This should have been nipped in the bud right from the start long ago and should never have allowed to happen - the government should have seized the assets of the companies involved and should have used the criminal law to jail the directors of these companies for at least 40 years or more
How companies like these collapse = Say a buyer wants up buy a business for £100M. He won't pay that full amount, he pays £20M & settles the remaining £80M as debt for the company. Then begins selling off any valuable assets the company has, like the land the store is built on. Quite often it'll be sold to a shell-company he owns, which charges the business high rent. The company boss will then pay himself & his family very high wages & dividends. The boss will also take out loans against the company often used for personal purchases. The boss might seek financial assistance from the Government (tax payers money) Then when the business goes into administration he'll pick the bones before leaving thousands out of work & tax payers to pick up the debt. It's infuriating that the laws haven't changed to prevent this!
worked in hmv during the 2019 administration, it was pure hell. little tip for shoppers: please don’t tut and scoff at your loyalty card being suspended when the shop said loyalty card belongs to is going under and your server has no idea if they’re about to lose their job.
I've been there, my John Lewis branch closed. Only for customers to exclaim, 'if you're closing, you can knock a few quid off' when all you're thinking about is will I have money to pay the rent.
i noticed this as well eg paracetamol used to be 20p and it went up to 55p and its gone down again now its 40p and tissues used to be cheaper as well. @@GrahamRawlins
To an extent Argos is gone too. Obviously not 100% but ever since Sainsbury's bought the company causing the former to merge with the UK's second biggest supermarket, the vast majority of Argos 'stand alone' stores have shut and moved into Sainsbury's instead. In my opinion while it might seem ideal, simultaneously it has forever changed the Argos we once knew and loved.
I don't believe there are any standalone Argos stores left in my area. There were three that I knew of - one went forever while the other two were merely folded into its nearest Sainsbury's store.
Correct me if I am wrong, but many Argos stores were simply too large just for browsing the catalogue and collecting physical goods. Merging with Sainsbury's basically saved the chain for now.
I used to work in a Woolworths in the early 2000s which was like a big warehouse type store which at the time was called Big W, before it reverted to its Woolworths name. I distinctly remember in 2005, that although we were a big store, I felt like there were times where we didn't seem to either have enough in regards of quantity or we just weren't selling anything (except near Christmas time), and yet my team leader tried to mention to us that we were smashing our sales targets but I wasn't entirely convinced. Didn't help also that there was an Asda along the road from us, who I guess we were in competition with, I would often hear customers say "let's try Asda instead". At that time, before I left the job in 2006, I actually predicted that the store I was in was going to bubble under and close, but I would never have guessed that about 3 years later...it would be ALL of them.
The real reason that British brands are being forced under is that it’s part of a deliberate plan to bring in foreign and globalist leaning companies into the British (and Irish) high street - Amazon is getting into the supermarket business and is using technology to force all of the existing U.K. supermarkets out of business so that Amazon can buy them all up, even Lidl & Aldi as well as Asda/WalMart - Primark (Penny’s) may be an Irish brand but they too will be forced out of business and even with department stores like Debenhams and many others, if they are U.K. based they don’t stand a chance against Amazon and Ebay etc
Having lived in the U.K. for 21 years and having worked in supermarket retailing in both Ireland and the U.K. for at least 30 years, most of these high street closures were both entirely preventable and unforgivable - those at the top of these big companies who were responsible for these closures right from the start, were never held accountable for thier irresponsible actions by being prosecuted in the criminal courts and having all of thier assets seized, as well as being jailed for at least 40 years - it happened because proper deterrents under the criminal law were not being put in place to protect workers rights
The good old days of taking another cup and using it to compress the sweets inside and filling the thing to the point that the lid kept falling off and the whole outfit had the density of a collapsed star.
Never welled up over a WatchMojo video before, but watching this is just basically seeing my childhood disintegrate (and I'm sure that's the same for many others) 😢
As a Brit, I know what happened to one of the many BHS stores. Following that town's branch closure, it was converted into a charity shop, although it's only the first floor that sees business. The second floor is off-limits, unfortunately.
Woolworths I do miss a lot and I also do miss BHS and Debenhams. Even Comet went and was replaced by Currys PC World. And now Wilko is going which I think it’s very sad to see Wilko go. Superdrug is still going but they are closing some of their stores. It’s like we have to live on with high streets getting more depressing and more empty shops on our high streets.
The world has moved online im afraid. Realistically on your high street you need a post office, a supermarket, petrol station, barbers/ hairdressers: beauty and a million costas. Oh and a greggs
@@crimsontheotter and I hate that it happened. I don't want to have to go to Sainsburys to go to Argos. My local Argos was a 15 minute walk away and now it's 30 minutes
Other names to add... Maplins. As someone who works in the IT industry it was hard to see it fall down. I relied on it so much. C&A. Basically a 1980's Primark Littlewoods (aka.. the 'other' M&S) Blockbuster (Which is obviously a worldwide thing, and doomed to fail once Netflix and Amazon emerged... still miss it though) Virgin Music (But good riddance) Also... 'Our Price' Records. which seemed to have a shop on every high street in the 90s. Comet and Rumbelows . Two electronic retailers brushed aside by the Currys/Dixons Powerhouse in the late 80's and 90s. Music Rooms. (for musicians, it was the last place to buy musical equipment locally, now only the shop on Denmark St remains) MFI. A company that shot itself in the foot once they revealed just how awful their furniture really was. Even though we already knew. See also Ratners for same foot shooting business model.
