Focus, Habitat, Jane Norman, TJ Hughes, next ....

[sparky]

With these four major chains all in big trouble due to falling retail sales plus, according to local news last night, average real income down 2.7% over the last year surely Osbourne's gamble of raising VAT in January has backfired.

Without the VAT rise there would not have been the psychological effect of deliberately trying to reduce spending and putting off purchases.

The government would have continued to get tax from business profits as well as VAT instead now of having more unemployed plus empty units on high streets and retail parks which is not good for morale and goes against trying to convince us we are in economic recovery.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Err no it is actually the sheer power of the internet. Habitat has been struggling for years trying to flog ?12 plain white mugs that you can buy in Dunelm for ?1.50 and Focus stores were always unkempt and the staff were miserable. You simply can't compete with Amazon and their ilk. A high street fully occupied is unlikely ever again.

[Peter]

Arginald Valleywater wrote:
A high street fully occupied
> is unlikely ever again.

Plus the car haters make it impossible to park near where you want to go, and charge you the earth if you do decide to go there. I needed a battery last year, 85p for the battery, ?2 to park. I'll stick with the out of town shopping thanks, cheaper goods, free parking.

[David Johnson]

Hi
I think you are both right up to a point.

1. As a result of terrorising the British population non-stop for a year about how times are really tough and that we must accept all these cuts in order to avoid being the next Greece, consumer confidence has slid downwards and is at unheard of levels. So everyone seems to be cutting back on everything but the essentials, food. When you get a company that is bargain basement like TJ Hughes going tits up in a recession you know things are really, really bad.

2. There has been a big move towards using the Internet for stuff like books, music, clothes, white goods, cameras etc etc and there will be a number of major High Street shops which will suffer as a result.

CHeers
D

[Arginald Valleywater]

10 years ago my local high street had at least 3 independent music stores and 5 chains (Our Price, DMC etc). Now we have HMV. Tesco and WH Smith sell a limited selection of CDs but Amazon rules. Same with clothes, look at the success of Boden, Lands End, Next Directory etc. Massive choice and low overheads. Our town centre looks grim. Charity stores, cash shops (sorry money grabbing twunts) and discount houses where 5 years ago there wasn't an empty shop anywhere near our town centre. We have one main drag with 4 empty shops in a row, that does nothing for the surrounding businesses image.

[David Johnson]

HMV has been struggling for awhile now and has been closing down stores on a regular basis. You can hardly say that HMV is a record store now. THey seem to concentrate more on gaming hardware/software, film DVDs etc.

I would expect the big stores like Comet, PC World, Currys etc to start feeling the pinch now.

Cheers
D

[Lizard]

Very true Arginald, they are piss poor retailers, focus was the arse end of D.I.Y, TJ hughes is a bin end nobody wants me anyway type of place, etc etc, they would have gone under anyway, my prediction is BHS next, even though its owned by big phil green, its a fucking dire store with overpriced dross in my opinion