave in 199icon_cool.gif really accelerated their downfall.

I think that was different. Operating at the lower end of the market they needed a bigger market share and critical mass to hope to compete with Tesco and Sainsbury. Waitrose are somewhat different in that they have a different unique niche - upper part of the market. M&S Food is probably their main competitor but only over part of their range.

Waitrose play the system from both ends though - they promote themselves as a higher class of food retailler, use quality displays etc, but then spend a lot of money on their shelf tickets telling you how in a price comparison certain products were cheaper than the major supermarkets that they pretend they aren't cometing against.

Mmm, that really was a big bite to take when they were already having trouble competing with Tesco and ASDA, I thought it was biting off more than they could chew that did them in, that and Kwiksave being a bit of a financial black hole.

I always found Somerfield to have lost their way, they didn't want to be an "Express" type store but they were too small and didn't have the estate to fight it out with the big boys, CO-OP have proved that the sites and store size works as long as you concentrate on the service and have the stock to sell, trying to match the big boys on price will get you nowhere very fast.

Back in 1998, Somerfield's view was that the stores were in similar locations and of similar size. Clearly they were very wrong in terms of location. Their business model didn't seem right anyway, being neither cheap nor quality.

Hey as long as they pay my bill to do the comparison work they can do what they want

Waitrose are very good at higher end niche products, the bio organic yoghurt and Icelandic mineral water type stuff, they do it well too.

Depends on what scale I suppose. There are a lot of affluent areas without a JL (Leeds and York being two areas that JL have publically claimed they're targeting). The York store will be based on the development that will, amongst other things, be home to the new York Community Stadium whilst Leeds is something of a 'pie in the sky' development of Eastgate that, IMO, probably won't happen for some time yet.

HMV next. That one has been on the cards for some time.

It has but I was keeping everything crossed that it would find a way out of its difficulties. I love shopping there. Bought all my Christmas CDs and DVDs from there just a few weeks ago. They are very reasonably priced nowadays, at least in the St Helens store they are anyway. And I love the atmosphere as I wander around and see what is available before I buy something.

I'm as gutted to see HMV go as I was when Woolies went, and in part for the same reason: they both played a massive part in my yoof. But I also still valued and used them as an adult. The branch in St Helens was always pretty busy. Not as packed as in their heyday but still usefully busy. Most people still buy DVDs and CDs according to recent figures but buy online instead of instore. Pity that. One day people will wake up and wonder why there aren't any shops left when they actually need them, and that's because they didn't bother going to them when they didn't.

I've seen that claim a lot on Twitter tonight but here in Sintellins they are cheap as chips. Most of their CDs are under a tenner. Well under in some cases and there are always two for one deals. DVDs cheap too. Box sets vary in price but some are exceptionally good value.


We have one option here but I've never been in there and so don't know what it offers. I guess I may find out soon enough. But I doubt they will offer the range of DVDs and CDs that HMV offers here. They have been around in Sintellins for ever.


I suppose if the investor was rich enough and creative enough it would be possible. After all, according to latest stats, most people still buy CDs and DVDs rather than download them, it's just that a large chunk of those people buy them online. HMV might have survived had they not been bogged down with other lines, like Waterstones, their live music side, Canadian purchase, etc. Although I think they took too long to lower their prices. Mind you, having rent to pay (especially rents as high as they have been) that was bound to limit how low they could go with their prices.