Goodbye Woolworth

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a news article from the BBC relating to the closing downing down of Woolworth.

The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth’s) was a retail American company that was one of the original five-and-dime stores. The first Woolworth’s store was founded, with a loan of $300, in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth. Despite growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of the 20th century, increased competition led to its decline beginning in the 1980s. In 1997, F. W. Woolworth Company converted itself into a sporting goods retailer, closing its remaining retail stores operating under the “Woolworth’s” brand name and renaming itself Venator Group. By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the sporting goods market, changing its name to the present Foot Locker Inc (NYSE: FL). Company that was one of the original

Retail chains using the Woolworth name survive in Germany, Austria, Mexico, and South Africa, and, until the end of 2008, in the United Kingdom. The similarly-named Woolworth’s supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand are operated by Woolworths Limited, a separate company with no historical links to the F. W. Woolworth Company or Foot Locker, Inc. However, this company did take the name from F. W. Woolworth as it had global appeal. sourced from Wikipedia

Woolworths in store closure sales

Woolworths branch Woolworths went into administration last month Woolworths is to hold a store closure sale in all its 815 outlets from Thursday amid growing concern that a buyer will not be found for the firm.

Woolworths went into administration last month

Administrator Deloitte said that if no offers for Woolworths were forthcoming, “it is possible that some stores may close before the end of December”.

It added that it would consult with the retailer’s 30,000 staff over support available in the event of redundancies.

Separate talks are continuing over the sale of Woolworths’ store leases.

‘Maximizing sales‘

It is thought that Sainsbury’s, Asda, Tesco, the Co-op and discount chain Poundland are still interested in picking up some of the retailer’s prime stores.

“This isn’t the end for Woolworths, but it is a black day, and many people will see it as the beginning of the end BBC business editor Robert Peston”

“We continue to make every effort to convert interest in the Woolworths assets into firm offers,” said Deloitte partner Neville Kahn.

“While we are still seeking bids from interested parties, Christmas is clearly the busiest time of the year for retailers and it is prudent to do all we can to sell existing stock.

“By moving to a store closing sale and further discounting the stock, we are maximizing the sales potential that this period offers.”

Deloitte had held talks to sell the business as a going concern to potential buyers including former Woolworths chief executive Sir Geoff Mulcahy and Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis, but no deals could be reached.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said it was telling that Woolworths stores may now start to close by the end of this month.

“This isn’t the end for Woolworths, but it is a black day, and many people will see it as the beginning of the end.”

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Shoppers: ‘To see it go would be very sad’

Debt woes

Woolworths went into administration on 26 November with £385m of debt.

The firms music, DVD and games distribution subsidiary, Entertainment UK, is also in administration.

Last week, rival retailer Zavvi, which is a customer of Entertainment UK, said the situation was causing shortages of certain products in its stores.

Media publishing business 2Entertain, in which Woolworths owns a 40% stake is not in administration. The other 60% of this business is owned by BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial division.

Woolworths had been due to celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. Its first UK store opened in Liverpool in 1909. sourced from The BBC

Origin

The F.W. Woolworth Co. was among the first five-and-dime stores, which sold discounted fixed prices, usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of other local merchants. Woolworth’s, as the stores popularly became known, was one of the first American retailers to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle and select without the assistance of a sales clerk. Earlier retailers had kept all merchandise behind a counter, and customers presented the clerk with a list of items they wished to buy. After working in a dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Woolworth’s store in Utica, New York, in 1878, but the store failed within a year. However, a second store he opened on June 21, 1879 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became a success. Frank Woolworth brought his brother Charles Sumner Woolworth into the business, and together they opened more stores, often in partnership inventory purchasing power for both parties. general merchandise at with other business associates. The Woolworth brothers also entered into partnerships with “friendly rivals” to maximize’

Rise and expansion

The Woolworth Building, New York, New York, c. 1913

In 1910, Frank Woolworth commissioned the construction of the Woolworth Building in New York City. This building was entirely paid for in cash. It was completed in 1913 and was the tallest building in the world until 1930. It also served as the company’s headquarters until it was sold by the F.W. Woolworth Company’s successor, the Venator Group, in 1998.

By 1911, there were six chains of affiliated stores operating in the United States and Canada. That year, Frank and Charles incorporated the F. W. Woolworth Company and through a merger brought all 596 stores together under one corporate entity. One of the “friendly rival” predecessor chains included several stores initially opened as Woolworth & Knox stores starting as early as September 20, 1884 as well as S. H. Knox & Co. 5 & 10 Cent Stores opened after an 1889 buyout by his cousin, Seymour H. Knox I. Knox’s chain grew to 98 U.S. and 13 Canada stores by the time of the corporate consolidation in 1911. Fred Kirby added 96 stores, Earle Charlton added 35, Charles Sumner Woolworth added 15, and William Moore added 2.

A Woolworth store

The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters after the success of the counters in the first store in the UK in Liverpool and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. A Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina became the setting for a significant event during the civil rights movement.

