What Was the Point in Woolworths Anyway?
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Well the Credit Crunch looks to be affecting the famous “Woolies” chain, and is it any wonder? I’ve spent years wondering how on earth this store is staying alive. If you want a CD or DVD you go to HMV or Play.com. If you want baby stuff you go to Mothercare, if you want electricals you go to Comet, if you want DIY stuff you go to B&Q, and if you want furniture you go to MFI… err.. hang on - that’s going down the pan too!
In a way, as bad as it is to see much loved “brands” lost, it is nothing but the fault of the companies involved - how could they let this happen. I know times are tough at the moment, but places like Woolies haven’t had a Unique Selling Point in years! It has just become one of these stores that you only pop in to if you’re passing and you need a paper.
No-one ever goes to Woolworths to buy stuff - it is not a first choice destination, not when you’ve got several niché stores that do a better job. Similarly, each and every store has got such a different profile - and there is little unity. As one BBC reader put it: “You’d walk into one store and it is well ordered and well priced, and then you go to another and it looks like an industrial fly-tipping site!”
It’s crap - and it is bad management, and I always thought it’d take a financial crisis like this to cripple such organisations, and now it has happened.
It seems obvious to me now that the only way to succeed in business is not to attempt to be the “jack of all trades - master of none” - but concentrate on a small area, one where your expertise is high, you can afford to buy the stuff in bulk, and you can deliver on prices.
This is where companies like Primark will never have a problem - they concentrate on one thing. If they however decided to branch out into newspapers, pick n mix and Casio watches… then i might start to worry!
Sorry to see you go Woolies, you had a strong brand, and you always made the TV more Christmassy seeing your ads, but sorry, bad management has landed you where you are now. So long…
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This article was written by Sam Davis on November 28, 2008.
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![]() Bamby from Alum Chine |
















































Its all that pick and mix we stole as children!!
It really hit woolys hard!