Last time I was in there all they were selling was magazines and the upstairs was blocked off. They were also selling coffee

In this case it 'could' be justified, the guy is exceedlingly rich. I know my fiance works for one of his other businesses.

Rubbish. Utter rubbish. He's running a business, not a charity. He's a businessman, not a philanthropist.

shops been going downhill for ages.
turned it into a coffee house (which is mostly empty) and a kids play area upstairs (which ive never seen anyone in.
downstairs is full of "presents" which are basically rubbish, and all the cds, dvds, were on cut price sale and clearing out stuck in a corner last time i went in.

books were dissappearing too, and toys and games had dissapeared.

they used to give vouchers for there to my high school kids as rewards, but last time we went in there was nothing to buy except magazines., so after complaints , school gave grand arcade vouchers instead.

ill miss the old version, but i certainly wont miss this modern version.....good riddance i say.

I would agree with that myself, the old smiths was really good while the newer version was naff.

Does anybody remember the woman who would give you the 'evils', when purchasing top shelf bongo lierature?

Used to be a really good shop. I used to go there for books/cd's/dvds etc but they stopped selling all those things and turned it into effectively a ponsy coffee house so lost its core customer base. Yes the grand arcade can be partly blamed but the management have to take some responsibility for the decisions they made (prior to the grand arcade opening).

If you sell the right products that people want to buy then people will come to your shop simple as.

If you don't diversify products or offer people little incentive to come at little off the beaten track then you’re doomed to failure sadly.

Perfect example is that shop called Alan’s which sells all sorts of BMX stuff. They originally started near to Smiths I believe and now they have a bigger shop near Wigan Wallgate train station and I believe kids still go all the way down there to buy the things they can’t easily find anywhere else in town.

Can the same be said of Smiths?? What incentive is there for me to go to there rather than Waterstones or WH-Smith?

I used to go in there regularly to buy Books, CDs, DVDs and they had a good range. Thought it looked odd when they started to reduce the products. The disappearance of the things I went there for meant I started to go to WHSmith and Waterstones instead. The way the new management ran the store killed it rather than the Grand Arcade.

yes i usually go there on saturdays and this past 4 or 5 years it seemed to be going downhill! i think waterstones has beaten off the buisness and it was rather expensive

Sad, but that's business.

I remember going there each summer holidays before the school term to stock up with new stationary.

Dunno why I have that memory but that's the one that sticks in my mind about Smiths.

Smash the drawing room to pieces!

We're still married.

Its sad, the shop used to be brilliant, but then even before its "green" refurb, it was much dearer than most other shops and out of the way to boot, no wonder trade dropped off.

Still, such is life, Play & Amazon are too much compeition for independant high st to compete with.

i got all my college stationery from there many moons ago