British High Street Death List 2021

[Blue Jam]

Debenhams finally gone. From the high street at least:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55793411

12,000 jobs, fuck.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Calling your asset stripping/'buying failing brands for the name' company Boohoo is pretty brazen eh?

Vultures.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Not forgetting https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/25/boohoo-report-reveals-factory-fire-risk-among-supply-chain-failings

[Fambo Number Mive]

Mahmud Kamani, joint CEO of Boohoo.com, has called it " a transformational deal for the group" and doesn't seen to have commented on the 12,000 jobs to be lost.

Kamani has a net worth of £1 billion as of May 2018.

[Paul Calf]

Closing failing high street businesses and 'onlining the brand' tends to fail, sometimes quite expensively.

[Icehaven]

Calling your asset stripping/'buying failing brands for the name' company Boohoo is pretty brazen eh?

Vultures.

Some of these online clothes shops really do have some unpleasant names, as well as Boohoo there's also Nasty Gal and Missguided. Who comes up with this shite?

[BlodwynPig]

Some of these online clothes shops really do have some unpleasant names, as well as Boohoo there's also Nasty Gal and Missguided. Who comes up with this shite?

Associates of Epstein

[Blumf]

Is the name really worth anything? How many people are specifically hankering for a 'Debenhams' brand shirt or whatever?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Closing failing high street businesses and 'onlining the brand' tends to fail, sometimes quite expensively.

Doesn't matter if you direct a load of money towards shareholders in the process.

In their eyes I mean, obviously financialisation and maximisation of 'shareholder value' is an assault on workers and wider society.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Is the name really worth anything? How many people are specifically hankering for a 'Debenhams' brand shirt or whatever?

I didn't even know they made stuff really, my memories are of it being ok for jeans when they were on offer and lots of Le Creuset stuff.

[Captain Crunch]

Fashion retailer Boohoo has bought the Debenhams brand and website for £55m.
However, it will not take on any of the firm's remaining 118 High Street stores or its workforce.

So all those big old shops going begging?  What would you like to see them used for?  Giant charity bookshop with fresh donuts on the top floor? 

[Icehaven]

Coventry's fucked then. First their giant Ikea slap in the middle of the city centre shut last year after making a loss for the entire time it was open, and now Debenhams is going, which occupies half of West Orchards shopping centre. Coming like a ghost town indeed.

[seepage]

I didn't even know they made stuff really, my memories are of it being ok for jeans when they were on offer and lots of Le Creuset stuff.

Maybe some people are loyal to the sub-brands e.g. Maine New England, John Rocha.

[imitationleather]

Asos want to buy Top Shop and make it online-only too.

There's gonna be some very empty high streets in this shithole country soon.

[BlodwynPig]

Asos want to buy Top Shop and make it online-only too.

There's gonna be some very empty high streets in this shithole country soon.

Welcome to the early 1980s.

[Captain Crunch]

Coventry's fucked then.

It certainly doesn't look like there's a lot of respect for its special heritage.

C20 press release about the proposed loss of some really cool stuff.

[Blue Jam]

Maybe some people are loyal to the sub-brands e.g. Maine New England, John Rocha.

Yes, Debenhams is pretty much a department store where they own most of the brands. I think they stock a few independent brands like Ted Baker, BeneFit and Clinique but most are their own brands like the Designers At Debenhams ones (Rocha by John Rocha, J by Jasper Conran, Butterfly by Matthew Williamson etc). There are also brands they've acquired, like Duffer of St. George, Faith and Principles. A company acquiring a load of brands from a company who acquired a load of brands, it's wheels within wheels. And to think Mike Ashley was after them too, someone else who likes acquiring brands. Is that just how retail works these days.

Personally I did have some loyalty to the J by Jasper Conran brand. A lot of the Designers At Debenhams stuff was a bit young for me and a bit cheap looking but the Jasper Conran stuff was smart and good quality and surprisingly affordable. The trousers always fitted me well too, I'd often go and pick up a couple of identical pairs when the Blue Cross Sale was on. I also got a really nice dress there which I wore to a posh wedding- I had a look in Harvey Nicks first but the cheapo Debenhams Jasper Conran frock was nicer and better-made than most of the overpriced stuff I found there.

I'll also miss Debenhams for Christmas shopping. Department stores are really bloody handy when you have to buy a load of gifts for different people, if you're lucky you can get everything done in one visit. I guess the era of the department store is coming to an end now though, and with lockdown people have probably realised how convenient it is to buy stuff online and get it giftwrapped and delivered to the recipient while they're at it.

[Blue Jam]

Asos want to buy Top Shop and make it online-only too.

The Arcadia Group also owned Principles before selling it to Debenhams before they sold it to Boohoo.