I really liked just browsing Maplin on a Saturday morning/early afternoon, even around the time it closed for good and was really just a gadget store. I bought a mechanical keyboard online having been able to sample it in Maplin. There was a time many moons ago where Maplin was a proper geek palace. They had magazines with project ideas and circuit diagrams, plus you could chat to the guys on the counter about resistors and what's the best soldering iron etc. That niche is filled by RS Electronics and Farnell these days.
@Twiggymaster666 ... Yes, it was full of crap later on, best for pick n mix and other confectionary later on. Woolworths changed so much over the years and not for the better, I remember when you could buy most things there you'd need, they sold food items too when I was younger like loose biscuits and small whole cooked chickens in a large tin which were lovely, two items I always recall strangely. Technically though Woolies wasn't British.
If you're ever on a vacation/holiday in Mexico and you're feeling nostalgic, you can go to a Woolworths there. The UK had Woolworths longer than the US did. US Woolworths closed for good in 1997 finally after having sold off the UK "branch" in the 80s.
I remember Philip Green being confronted by Sky News. That was an absolute catastrophic and shocking failure in his personal security arrangements and I remember thinking how lucky Green was to be confronted just by a journalist, rather than someone with darker intent. Also got my Xbox 360 in Gamestation. They had by far the best bundle deal on at the time - it was slightly cheaper than GAME and I also had complete freedom over which two games I wanted (GAME made you pick from a very limited selection and I didn't want any of those ones). Always preferred it to GAME and was sad to see it go. My local Gamestation in the town I lived in at the time was still open in 2012, so I don't recall GAME killing the brand immediately.
In my home town of Banbury we had a huge new shopping mall open in 2000 and the main flagship shops that were there from the outset were Woolies, Debenham, BHS and HMV. Crazy to think that HMV is the only one left from those shops now!
Aside from here in Manchester where I’ve lived 21 years, I see the same very worrying trends in my native Ireland - already in my home village in Ireland we have both a Lidl and Aldi and the local SuperValu (Musgrave) does not stand a chance - but they will soon be all bought out by Amazon very soon
The moral of the story with both HMV and Game and even Blockbuster is that digital downloads may be convenient, but it puts jobs at risk. People are no longer looking to buy or even rent physical copies of movies, music or video games. Lack of demand means it’s no longer profitable to keep the business open. The shops close for good as the lack of business forces the company to call it a day.
Just went to my local wilkos today and it was shutting down. Not much was left in the store but some weird miscellaneous stuff. When I lived in Bangladesh I saw real material goods and real products. Never see that in the UK.
I worked for Paperchase, and it was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've had. Working through administration and then having to close all our stores was extremely sad and stressful. So many people coming in trashing in the store, complaining that items were not reduced more, asking us when our final day was even though you were not told anything until the last minute by the administrators. I really feel for the teams working for The Body Shop, not knowing if their store will be one of the lucky ones and if they need to start job hunting.
I didn't know Accesorize was a British brand. I distinctly remember seeing a store in my country, Philippines. Also I miss Dorothy Perkins and Topshop - we often shop at Dorothy Perkins because they had clothing for "plus" sizes like me :(
I worked at Accessorize! I was assistant manager, then manager! My first job out of school was Watchbox, where I sold watches and clocks and repaired watches, they closed down so I went to work in a discount book shop called Bookends, which also had a s** shop upstairs! I was manager there. Then I went to Accessorize, had a baby, went then to Body Shop where I worked for 5 years until I had my second baby. I miss retail work, but then again I don't!
They also forgot to mention other well-known shops too like Mothercare, Adams (Kids Wear), Dorothy Perkins, Blockbuster Video, Percy Ingles bakery, and probably many more that are sadly no longer with us.😕
I worked at the Cath Kidston warehouse in my local town from 2016-2020 it was a headache in the last 6 months of working there the writing was on the wall for about 1 yr at that point
There were a handful of Woolworths stores that survived under the new Alworths brand, but that only lasted another two more years before going under itself.
Woolies. 😢 Probably though Woolworths in the UK will never come back. Its substitute Wilko is now in trouble.....stop buying junk online, I don't. 😡 Hoping that Wilko can be saved. 🤔
I'm with you Julian. Save the high street, get off the internet and take a trip to town. Although, it has to be said, town councils are as much to blame as online retailers. One of my favourite shops ever in my hometown, Hudsons, was a record and instrument seller. They were doing perfectly well for themselves up till the late 2000's. They got hit by a 5x increase per year in business rates, due to being a town center store very close to a new high street redevelopment. It pretty much saw them destroyed. Only to be replaced by one new shop every year that closed when their business grant expired.
@@daveglander1 It's actually Julia, but yes we need to wean people off online junk. I'm convinced many local councils are lazy about encouraging shops, much of the UK, particularly as old market towns are full of half dead shops. Even in London, where I am, many neighbourhoods are being left to collapse. It seems the poorer the residents, the more chance of shop loss. In my area, when a chain store collapses, at least another one takes its place or an independent store or restaurant. The only reason that happens, is because my home area, has a high street that is on a major route into Central London, with good transport links. We get a lot of through traffic and footfall from visitors and locals, whose own high streets are being run down. Plus we have a major entertainment and sports area in our town. My town only survives because of that and all the thriving small shops used by our diverse community. But many towns are not as lucky. We have lost one independent department store, but the family who owned it, decided to become landlords to a Polish department store. The oldest independent businesses in my town are a fifth generation undertakers, an electrical retail/ contractor dating back to the seventies and various general stores and grocers, many dating back to the seventies or eighties, and again passed down in families. Still this continued loss of major retailers is a massive body blow. My local council is obsessed with promoting a designer retail park over everyday shopping needs.
