Woolworths Group plc

 

Woolworths Group
Type	PLC (LSE: WLW)
Founded	Liverpool, England (1909) (opening of F.W. Woolworth's first British store)[1]
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Key people	Gerald Corbett, Chairman, Trevor Bish-Jones, Managing Director
Industry	Retail and distribution
Revenue	£2.63 billion GBP (2005)
Employees	30,000 (approx. retail) [2]
Website	woolworthsgroupplc.com (corporate) woolworths.co.uk (retail)

This article is about the British Woolworths Group plc, and its stores. For other retailers of similar name, see Woolworth.

Woolworths Group plc is the name of a British group which owns and represents itself with the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram. The Woolworths chain which is the main enterprise of the group and focuses its main emphasis on supplying families, which is reflected by its LadyBird children's clothing ranges, Chad Valley toys and the recent WorthIt! value ranges.

In recent years, the brand has also moved into the entertainment and electronics aspects of retail after its acquisition of the company, Entertainment UK and has expanded its chains by converting existing stores into larger "20x20" stores found in larger high-street locations for larger product ranges and smaller "10x10" stores aimed at meeting everyday shopping requirements. "Out-of-town" stores, formerly known as "BigW" exist in more far-field locations and stock items similar to IKEA stores that are not offered in high-street locations along with product ranges offered in smaller Woolworths locations. As of March 2007, there are 817 stores in the United Kingdom.^[2][3]

In Summer 2006 the business launched an in-store collection service for items ordered on their website or in-store, to compliment the already established in-store ordering system. In Late September 2006, the "Big Red Book" was launched, which was designed to be a direct competitor of the Argos catalogue.^[4]

History

Early years

The English branch of the originally Pennsylvania-founded Woolworths stores^[5][6], F W Woolworth & Co, Ltd was founded by Frank Woolworth in Liverpool, England in 1909 primarily due to Frank Woolworth's ancestry linking to Wooley, Cambridgeshire^[7]-- Frank himself claiming he had traced his ancestry through the Founding Fathers of the district to a small farm in middle-England.^[8] When Frank eventually travelled to England in 1890^[9], he docked in Liverpool and travelled by train to Stoke on Trent for the purchase of China and glassware for Woolworths ranges, but also noted his love of England in his diary and his aspirations for bringing the Woolworths name to England;

“

I believe that a good penny and sixpence store, run by a live Yankee, would be a sensation here.

”

When at a Stoke on Trent train station, Frank Woolworth met a young freight clerk, William Lawrence Stephenson who impressed Woolworth with this "can-do attitude"^[10] was invited several years later at the time of conception for the British "F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd", to meet with Frank Woolworth again, who dispatched a carriage and invitation to his hotel room in London. ^[11] When Stephenson arrived to meet with Woolworth, he was offered the job as director of the new company, to which he accepted. ^[12]

Several locations for the first Woolworths store were considered by Frank Woolworth himself along with future locations^[13] , but the initial store locations were decided as 25-25A Church Street and 8 Williamson Street Liverpool ^[14]-- the reasoning being that Liverpool was claimed to be the "second city of the [British] empire". As a means of adherence to American trading tradition; allowing only viewing of items on the first day of the shop's opening. This included guests being given complimentary tea whilst being entertained by a traditional brass band in the refreshment room and was reported positively by the local newspaper, the Liverpool Courier who praised the decor of the stores along with the value and range of items on sale there.^[15]

Despite praise at the time from the Liverpool Courier, the British national newspaper The Daily Mail likened Frank Woolworth to Phineas Taylor Barnum and claimed that the store positions were decided as a contingency plan in the event the store failed to facilitate escape from any financial liability that ensued. ^[16] Despite these reservations, the store proved to be a success; large queues outside both stores and low priced 3^d (1.25p) and 6^d (2.5p) items leading to stores being almost stripped bare of goods before the end of the first day of trading and being attributed to mass purchased mass-produced foreign and local goods.^[17]

Woolworths, along with the American owned London store Selfridges which opened in the same year, also introduced the concept of product being on show in the store and shoppers allowed the browse and help themselves without pressure to buy. Woolworths low-cost household goods shops gave the working class their first taste of middle class materialism and by 1950 the company had 762 branches around the country.

