Age is only a quantity. This line is normally trotted out by divorced males of a sure age by the use of excusing their resolution so far a 23-year-old. However as of late it might simply as simply apply to Britain’s beleaguered veteran excessive road chains – as a result of, because it seems, having an extended and illustrious heritage that may be traced again a whole bunch of years means exactly nothing within the cutthroat world of contemporary purchasing. Age actually is only a quantity relating to retailers failing within the twenty first century.
First got here Woolworths (RIP). Though initially American, the model was embraced by Brits after it crossed the pond in 1909, as acquainted a staple in suburban purchasing centres up and down the nation as any of its homegrown friends. Woolies is the place I used my birthday cash to purchase my first ever album on cassette; it’s the place I’d splurge pocket cash reserves on eye-wateringly costly pick’n’mix, whose astronomical worth solely turned obvious as soon as it was weighed on the until (by which level it was too late to again out). Life with out Woolworths was unthinkable and but, within the blink of an eye fixed, it was all too actual. 100 years after the primary UK store opened in Liverpool, all 807 branches closed up for good in 2009 following the monetary crash.
Subsequent on the chopping block was nationwide treasure Wilkinson’s – formally shortened to “Wilko” from 2012 onwards – whose last remaining stores limped quietly offstage in October 2023. Based as a single {hardware} store in Leicester in 1930, it didn’t fairly hit the century mark earlier than a fast tumble into administration led to its 400 branches being axed. The place will potential college students purchase their spatulas and starter-kitchen kits from now? The place will I choose up low-cost fence paint, gasoline security lighters and a bewildering assortment of screwdrivers on a whim?
And the most recent former large to tumble into irrelevance and obscurity? WH Smith. One of many oldest mainstream names on the British high street, Smiths began life as a retailer on Little Grosvenor Road, central London, in 1792. Sure, that’s proper – for greater than 230 years, the now 500-strong chain has been as reliable a presence as Boots and M&S. But it’s now formally set to fade out with barely a whimper after being sold to investment firm Modella Capital, proprietor of the humanities and crafts retailer Hobbycraft, for £76m. The transfer will see the WH Smith title changed by the TGJones model throughout 480 excessive road shops (Smiths’ sexier, more lucrative travel arm, present in airports and prepare stations around the globe, stays unaffected).
“Not Smiths!”, I wish to scream! Not the fantasy land filled with books and unique stationery the place I spent hours as a child, poring over “Groovy Chick” pencil instances in a bid to choose the one that might make me seem most worldly and worthy of befriending come the brand new faculty 12 months! I wish to rant and rail and protest towards our purchasing stalwarts changing into collateral injury amid the present unwinnable warfare waged by on-line opponents, the unassailable digital behemoths like Amazon and Shein. I really feel a paroxysm of patriotism that makes me wish to tie a union jack round my neck to type a rudimentary cloak and discover a British bulldog to sing “God Save the King” at.
And but, now I come to think about it… when was the final time I really went right into a WH Smith – not to mention purchased one thing? When was the final time you probably did? Might it’s greater than a 12 months in the past? Two? I appear to recollect popping in to purchase a brand new diary planner for my Filofax (sure, actually), solely to search out that it was twice the value of buying one on-line. In truth, as I recall, every part in there appeared without delay pointless and irrationally, exorbitantly costly, from area of interest interest magazines to dated-looking greetings playing cards, floral “thanks” stationery to “dream journal” notebooks.
Even for consumers much less motivated by worth, there’s an clearly superior various purveyor for practically each style of WH Smith inventory. An impartial bookshop or Waterstones with a comfy studying nook, reader occasions and low machine makes for a much more gratifying purchasing expertise; a card store that particularly sells quirky, high quality designs – ones that don’t appear to be they have been all drawn up by somebody’s nice aunt – feels healthier for objective in 2025. And, on condition that even beloved millennial favorite Paperchase couldn’t keep fighting the good fight on the stationery entrance (the retailer ceased buying and selling in 2023), maybe there’s merely not sufficient of a marketplace for limitless blank-paged books with pleasing covers.
After which there are the store flooring themselves: scuffed partitions; coarse industrial carpets underfoot. When did all of them get so… drained? So light? So unhappy? None of it appears to have been modified because the Nineties. Possibly it hasn’t.
The whole lot in there appeared without delay pointless and irrationally, exorbitantly costly
On reflection, the writing has been on the wall for fairly a while. WH Smith was ranked the worst shop on the British excessive road six occasions in 9 years from 2010-2019, in line with a Which? ballot, with shoppers slamming its poor service, excessive costs and tacky outlets. Arguably, little has modified within the intervening years.
Woolworths and Wilko could have suffered from the identical downside – buying and selling for too lengthy on dwindling provides of nostalgia that might by no means fairly make up for the scruffy interiors and nebulous array of retail inventory. Inventory that was, for essentially the most half, a terrific deal cheaper on-line. Lately, our purchasing preferences are predicated on price or expertise; shops that appear perpetually caught in a time warp, with out the low worth tags to match, ship on neither entrance.
It’s not all doom and gloom for our legacy manufacturers although. Simply have a look at Marks and Spencer’s astonishing, phoenix-like resurgence from the ashes. After a sequence of viral design moments and influencer endorsements, the 140-year-old retailer revealed on the finish of final 12 months that the typical age of its M&S buyer had fallen by 5 years, whereas the enterprise tempted 1.4 million new web shoppers over the 12 months to 2024. In October, figures revealed that its meals arm had attracted 800,000 new clients in a single month, and that M&S’s total share of the UK market had leapt up from 3.4 to three.7 per cent 12 months on 12 months.
Clearly, progress is feasible. However the secret to staying related? Adapt or die, because the saying goes. If WH Smith selected to not do the previous, can we actually be shocked that the grim reaper of retail is lastly coming to gather?
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