@@daveglander1 Just remembered that like your town which has a music instrument and record store, we have a specialist store, it sells fishing gear ( there's a local canal and reservoir), air rifles and knives, specialist sports goods for hunting ( no real guns ) and hiking gear, including expensive shoes and survival clothes, you can even get replica collectors swords for reenacting and rat and squirrel traps. It used to be used once by the stuntmen in a local film studio, we once had.
@@daveglander1 This whole hokum about "I'm working from home forever and I'm spending my money locally". From what I've seen, it's just utter shite. Most normal people aren't going to trail 2-3 miles into town at noon on a Wednesday just to grab a coffee or visit the butcher or the weird independent gift shop - they'll do that at the evenings and weekends, same as they always did, because they are busy working just as they always were. So what's really changed, here? And in my experience most of these people are the obnoxious, pious, "I value my time" types who get literally everything delivered. Their definition of "spending my money locally" is a motorcade of Amazon Prime and Tesco vans rolling past their house every day.
I would like to see both Beatties which was a go to model shop heading to Birmingham and making a bee line to a Beatties store for all of my modelling needs and the other store I would love to make a come back is woolworth
BHS was so freaking ICONIC and NOSTALGIC to me. I us ed to shop there all the time with my parents as a kid to get school uniform and various other clothes (I am gonna be 27 tomorrow). There was this one woman who had worked there for so long until the store closed and I used to see her ALL THE TIME and by accident we met again although she didn't know me. I used to see her manning the tills and all sorts. I even remember her spending like a whole hour with me and my mum trying to help us return a lot of stuff we got at the customer services desk and then one day in 2017 I started working at a shop and saw her there I didn't know who she was or anything but I did recognise the face and couldn't tell where I knew her from till one day I overheard her say to a fellow female co worker she had worked at BHS for over 16 years until the company collapsed. I used to see her all the time and even my mum remembered her
Where's Virgin Megastore ? I was really sorry to see that one go, especially the ones on Oxford Street, and the ones in Paris. FNAC doesn't quite fill the void.
Virgin Megastore was rebranded as Zavvi in 2007 (I think) which then closed down completely in 2008/2009. All former Zavvi stores were either converted to HMV or Head Entertainment.
@@crimsontheotter It was definitely Zavvi in 2008. I remember buying GTA IV in there and it was the last copy they had, in fact it was the only copy I could find. The local GAME and Gamestation were sold out and no idea when more units were coming in. Didn't have a car at that time, but my mate told me the Tesco Extra 4 miles away didn't have it either. For some reason I hadn't preordered.
I was not surprised when Woolworths closed down. I was however very surprised that it had lasted as long as it did. When I went into Woolworths, all of the shelves had been sold, but they were having difficulty selling the items on the shelves. That said it all about Woolworths.
The amazing thing about Woolworths is... they still exist in the UK. Kind of. The original Board of Directors including Simon and Bobby Arora, decided to move into retail park trading after leaving Woolworths in 2004 and became what is known as B&M. But there was a falling out and some of them decided to do their own thing, They became Home Bargains.
Honestly it's weird how many of these stores my relatively small town had. We had a big woolies which after closing was broken down into a couple of smaller stores, the topman/topshop is now a costa coffee, the Thomas Cook travel agency is now an opticians, the gamestation is a Timpsons and the GAME is a suitcase store, the BHS is a poundland, and the Debenhams is a Starbucks. Only HMV has stood the test of time but was a later addition to the local high street than the others. Whilst some lament the loss of these stores, it has ultimately allowed other chains to enter the high street, as well as a lot more local businesses to flourish as they aren't having to compete with both major chains on the high street and ecommerce.
We’ve got Woolworths in Australia. There’s also a Woolworths in New Zealand and South Africa! It’s a nice supermarket, but I don’t know what the UK one is like
2:03 Apparently for some reason their Canadian branch started a shell company soley to appoint receivers to the Canadian franchise in court. 5:14 EB Games Australia does the same thing, except originally as seperate Zing! Pop Culture stores but they gradually expanded the stores into the other brand 10:48 Woolworths is now Foot Locker in US. Woolworths also is an unrelated supermarket chain in Australia and New Zealand which is also unrelated to South Africa and for a time New Zealand. Woolworths was originally scared of being sued by Woolworth that they founded themselves as Wallworths, but later found out Woolworth has no rights in Australia.
High streets are slowly dying, hits different seeing big names go. Now all they want to do is line their pockets with apartment complexes, the beauty of local towns is dying 😒 Just got news that 52 Wilko stores are closing permanently next week as of this writing. (Full list available online) for anyone interested. I’m sad for Wilko, that was the next best thing after Woolies (similar production line). Another one I was sad to see go was the MASSIVE Topshop in the Oxford Street intersection. That place was huge and once in there you would spend hours and hours as it had everything in one space. Same with forever 21, now all Oxford street is littered with is candy stores 🥴
When Game was on the list, my heart stopped for a moment. We had a Game store at County Mall. Me and my family would go to it all of the time to see what would be in store wether it’s games, or Skylanders (mostly Skylanders). Until one day (probably around 2020) the place was closed down. The only store that was still selling games was CEX. The only other Game I know is the one in Blue Water which takes probably 40 minutes to get to.