There's gonna be some very empty high streets in this shithole country soon.

Welcome to the early 1980s.

More like Credit Crunch 2.0

How are the out-of-town shopping centres going to be affected? They're great for retailers who want to avoid paying high street rents, and they're great for people with cars to get all their groceries, clothing, homewares etc in one trip, but retailers can now pay even lower rents by putting everything in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, and owning a car is irrelevant when you can get everything delivered to your door with no heavy lifting and no petrol costs.

I have a horrible feeling the big winners out of this will be DPD and Hermes. During lockdown I have discovered that a depressing number of retailers I like insist on using them. I really don't want to have to rely on them even more in the future.

[Icehaven]

I don't want to turn this into yet another bad online shopping thread but in the last few months alone I've had two things that were supposed to be Xmas presents never arrive, full refunds issued no questions even asked (and they were going to click and collect points so they weren't pinched off my doorstep or anything), a jumper I'd ordered for myself suddenly go out of stock weeks after I ordered it and was chasing up where it was, bought an anti-fog spray that turned out to be a sponge in a tiny otherwise empty bottle and didn't work anyway, and a failed delivery from Royal Mail last Saturday when they can't have rung the doorbell because we were in, and I only found the card days later folded up and soaking wet in our mail box. Mr. H orders bike parts quite a lot and has several times been sent completely the wrong thing, for a different bike to his and/or the wrong size. As convenient as online shopping can be it's also a time consuming, irritating fuck up far too often.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I didn't know Maine were a Debenhams brand. I'm still using a red Maine towel regularly that I was packed off to University with 16 years ago.

[Blue Jam]

I still have some towels by various Designers At Debenhams which must be over a decade old now and they still look good and feel nice and fluffy. The Debenhams homewares department was always really handy, especially as they often had big discounts on expensive stuff like bed linen. I get all that stuff from TK Maxx now though.

As convenient as online shopping can be it's also a time consuming, irritating fuck up far too often.

As I mentioned elsewhere I ordered some nice warm pyjamas from Uniqlo at the start of December. Now it's almost February, the snow is falling and I am still waiting for the trousers to turn up. Hermes of course... Back in the summer I also had three Hermes parcels (two from Gap, one from TK Maxx) stolen from my doorstep after being "left securely" in the porch we don't have. I'm in a Facebook group that celebrates all the weird shit you can find at TK Maxx and plenty of members have posted photos of damaged items they have received. Just now I've had a third party Amazon seller send me the wrong small item of furniture after the one I ordered went out of stock, and then ask if I'd like to keep it and claim a partial refund instead of returning it, and there's a definite whiff of "The customer won't mind, fuck it this'll do" about the whole thing. Now I've got to repackage the item and lug it to the post office. Fucking cheers.

I think the business model with retailers using Hermes and DPD is "weigh up the cost of losing stock and paying customers refunds against the cost of using a decent courier and do whichever is the cheapest", and Option A wins, although it doesn't factor in the cost of shoppers deciding not to order from a particular retailer ever again. It feels like there's a real gap in the market for a decent courier company, and that most shoppers would be prepared to pay a little bit more for a "Not DPD or Hermes" option, but for now I think struggling retailers will just carry on using the cheapest couriers.

There is of course one very reliable delivery company, and that's Amazon Logistics. Amazon may be evil but they don't fuck up, and while I'm not keen on using them there are just too many times when I have tried to support a smaller business only for them to remind me why people rely on Amazon so much.

Shopping for clothes online can be a pain though. As stressful as I find clothes shopping I like to try trousers on before I buy them, that really is the only way you can gauge the fit. When I find a brand that fits me well I get a bit loyal because I know I can order from them online or buy something without trying it on and I probably won't have to return anything. *sigh* so long, J by Jasper Conran, it was nice knowing you.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Leeds centre is still doing comparatively alright (circa last month) but I sense that's quite an outlier. I went to York in December and the main drags were full of empty plots. Boutique little shops, cafés and bars are... were... keeping it going.

Obviously the sensible thing for commercial landlords once vaccination allows for easing of restrictions will be to carry out a full audit + reshaping of their model, lowering rents substantially to entice independent retailers and smaller businesses while applying for mixed use in large plots, liaising with competitors and co-operate to give people a fuller incentive to get back onto the high street.

UH OH - THEY WON'T

As we saw last time around, if landlords can't make what they deem to be a satisfactory return they are quite happy to drag the whole country down with them rather than swallow their pride.

I don't know if it is possible to fill up an entire town centre with pawnbrokers, betting shops, vape sellers, PKBs and aids-tier bakeries but we're going to find out.

[Blumf]

Yup, if the high street landlords can't get their maximum rent from retailers, they'll just repurpose their holdings into shitbox residential units.