Post-split from parent company

In 1982, the British Woolworths was acquired by Paternoster Stores Ltd, the forerunner of Kingfisher plc. Woolworths Group plc was formed by the demerger of Kingfisher's general merchandise business, and began trading as a listed company on the London Stock Exchange on August 28, 2001.

During the 1980s, management rationalised merchandise lines into clearly defined categories: entertainment, home, kids (toys and clothing) and confectionery.

In the late 1990s, the management extended the Woolworths brand into other retail formats and alternative channels to accelerate growth by taking advantage of changing retail trends. Some larger format stores were opened under the Big W brand, similar to Wal-Mart in the US. Although initially successful, the format ultimately failed to catch on; the original plan had relied upon leveraging the involvement of other Kingfisher group retailers, but following the demerger this was no longer possible. In 2004, Woolworths sold off some Big W store sites to other retailers, including ASDA and Tesco. The gross internal floor area of the remaining sites was reduced to an optimum trading size of around 40,000 to 50,000 square feet. Following this, they were rebranded as Woolworths Out of Town stores.

Woolworths had previously tried the large out of town store or hypermarket format in the 1980s with the Woolco Stores which were later sold or closed down.

Recent history

In 2000, the Woolworths General Store format was launched. This format was developed to become an American "drugstore" style store, with a pharmacy and longer opening hours. This failed to develop any additional benefits and the format was quietly dropped.^{[citation needed]} Other formats the company has recently trialled are the 10/10 format, 5/5 format, Phoenix format and Kids Plus.^{[citation needed]} The 10/10 format completely re-styles stores between 14 and 25,000 sq ft with new fixtures and full store repairs (stores with a red walkway are 10/10), the 5/5 format re-styles stores between 4 and 6,500 sq ft and uses larger stores' stockrooms for additional support and the Phoenix format uses spare fixtures from the 5/5 and 10/10 refurbishment to make stores more presentable that cannot afford or support a 5/5 or 10/10 refurbishment. The Kids Plus format was trialled at the Burton store, and has now been trialled at Northampton and Bedford. This strips out non-children's departments such as kitchenware and home and expands on toys and children's clothing.^{[citation needed]}

In September 2006 Woolworths reported that like for like sales fell 8.3% in the six months to 29 July 2006. Losses widened to £64.9m from £20.2m a year ago. [3]

Music business

Woolworths, for many years, was a leader in the UK music industry. In the 1950s and well into the 1960s, Woolworths issued recordings available only via their stores on their own label Embassy Records, produced and manufactured by Oriole Records. These releases were double sided singles featuring two cover versions of current hit singles sold at a much cheaper price. This venture was very successful at the time, but was eventually killed off when other record companies started to issue compilation albums. However, Woolworths remained in the music business selling a wide range of singles and albums, and remained the UK's Number 1 music retailer well into the 1990s. Even the success of nationwide music specialists stores such as Virgin Megastore and HMV couldn't compete with Woolworths during this time. In recent years however, they have suffered from strong competition in this field from the large supermarket chains Tesco and Asda.

Subsidiaries & Joint ventures

Entertainment UK was founded as Record Merchandisers Limited in 1966, and subsequently became a joint venture between a number of record companies. Woolworths became Entertainment UK's largest customer and in 1986 E.UK was acquired by the Kingfisher Group, but became the property of Woolworths Group Plc after the demerger from the parent company, The Kingfisher Group. Entertainment UK now supplies many major retailers and signed a new partnership with Virgin Megastores and ASDA in 2007.^[18] Other notable customers include Morrisons, Sainsbury's, ASDA, WH Smith, and formerly Tesco.