I left topman in 2016. I think I even told my store manager when I was leaving it was going to go under soon and look for ecommerce. He had so many shops that wernt making money. He needed to close them all except a few flagships and focus on online sales. I guess he didn’t care he has his billions
It's sad to see these, the rise of online shopping and cheap transport of goods to people's homes or lockers has really sledgehammered brick and mortar stores. Not just that mind you, but the local authorities making it completely undesirable to go into the high street. It costs more to park your car in town than ever before so unless you feel like lugging copious ammounts of goods around on a train or bus, you are humped with a massive bill on top of it. Eventually there will probably be another shift when online shopping starts to tack on delivery costs on the up and up, especially for returns (which were free but people are getting way too liberal with this). I really feel for the people that lost their jobs in this, especially those that were part of businesses that were "saved" but converted to online only.
How companies like these collapse = Say a buyer wants up buy a business for £100M. He won't pay that full amount, he pays £20M & settles the remaining £80M as debt for the company. Then begins selling off any valuable assets the company has, like the land the store is built on. Quite often it'll be sold to a shell-company he owns, which charges the business high rent. The company boss will then pay himself & his family very high wages & dividends. The boss will also take out loans against the company often used for personal purchases. The boss might seek financial assistance from the Government (tax payers money) Then when the business goes into administration he'll pick the bones before leaving thousands out of work & tax payers to pick up the debt. It's infuriating that the laws haven't changed to prevent this!
Whatcdoes Wilko actually sell? I've been in there once and so confused - is it a clothes shop? Furniture & Furnishings shop? Dvd/ gamrs shop? Totally confused!
Here's something similar and a little nostalgic
Top 10 British Stores That Don't Exist Anymore
ruclips.net/video/r7GwsuREdOg/видео.html
Toys r us and woolworths should come bk they were my childhood lol
This should have been nipped in the bud right from the start long ago and should never have allowed to happen - the government should have seized the assets of the companies involved and should have used the criminal law to jail the directors of these companies for at least 40 years or more
Comet
Maplin
🤑 How many of these businesses went under because of private equity / scummy individuals asset stripping?
How companies like these collapse =
Say a buyer wants up buy a business for £100M. He won't pay that full amount, he pays £20M & settles the remaining £80M as debt for the company.
Then begins selling off any valuable assets the company has, like the land the store is built on. Quite often it'll be sold to a shell-company he owns, which charges the business high rent.
The company boss will then pay himself & his family very high wages & dividends.
The boss will also take out loans against the company often used for personal purchases.
The boss might seek financial assistance from the Government (tax payers money)
Then when the business goes into administration he'll pick the bones before leaving thousands out of work & tax payers to pick up the debt.
It's infuriating that the laws haven't changed to prevent this!
worked in hmv during the 2019 administration, it was pure hell.
little tip for shoppers: please don’t tut and scoff at your loyalty card being suspended when the shop said loyalty card belongs to is going under and your server has no idea if they’re about to lose their job.
Back in your cage, wagie. Also wh won't my loyalty card work?
@@ryan.1990Why refer those people with minimum wages as wagies?
@@MateusHonrado
I think that was the point.
I've been there, my John Lewis branch closed. Only for customers to exclaim, 'if you're closing, you can knock a few quid off' when all you're thinking about is will I have money to pay the rent.
Fucking killed me that, like I cared that your loyalty card didn't work when I was out of job at the end of the week 😅
Hoping Wilko survives, I've shopped there so much and it's reminding me of when Woolies went when I was a kid 😢
In order to do this they need to lower their prices they got greedy since covid
@@GrahamRawlins
And with their greed, they’re putting thousands of jobs at risk.
~ Aww, my Mum worked at the lollie counter when she was young. Still got her white apron with WOOLIES written on the bib. She's 83 now!
I hope not
i noticed this as well eg paracetamol used to be 20p and it went up to 55p and its gone down again now its 40p and tissues used to be cheaper as well. @@GrahamRawlins
To an extent Argos is gone too. Obviously not 100% but ever since Sainsbury's bought the company causing the former to merge with the UK's second biggest supermarket, the vast majority of Argos 'stand alone' stores have shut and moved into Sainsbury's instead.
In my opinion while it might seem ideal, simultaneously it has forever changed the Argos we once knew and loved.
In my county (Dorset) there are no standalone argos stores left.
I don't believe there are any standalone Argos stores left in my area. There were three that I knew of - one went forever while the other two were merely folded into its nearest Sainsbury's store.
Argos is still around
Correct me if I am wrong, but many Argos stores were simply too large just for browsing the catalogue and collecting physical goods.
Merging with Sainsbury's basically saved the chain for now.
Sainsburys buying argos saved it
I used to work in a Woolworths in the early 2000s which was like a big warehouse type store which at the time was called Big W, before it reverted to its Woolworths name. I distinctly remember in 2005, that although we were a big store, I felt like there were times where we didn't seem to either have enough in regards of quantity or we just weren't selling anything (except near Christmas time), and yet my team leader tried to mention to us that we were smashing our sales targets but I wasn't entirely convinced. Didn't help also that there was an Asda along the road from us, who I guess we were in competition with, I would often hear customers say "let's try Asda instead". At that time, before I left the job in 2006, I actually predicted that the store I was in was going to bubble under and close, but I would never have guessed that about 3 years later...it would be ALL of them.
I forgot Big W. More like Big L. It was not Woolworths at all. It was Woolworths without all things people actually liked about Woolworths
Same I worked for woolworths in Gloucester for 2 years and it was like a ghost town in there I do the store so much I left to work at primark
The real reason that British brands are being forced under is that it’s part of a deliberate plan to bring in foreign and globalist leaning companies into the British (and Irish) high street - Amazon is getting into the supermarket business and is using technology to force all of the existing U.K. supermarkets out of business so that Amazon can buy them all up, even Lidl & Aldi as well as Asda/WalMart - Primark (Penny’s) may be an Irish brand but they too will be forced out of business and even with department stores like Debenhams and many others, if they are U.K. based they don’t stand a chance against Amazon and Ebay etc
We have Woolies and Big W in Oz. I think they are owned by a huge corp but keeping the trusty names...