Already happening round here.

[Blue Jam]

I've been wondering what's going to happen with The Golden Jobbie the new St. James Centre in Embra. It's massive and the plan was for it to be fully constructed and open for business last year and for all the retail units to get snapped up ASAP and for the hotel on top to attract throngs of tourists, can't see that happening now. Before the old St. James Centre got knocked down the more upmarket retailers were already moving out and getting replaced with vape shops and discount shoe shops and a fish pedicure place (remember those?).

Embra's high street was already looking a bit fucked before lockdown. The House of Fraser at the west end of Princes Street is already lying empty and the one at the east end (Jenners) will be vacated soon because HoF can no longer afford to rent such a huge high street location and the plan was to move to... the new St. James Centre. Oops. HoF also won't be selling anything by Oasis or Warehouse anymore either.

The historic Jenners building was bought by a Danish bilionaire who owns stakes in Asos and other clothing brands and was apparently planning to turn the interior into lots of little boutiques for his brands, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's having second thoughts now.

The ground floor of the (massive) BHS building briefly became Scottish Home Stores, a tartan tat megastore. That was always intended to be temporary, just someone renting out and making use of the ground floor while the building was being converted into a massive food court. I can't see a food court doing well now, not after so many mid-range restaurant chains have gone bust.

There's also a big unit at the east end, near Urban Outfitters, which has been empty for years, with "EXCITING RETAIL OPPORTUNITY" plastered all over the inside of the windows. Near that is a big empty unit that used to house the O2 shop.

The Debenhams building is massive too, six floors and a mezzanine. Then there's Cath Kidston, Monsoon/Accessorise, and plenty of other small and medium places which probably won't be reopening.

Princes Street is probably going to be a big series of massive empty buildings by the time we're done with Covid.

The BHS food court idea sounds particularly ill-thought-through given that the restaurants on the North Bridge were already struggling- a Prezzo, Bella Italia, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, Patisserie Valerie, Pret and Byron Burger all on one street. Plus a big Argos that won't be reopening.

I don't know about the buildings being turned into residential units, that sounds quite likely as Embra has been slowly turning into a theme park for years. Someone will probably snap up the old Debenham's building and fill it with 500 Airbnbs.

[dissolute ocelot]

I've been wondering what's going to happen with The Golden Jobbie the new St. James Centre in Embra. It's massive and the plan was for it to be fully constructed and open for business last year and for all the retail units to get snapped up ASAP and for the hotel on top to attract throngs of tourists, can't see that happening now. Before the old St. James Centre got knocked down the more upmarket retailers were already moving out and getting replaced with vape shops and discount shoe shops and a fish pedicure place (remember those?).

Embra's high street was already looking a bit fucked before lockdown. The House of Fraser at the west end of Princes Street is already lying empty and the one at the east end (Jenners) will be vacated soon because HoF can no longer afford to rent such a huge high street location and the plan was to move to... the new St. James Centre. Oops. HoF also won't be selling anything by Oasis or Warehouse anymore either.

A lot of the Edinburgh Princes Street shops are going to be converted into hotels or similar: the old BHS is going to be a hotel with smaller shops on the ground floor, Debenhams and Jenners are both slated to become hotels, Fraser's is going to be the Johnny Walker experience (whisky museum, tastings, and bars/restaurants, much to the apoplexy of people from Kilmarnock whence the company hails and who want their own massive tourist attraction).

This is assuming the tourism picks up when COVID is over - I guess it will mostly, but will people have as much money or be as keen to travel? Will they wait till they're sure it's safe or immediately rush into it?

I've no idea about the shops in the St James. Across Edinburgh Primark seems to be the only place that did well when they eased lockdown, probably because they're not big on mail order. It seems to be mostly mid-market retailers who're fucked in this thread, so maybe there will be a few luxury brands there, and cheap stores elsewhere.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

What are old people going to do on weekends and weekday mornings when all the department stores are closed?



You sometimes see individuals (particularly abroad) who get up early to....dunno how best to describe it... inspect the grounds?

[Gurke and Hare]

I'm struggling to imagine how Jenners could be used for anything other than retail. It must be listed - right? - and to be a hotel, it seems like it would need alteration to most of the features it would be listed for. I'm not ruling out council shenanigans obviously, but even so it seems ambitious.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I can't wait to buy an apartment that used to be a retail park B&M.

[Jasha]

M and Co (poor mans Marks and Sparks alike) opened in Gloucester just before Christmas 2019 and was closed down last summer. There's still the one in Stroud but I can't see how they manage to keep going

[Emma Raducanu]

I've only been to the town centre once since march. There was nothing open except Greggs. Made me proud to be British.