The Woolworth’s concept was widely copied, and five-and-ten-cent stores (also known as five-and-dime stores) were a fixture in American downtowns through the 1960s, and became anchors for suburban strip malls by the mid 1970s. Criticisms that five-and-dime stores drove local merchants out of business would repeat themselves in the early 21st century, when big box discount stores became popular. However, many five-and-dime stores were locally owned or franchised, as are many dollar stores today.

In the 1960s, the five-and-dime concept evolved into the larger discount store format. In 1962, Woolworths founded a discount chain called Woolco. This was the same year as its competitors opened similar retail chains that sold merchandise at a discount: the S.S. Kresge Company opened Kmart; Dayton’s opened Target; and Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store.

By Woolworth’s 100th anniversary in 1979, it had become the largest department store chain in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Expansion

Woolworth’s expansion led to specialty store acquisitions. In 1963, Woolworth purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. That led to specialty shoe store expansion, including Stylco in 1967, Susie Casuals in 1968, and Foot Locker in 1974.

Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the 1980s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, and Champs Sports. By 1989, the company was pursuing an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular retail concept failed at a given mall, the company quickly could replace it with a different one. The company’s purported goal was to operate 10 various specialty stores in each major American shopping mall, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never was able to develop that number of successful specialty retail formats. This activity, however, did lead to the development of the successful Foot Locker and Northern Reflections apparel shops, as well as Best Of Times, a timepiece retailer.

Decline

In 1989, Woolworth purchased Champs Sports, leading to the development of the Woolworth Athletic Group.

The growth and expansion of the company contributed to its downfall. The Woolworth company moved away from its five-and-dime roots and placed less emphasis on its department store chain as it focused on its specialty stores. But the company was unable to compete with other chains that had eroded its market share. While it was a success in Canada, the Woolco chain closed in the United States in 1983. On October 15, 1993, Woolworths embarked on a restructuring plan that included closing half of its 800-plus general merchandise stores in the United States and converting its Canadian stores to a closeout division named The Bargain! Shop. Woolco and Woolworth survived in Canada until 1994, when the majority of its stores there were sold to Wal-Mart. Stores that were not purchased by Wal-Mart were converted to The Bargain! Shop stores.

Transition

Still with the decline of the signature stores, Woolworth marched on with a new focus toward athletic goods on January 30, 1997, acquiring the mail-order catalogue athletic retailer Eastbay.

On July 17, 1997, Woolworths closed its remaining department stores in the U.S. and changed its corporate name to Venator. In that same year, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworths as a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Analysts at the time cited the lower prices of the large discount stores and the expansion of supermarketgrocery stores – which had begun to stock merchandise also sold by five-and-dime stores – as contributors to Woolworth’s decline in the late 20th century.

In 1999, Venator moved out of the Woolworth building in New York City to offices on 34th Street. On October 20, 2001, the company changed names again; this time, it took the name of its top retail performer and became Foot Locker, Inc. Foot Locker stores chiefly sell athletic clothing and footwear.

On February 1, 1960, four African-American students sat down at a segregated lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s store. They were refused service, touching off six months of sit-ins and economic boycotts that became a landmark event in the U.S. civil-rights movement. In 1993, an eight-foot section of the lunch counter was moved to the Smithsonian Institution.

Non-American retail users of the Woolworth name

A Woolworths store in the UK

A Woolworth in Mexico City

* Woolworths Group plc originally was the British unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently as a separate company since 1982, running stores in the UK, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. On November 26, 2008 Woolworths Group plc announced that they were in too much debt to maintain their outgoing payments. The remaining British Woolworths stores closed by January 6, 2009, with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.

* Woolworths Limited is the second largest retail corporation in Australia, operating a variety of supermarket and other retail chains in Australia and New Zealand. The name Woolworths was legally taken to capitalize on the F.W. Woolworth name since they did not do business in Australia and had not registered the trademark there but is in no other way connected to the U.S. or U.K. Woolworths.[citation needed]

* Woolworths is an upmarket retail chain in South Africa selling goods of a comparable nature to Marks & Spencer stores in the United Kingdom. The South African company also operates stores in Bahrain, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

* Woolworth GmbH was the German unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently since 1998 as a result of the original company’s change of focus.

* Woolworth Mexicana operates a chain of small variety stores in Mexico as a subsidiary of Groupo Comercial Control, S.A. de C.V.

* Woolworths operates independently in Bridgetown Barbados, having split from the British branch in 1982. It was established in the 1950s, stocking goods shipped from Britain. sourced from Wikipedia

A final goodbye to Woolworths

Residents in Liverpool – home to the first ever Woolies branch – share memories of the bankrupt chain

Shoppers in London lament Woolworths’ imminent closure

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The red neon sign spelling out “Woolworths” were half-lit today at its city centre store in Liverpool, with the first four letters in darkness, apparently broken.

There was a rush on shops – a scene being replicated around the country at the store closure sales at Woolworth’s 815 outlets. But the impending closure was perhaps most poignant here, as Woolworths opened its first store in the UK in Liverpool in 1909, almost 100 years ago.