I think I remember that very same Woolies you were talking about then remaining abandoned for YEARS after it closed…
Woolworths was always part of my childhood
Used to go there duing the 90s as a child now the one I used to go to is now a QD still the same shop
Having lived in the U.K. for 21 years and having worked in supermarket retailing in both Ireland and the U.K. for at least 30 years, most of these high street closures were both entirely preventable and unforgivable - those at the top of these big companies who were responsible for these closures right from the start, were never held accountable for thier irresponsible actions by being prosecuted in the criminal courts and having all of thier assets seized, as well as being jailed for at least 40 years - it happened because proper deterrents under the criminal law were not being put in place to protect workers rights
I miss Woolworths. The pic n mix were one of the best things on Saturday outings.
Wilko has a pic n mix too. Supermarkets just don't do them.
A childhood classic
Tesco has pick n mix
@@Xenon777_ Only very big branches.
The good old days of taking another cup and using it to compress the sweets inside and filling the thing to the point that the lid kept falling off and the whole outfit had the density of a collapsed star.
Wilko reminds me of going shopping in town with my grandma as a kid. I really hope it doesn’t go under
it went under
So glad HMV was saved :D. Love that shop haha
Loved HMV and Woolworths, especially Woolworths, used to get my cds and videos/dvds in their back in the day.
Hmv is still around
@wannabkain4400 I've seen one in Norwich and woolworths is now a QD
Never welled up over a WatchMojo video before, but watching this is just basically seeing my childhood disintegrate (and I'm sure that's the same for many others) 😢
As a Brit, I know what happened to one of the many BHS stores. Following that town's branch closure, it was converted into a charity shop, although it's only the first floor that sees business. The second floor is off-limits, unfortunately.
Woolworths was my favourite shop sadly missed 😢
Woolworths I do miss a lot and I also do miss BHS and Debenhams. Even Comet went and was replaced by Currys PC World. And now Wilko is going which I think it’s very sad to see Wilko go. Superdrug is still going but they are closing some of their stores. It’s like we have to live on with high streets getting more depressing and more empty shops on our high streets.
The world has moved online im afraid. Realistically on your high street you need a post office, a supermarket, petrol station, barbers/ hairdressers: beauty and a million costas. Oh and a greggs
Now most Game stores are inside Sports Direct stores. I guess it makes sense since there were few Game stores left on the high street
And Debenhams before they went bust
Even those are closing down, my local one is shutting down now. :(
A similar situation happened with argos.
Mike ashley has ruined every brand he owns
@@crimsontheotter and I hate that it happened. I don't want to have to go to Sainsburys to go to Argos. My local Argos was a 15 minute walk away and now it's 30 minutes
Other names to add...
Maplins. As someone who works in the IT industry it was hard to see it fall down. I relied on it so much.
C&A. Basically a 1980's Primark
Littlewoods (aka.. the 'other' M&S)
Blockbuster (Which is obviously a worldwide thing, and doomed to fail once Netflix and Amazon emerged... still miss it though)
Virgin Music (But good riddance) Also... 'Our Price' Records. which seemed to have a shop on every high street in the 90s.
Comet and Rumbelows . Two electronic retailers brushed aside by the Currys/Dixons Powerhouse in the late 80's and 90s.
Music Rooms. (for musicians, it was the last place to buy musical equipment locally, now only the shop on Denmark St remains)
MFI. A company that shot itself in the foot once they revealed just how awful their furniture really was. Even though we already knew. See also Ratners for same foot shooting business model.
At least C&A is still around in continental Europe.
C&A is a Dutch company, they left the UK, because our clothes market, went into fast fashion.
I really liked just browsing Maplin on a Saturday morning/early afternoon, even around the time it closed for good and was really just a gadget store. I bought a mechanical keyboard online having been able to sample it in Maplin.
There was a time many moons ago where Maplin was a proper geek palace. They had magazines with project ideas and circuit diagrams, plus you could chat to the guys on the counter about resistors and what's the best soldering iron etc.
That niche is filled by RS Electronics and Farnell these days.
Blockbuster is an American brand, though, but I do remember renting out PS1 games
Also, remember that I use the title music as my intro
My local BHS unit was taken up by Next pretty much at straight away. Debenhams still empty though.
Do you live in Horsham?
Mine got replaced by Next
My local BHS was replaced by H&M
@Robert-iu3xj Nah don't live there
The best thing in My local Woolworths was the pick and mix everything else there was just plainly junk
@Twiggymaster666 ... Yes, it was full of crap later on, best for pick n mix and other confectionary later on. Woolworths changed so much over the years and not for the better, I remember when you could buy most things there you'd need, they sold food items too when I was younger like loose biscuits and small whole cooked chickens in a large tin which were lovely, two items I always recall strangely. Technically though Woolies wasn't British.
@@Tidybitz I remember none of that it must’ve been from the 70s
@@Twiggymaster666 ... yes, though 60s and 70s, Woolworths were great in those days.
If you're ever on a vacation/holiday in Mexico and you're feeling nostalgic, you can go to a Woolworths there. The UK had Woolworths longer than the US did. US Woolworths closed for good in 1997 finally after having sold off the UK "branch" in the 80s.
I remember woolies used to go there with some close relatives now it's a QD
I loved Woolworths ❤
I remember Philip Green being confronted by Sky News. That was an absolute catastrophic and shocking failure in his personal security arrangements and I remember thinking how lucky Green was to be confronted just by a journalist, rather than someone with darker intent.
Also got my Xbox 360 in Gamestation. They had by far the best bundle deal on at the time - it was slightly cheaper than GAME and I also had complete freedom over which two games I wanted (GAME made you pick from a very limited selection and I didn't want any of those ones). Always preferred it to GAME and was sad to see it go. My local Gamestation in the town I lived in at the time was still open in 2012, so I don't recall GAME killing the brand immediately.
I really miss woolworths , HMV and Game Station
HMV at the time of this message are still going
Before clicking on it I knew Woolies was gonna be number 1. Ah back in the days where you would get £1 VHS tapes and pick n mix
HMV is back again, they're actually kinda enjoyable little shops that I've bought a lot from
Still miss Woolies. 😔
Every time I take out my Christmas decorations. 😔
Still mourn Woolworths was my childhood and teenage years
Before i watch this... if any of them should make a comeback then good old Woolworths... xmas is not the same without their ads.
In my home town of Banbury we had a huge new shopping mall open in 2000 and the main flagship shops that were there from the outset were Woolies, Debenham, BHS and HMV. Crazy to think that HMV is the only one left from those shops now!
same for my local town, Bromley
Aside from here in Manchester where I’ve lived 21 years, I see the same very worrying trends in my native Ireland - already in my home village in Ireland we have both a Lidl and Aldi and the local SuperValu (Musgrave) does not stand a chance - but they will soon be all bought out by Amazon very soon
I went to Norwich a few times, and there's one there
The moral of the story with both HMV and Game and even Blockbuster is that digital downloads may be convenient, but it puts jobs at risk. People are no longer looking to buy or even rent physical copies of movies, music or video games. Lack of demand means it’s no longer profitable to keep the business open. The shops close for good as the lack of business forces the company to call it a day.
Just went to my local wilkos today and it was shutting down. Not much was left in the store but some weird miscellaneous stuff. When I lived in Bangladesh I saw real material goods and real products. Never see that in the UK.
I worked for Paperchase, and it was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've had.
Working through administration and then having to close all our stores was extremely sad and stressful.
So many people coming in trashing in the store, complaining that items were not reduced more, asking us when our final day was even though you were not told anything until the last minute by the administrators.
I really feel for the teams working for The Body Shop, not knowing if their store will be one of the lucky ones and if they need to start job hunting.
I remember Debenhams when it was open, great store
Especially the gift sections
I didn't know Accesorize was a British brand. I distinctly remember seeing a store in my country, Philippines.
Also I miss Dorothy Perkins and Topshop - we often shop at Dorothy Perkins because they had clothing for "plus" sizes like me :(
I still have a pair of jeans and a red checked shirt from DP. I loved looking at their stuff before it closed
Brotha just say ur fat no need to say plus sized
@@-_--__---___---- mate, that's a bit rude. Some people are sensitive of their weight
They should get over themselves @@lucyhardy-styles-shield2728
Build a bear is American got a few while it was open
can't believe Toys 'R' Us isn't on this list
Littlewoods had a large store where I come from but that closed a long time ago. Ratners killed itself, well it's owner killed the business
Littlewoods went into mail order, then that got taken over....now called Very, not any good either, expensive designer junk. 😕
7:58 bhs had such good home stuff and good quality. I still have my lamp and chair that I got from bhs to this day.
I bought a quilt cover and pillow from them during their closing sale. It’s still going strong now.
I worked at Accessorize! I was assistant manager, then manager! My first job out of school was Watchbox, where I sold watches and clocks and repaired watches, they closed down so I went to work in a discount book shop called Bookends, which also had a s** shop upstairs! I was manager there. Then I went to Accessorize, had a baby, went then to Body Shop where I worked for 5 years until I had my second baby. I miss retail work, but then again I don't!
I MISS WILKO SO MUCH
It's back in Exeter, Plymouth and Luton!
Wait what I used to love Wilko when I was younger 😭😭
They also forgot to mention other well-known shops too like Mothercare, Adams (Kids Wear), Dorothy Perkins, Blockbuster Video, Percy Ingles bakery, and probably many more that are sadly no longer with us.😕
Dp was part of arcadia.
I worked at the Cath Kidston warehouse in my local town from 2016-2020 it was a headache in the last 6 months of working there the writing was on the wall for about 1 yr at that point
There were a handful of Woolworths stores that survived under the new Alworths brand, but that only lasted another two more years before going under itself.
Only one I miss is Woolworths
Walking into a Game near Christmas time with mum was close to heaven.
I’m glad the range brought the wilko name
Bolton is a ghost town at the moment. All the good shops shut, Beals, Argos, bus, deb, Costa coffee, pound world,Wilco, and tens more
I didn’t know Woolworths was in Britain too. Though it was just in the US
Well Woolworths in the UK was founded in Liverpool I believe, so maybe different companies.
Yes. But it wasn't a supermarket here. It sold very little food and drink
@@charlottehardy822 oh ok but the signage looks the same.
@@patrickmiller1834 I could be wrong, just what I was always told. Probably a link somewhere.
@@franklingoodwin Did sell broken biscuits along with the pic n mix in the sixties, when I was a kid. You can now get boxes of them from Iceland.
Woolies. 😢 Probably though Woolworths in the UK will never come back. Its substitute Wilko is now in trouble.....stop buying junk online, I don't. 😡
Hoping that Wilko can be saved. 🤔
I'm with you Julian. Save the high street, get off the internet and take a trip to town.
Although, it has to be said, town councils are as much to blame as online retailers. One of my favourite shops ever in my hometown, Hudsons, was a record and instrument seller. They were doing perfectly well for themselves up till the late 2000's.