Outside the St John’s shopping centre branch, a pigeon was roosting beneath the garish yellow and red signs advertising the 50% off. Several people were huddled around smoking and a smell of chip fat lingered in the air. A pair of smartly dressed women approached the store and said to each other: “Oh God, isn’t it sad?”

Norma Woods, 52, a cleaner had come in for hair straighteners but they didn’t have any so she bought two irons instead for £3.98 each. “I reckon I have saved a pound,” she says. “I am really sad about Woolies going. There used to be a shop near where I lived as a kid and I used to go in and nick sweets because I thought the pick ‘n’ mix was free. “…

I don’t know why that guy off Dragon’s Den didn’t want to buy the company – it is such a shame. There are enough people out of work in this city without this place going to the wall. Mind you I have had to queue for about 40 minutes today. I was down here on Monday and the queues were bad but I got served within 15 minutes.”

Although the shop was packed with people, many were laden with carrier bags from discount retailers Primark and TJ Hughes. Hour-long queues at the tills that snaked around the store were putting many shoppers off.

Christmas crackers were reduced from £2 to £1.60, a Scooby Doo scooter was down to £17.49 (£12 off) and Stephen Fry’s America book was £12.79 (40% off.) Ironing boards were £15 and Terry’s Chocolate oranges, a popular Christmas stocking filler, were 20% off. A Sopranos box set was down to £35.

Dawn O’Riordan, a 38-year-old mother of three, had a basket overflowing with cut-price toys and gifts: a Diva keyring for £1.98, a Winnie the Pooh story reader for 50p and a small box of rose petals for 25p. She reckons her basket was 30% off and she spent £30. “It is a shame it has gone because it is handy for children’s toys,” she said. “It is also good for picking up bits of school uniform for my children cheaply.

“The store is so busy that I saw two women arguing because one had knocked over the other’s child. There have been people trying to jump the queue. I have just been keeping my head down and have tried to avoid bumping in to anybody. “

I have already had someone trying to take stuff out of my basket because they didn’t realise it belonged to me.”

Theodora Dudley, a retired carer, was leaving empty-handed from Woolworths but she already had a Marks and Spencer carrier bag containing shopping.

“It is terrible isn’t it?” she said. “They might as well sell the stock off, it is very sensible if they were going to the wall anyway. I am very upset about Woolworths going and I can’t see why another firm couldn’t have taken it over.”

Emma Newell, from Rhyl, north Wales, was shopping in Liverpool for the day with her mother Kath. She said: “I used to work at Woolies in Rhyl part-time about 20 years ago when I was doing my A-levels.”

Her mother was clutching a large, white carrier bag stuffed with baby clothes and toys for Emma’s daughter. “I reckon we have spent £20 and saved £20,” Kath said. “Things were even cheaper than we thought by the time we got to the till.” sourced from The Guardian

 

back in 2002 this was an article in the newspaper regarding Woolworth, a lot has happened in 7 years -

Woolworths merger talks collapse

Published Date: 15 June 2002
WOOLWORTHS, the troubled high street giant, revealed yesterday that secret merger talks with department store Bhs had fallen through, but Philip Green, the billionaire owner of Bhs, has refused to rule out a hostile bid for the firm.
Woolworths, currently valued at about £558 million, said “exploratory discussions” collapsed after it failed to reach a deal with Green, one of the most colourful characters in the UK retail industry.

The firm said that its board terminated negotADVERTISEMENT

iations after it decided “it does not believe such a merger, with its attendant risks and uncertainties, would be in the best interest of shareholders”.

Shares in Woolworths, which had gained on three days of bid speculation, closed 6 per cent down at 46p as news of the failed talks hit the market.

Green claimed he was approached by Woolworths in mid-May, then met with the retailer’s chairman, former Railtrack chief Gerald Corbett. But Woolworths ended the discussions before any financial information had even been disclosed, he said.

Green added: “It begs the question: why did they phone me in the first place?” Sources close to Woolworths said that “as far as Woolworths is concerned, this thing is dead”. They also insisted that the initial invitation to enter merger talks came from Green.

Lumbered with long-running stock handling problems, Woolworths posted a 60 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £33 million for the year to 2 February, sparking speculation about the chain’s future.

Green bought Bhs for £250 million two years ago after ditching an audacious attempt to buy Marks & Spencer for £11 billion. Bhs recently reported that pre-tax profits tripled to more than £100 million last year.

Green said his immediate plan was “to let the dust settle”, adding: “I don’t own any Woolworths shares and am not planning on buying any.” But when asked if he was planning a hostile bid, Green said: “I can’t rule anything in or out.”

John Moore, assistant director of Bell Lawrie White, said: “What he [Green] sees in Woolworths is exactly the same as what he saw in Woolworths two years ago.”

He added: “There was no alchemy in what he did at Bhs. He just spiced it up a bit and made a lot of money.”

sourced from The Scotsman