They got hit by a 5x increase per year in business rates, due to being a town center store very close to a new high street redevelopment. It pretty much saw them destroyed. Only to be replaced by one new shop every year that closed when their business grant expired.
@@daveglander1 It's actually Julia, but yes we need to wean people off online junk.
I'm convinced many local councils are lazy about encouraging shops, much of the UK, particularly as old market towns are full of half dead shops.
Even in London, where I am, many neighbourhoods are being left to collapse. It seems the poorer the residents, the more chance of shop loss. In my area, when a chain store collapses, at least another one takes its place or an independent store or restaurant. The only reason that happens, is because my home area, has a high street that is on a major route into Central London, with good transport links. We get a lot of through traffic and footfall from visitors and locals, whose own high streets are being run down. Plus we have a major entertainment and sports area in our town. My town only survives because of that and all the thriving small shops used by our diverse community. But many towns are not as lucky.
We have lost one independent department store, but the family who owned it, decided to become landlords to a Polish department store. The oldest independent businesses in my town are a fifth generation undertakers, an electrical retail/ contractor dating back to the seventies and various general stores and grocers, many dating back to the seventies or eighties, and again passed down in families.
Still this continued loss of major retailers is a massive body blow. My local council is obsessed with promoting a designer retail park over everyday shopping needs.
@@julianaylor4351 apologies Julia.
@@daveglander1 Just remembered that like your town which has a music instrument and record store, we have a specialist store, it sells fishing gear ( there's a local canal and reservoir), air rifles and knives, specialist sports goods for hunting ( no real guns ) and hiking gear, including expensive shoes and survival clothes, you can even get replica collectors swords for reenacting and rat and squirrel traps. It used to be used once by the stuntmen in a local film studio, we once had.
@@daveglander1 This whole hokum about "I'm working from home forever and I'm spending my money locally". From what I've seen, it's just utter shite. Most normal people aren't going to trail 2-3 miles into town at noon on a Wednesday just to grab a coffee or visit the butcher or the weird independent gift shop - they'll do that at the evenings and weekends, same as they always did, because they are busy working just as they always were. So what's really changed, here?
And in my experience most of these people are the obnoxious, pious, "I value my time" types who get literally everything delivered. Their definition of "spending my money locally" is a motorcade of Amazon Prime and Tesco vans rolling past their house every day.
Don’t forget Kate Middletons parents party store. Her mother actually came to central New Jersey USA to try to branch out
Yeah because she was hanging on the coattails to promote it
@@susanlove9303 well ‘Gone Baby Gone’
I would like to see both Beatties which was a go to model shop heading to Birmingham and making a bee line to a Beatties store for all of my modelling needs and the other store I would love to make a come back is woolworth
BHS was so freaking ICONIC and NOSTALGIC to me. I us ed to shop there all the time with my parents as a kid to get school uniform and various other clothes (I am gonna be 27 tomorrow). There was this one woman who had worked there for so long until the store closed and I used to see her ALL THE TIME and by accident we met again although she didn't know me. I used to see her manning the tills and all sorts. I even remember her spending like a whole hour with me and my mum trying to help us return a lot of stuff we got at the customer services desk and then one day in 2017 I started working at a shop and saw her there I didn't know who she was or anything but I did recognise the face and couldn't tell where I knew her from till one day I overheard her say to a fellow female co worker she had worked at BHS for over 16 years until the company collapsed. I used to see her all the time and even my mum remembered her
Where's Virgin Megastore ? I was really sorry to see that one go, especially the ones on Oxford Street, and the ones in Paris. FNAC doesn't quite fill the void.
Virgin Megastore was rebranded as Zavvi in 2007 (I think) which then closed down completely in 2008/2009. All former Zavvi stores were either converted to HMV or Head Entertainment.
@@crimsontheotter It was definitely Zavvi in 2008. I remember buying GTA IV in there and it was the last copy they had, in fact it was the only copy I could find. The local GAME and Gamestation were sold out and no idea when more units were coming in. Didn't have a car at that time, but my mate told me the Tesco Extra 4 miles away didn't have it either.
For some reason I hadn't preordered.
Woolies was a huge memory of my youth! I was so sad when it closed! And C&A and Rusell and Dorrels!
I was not surprised when Woolworths closed down. I was however very surprised that it had lasted as long as it did.
When I went into Woolworths, all of the shelves had been sold, but they were having difficulty selling the items on the shelves. That said it all about Woolworths.
The amazing thing about Woolworths is... they still exist in the UK.
Kind of.
The original Board of Directors including Simon and Bobby Arora, decided to move into retail park trading after leaving Woolworths in 2004 and became what is known as B&M. But there was a falling out and some of them decided to do their own thing, They became Home Bargains.
The one in Newmarket is a QD
Honestly it's weird how many of these stores my relatively small town had. We had a big woolies which after closing was broken down into a couple of smaller stores, the topman/topshop is now a costa coffee, the Thomas Cook travel agency is now an opticians, the gamestation is a Timpsons and the GAME is a suitcase store, the BHS is a poundland, and the Debenhams is a Starbucks. Only HMV has stood the test of time but was a later addition to the local high street than the others. Whilst some lament the loss of these stores, it has ultimately allowed other chains to enter the high street, as well as a lot more local businesses to flourish as they aren't having to compete with both major chains on the high street and ecommerce.
I would like to see Woolworth and Dixons back
We’ve got Woolworths in Australia. There’s also a Woolworths in New Zealand and South Africa! It’s a nice supermarket, but I don’t know what the UK one is like
2:03 Apparently for some reason their Canadian branch started a shell company soley to appoint receivers to the Canadian franchise in court.
5:14 EB Games Australia does the same thing, except originally as seperate Zing! Pop Culture stores but they gradually expanded the stores into the other brand
10:48 Woolworths is now Foot Locker in US. Woolworths also is an unrelated supermarket chain in Australia and New Zealand which is also unrelated to South Africa and for a time New Zealand. Woolworths was originally scared of being sued by Woolworth that they founded themselves as Wallworths, but later found out Woolworth has no rights in Australia.
What about the classic ratners
Who went bust after the owner famously claimed “they sold crap”
What an idiot 😂
Woolies and now recently wilkos. Was sad to see them both go. Both been around forever 😢
Game in the 90s? I belive you mean Electronic Boutique. It wasn't know as Game till the 2000s.
I remember Electronic Boutique. My dad definitely bought us games from there.
Woolworths is one that everhpne misses ❤
The Woolworths i know is now a QD (quality discounts) its similar to woollies
High streets are slowly dying, hits different seeing big names go.
Now all they want to do is line their pockets with apartment complexes, the beauty of local towns is dying 😒
Just got news that 52 Wilko stores are closing permanently next week as of this writing. (Full list available online) for anyone interested.
I’m sad for Wilko, that was the next best thing after Woolies (similar production line).
Another one I was sad to see go was the MASSIVE Topshop in the Oxford Street intersection.
That place was huge and once in there you would spend hours and hours as it had everything in one space.
Same with forever 21, now all Oxford street is littered with is candy stores 🥴
Now we have online shopping thanks to the pandemic but I prefer buying clothes I try on
to be honest, every wilko store i go to has a lot of rude workers so i see why they closed down
I hope 🤞 Wilko does survive as I always buy my alot in there as if goes where now I'm getting things others don't sell what I regular get 😢😮
same with me
Love HMV ❤
Online has done this RIP to all the fallen shops
Nice to see Toys R Us back from the dead. Hopefully Wilko will survive.
Not here in the US
Where? Haven't seen open since it collapsed
Stores are reopening and its back online@@HarryWessex
I thought it was online only now
There is a new toysrus in whsmith in Poole near where I live.
When Game was on the list, my heart stopped for a moment. We had a Game store at County Mall. Me and my family would go to it all of the time to see what would be in store wether it’s games, or Skylanders (mostly Skylanders). Until one day (probably around 2020) the place was closed down. The only store that was still selling games was CEX. The only other Game I know is the one in Blue Water which takes probably 40 minutes to get to.
Maaaaaan woolworths was awsome
it really was the best
Miss Woolworths found childhood memories with that shop
I liked Woolworths there was so much choice.
It's nice that Sports Direct has taken Game
This narrator guy is Welsh, I can tell from his accent 😮🏴
I'd say NE England
A lot of retailers have suffered from terrible senior management. Debenhams and BHS would still be around if the management were competent.
Burtons Menswear and Evans Womenswear clothing stores, but now online only. Nice to see what one was buying in store.
I left topman in 2016. I think I even told my store manager when I was leaving it was going to go under soon and look for ecommerce. He had so many shops that wernt making money. He needed to close them all except a few flagships and focus on online sales. I guess he didn’t care he has his billions
Pretty sure Monsoons also went under for a bit around 2011 too?
Woolworths is the shop where my family started and if it wasn't for Woolworths my family wouldn't be where it is today
I remember Gamestation
RIP Gamestation
there was so many of these that I had no idea had gone
M & Co that got bought out by Yours and Paperchase that got bought out by Tesco
It's sad to see these, the rise of online shopping and cheap transport of goods to people's homes or lockers has really sledgehammered brick and mortar stores. Not just that mind you, but the local authorities making it completely undesirable to go into the high street. It costs more to park your car in town than ever before so unless you feel like lugging copious ammounts of goods around on a train or bus, you are humped with a massive bill on top of it. Eventually there will probably be another shift when online shopping starts to tack on delivery costs on the up and up, especially for returns (which were free but people are getting way too liberal with this).
I really feel for the people that lost their jobs in this, especially those that were part of businesses that were "saved" but converted to online only.
Interesting video!
Hearing the narrator constantly mispronouncing Cath Kidston as "Cath Kitson" 😂
I feel like it will be the same as Debenhams; closed down to online only, and no one buys from them anymore
I really want game station to return
How companies like these collapse =
Say a buyer wants up buy a business for £100M. He won't pay that full amount, he pays £20M & settles the remaining £80M as debt for the company.
Then begins selling off any valuable assets the company has, like the land the store is built on. Quite often it'll be sold to a shell-company he owns, which charges the business high rent.
The company boss will then pay himself & his family very high wages & dividends.
The boss will also take out loans against the company often used for personal purchases.
The boss might seek financial assistance from the Government (tax payers money)
Then when the business goes into administration he'll pick the bones before leaving thousands out of work & tax payers to pick up the debt.
It's infuriating that the laws haven't changed to prevent this!
We still got HMV 🎉🎉
Also loved shopping in Etam and TJ Hughes
Whatcdoes Wilko actually sell? I've been in there once and so confused - is it a clothes shop? Furniture & Furnishings shop? Dvd/ gamrs shop? Totally confused!
Bring back blockbusters, toys R Us and Woolworths then I’ll be happy
I kinda miss Kwiksave
Really miss 'Borders', with the resurgence of Waterstones, it would've been nice to keep them.
HMV had not gone bust. There's still loads of them about. There's one in my town 😐
You forgot MFI and habitat
Hope Wilko survives. Miss Comet but currys seems cheaper
My first ever flight was with Thomas cook