Streets Online was founded in 1996 and has attracted over 450,000 registered customers since its launch. Woolworths Group now owns 91.4 per cent. of Streets Online. (although the Streets Online website has been 'down' for a number of months and seems to be no longer trading)

2| entertain Limited is a joint-venture company combining the former video and music publishing and TV/video production businesses of the Woolworths Group subsidiary, VCI plc, with the video publishing business of BBC Worldwide.

Brands

Chad Valley

Chad Valley launched in 1991 in response to research that identified a gap in the market for a range of high quality, safe toys that offered good value for money. It was decided to utilise the Chad Valley brand name, which had been in existence since 1860, to create an own label range of merchandise. Chad Valley comprises an extensive range of toys and games suitable for all children from babies and toddlers to boys and girls under 8 years old.

Ladybird

Ladybird is a brand of childrenswear for children aged 0-9 years. Following the acquisition of the brand, it is now sold exclusively at Woolworths. Ladybird is ranked third overall in the childrenswear market, with an increasing market share of 5%. There are thousands of lines in the Ladybird range, which is priced competitively from £1.99 - £29.99.

Woolworths purchased rights to the exclusive Ladybird brand in 1984, purchasing it outright from Coats Viyella in 2001. The brand has an extensive history which dates back to the trading partnership between the original firm Adolf Pasold & Son and Woolworths. This partnership began in 1934 when the Pasolds family bought the Ladybird brand from Kinger Manufacturing Co in 1938 before being bought by the aforementioned Coats Viyella.

Tragedies

New Cross, London

Many branches of Woolworths suffered severe bomb damage and even destruction during the Luftwaffe attacks in the early part of the Second World War. However it was towards the end of the war that the largest civilian tragedy of the conflict in Britain occurred when, at lunchtime on November 26th, 1944, a German V-2 rocket fell on a packed Woolworths store in New Cross High Street, killing 168 people (including 15 children), injuring 122 others and raising the building to the ground. The neighbouring London Co-operative Society store was also demolished in the attack.

The store was especially busy as news of a delivery of hard-to-obtain saucepans generated huge crowds, many of whom were queueing oustide the store at the time of the attack.

Planning and economic restrictions after the war meant Woolworths did not build a replacement store on the site until 1960; this closed in 1984. It was reported that some employees there felt the building was haunted ^[19].

Lewisham Council and Woolworths erected a plaque on the site commemorating those who died that day.

Central Manchester

On the morning of the 8th of May 1979 at a store located opposite Piccadilly Gardens a serious fire erupted in the first floor furnishing department which killed 10 shoppers. An inquiry showed that precautions to prevent the fire were inadequate and that the store had lacked measures (such as an effective sprinkler system) to stop the spread of the fire from the furniture department.

The fire bought graphic images into the public domain (including footage of office girls trapped behind barred windows on the top floor) as the store was located near the studios of BBC Manchester and Granada Television, the offices of the Manchester Evening News and the northern offices of several national newspapers.

The disaster has become a significant study for academics in the behaviour of people in emergency situations after research showed a number of customers (predominately in the public restaurant area) refused to leave despite the sounding of alarms, requests from staff and even the visibility and smell of smoke, including some who continued to queue at an abandoned check-out ^[20]. The majority of those who perished were in this area.

The devastation to the Manchester store and the loss of life resulted in the Fire Research Station conducting a number of tests to develop sprinkler systems that could handle a large department store fire like that of the Woolworths Manchester. The fire also generated modifications to the Fire Precautions Act and indirectly made furniture manufacturers develop new fabrics and materials to make sofas from.

Woolworths did not re-open the building and it is presently a nightclub, having previously been an amusement arcade. The company has not had a major store in Manchester since the fire, the firm did have several small outlets during the 1990s which sold music and confectionery (sweets, pick 'n' mix, chocolate etc). Despite trials of such formats of outlets at the Sheffield Meadowhall Shopping Centre (which closed in 2003), they did not survive for long, with the Manchester Music and Video store being superseded by a larger MVC store, owned by Woolworths Group.

References

External links

• Woolworths.co.uk
• Woolworths Group plc
• Woolworths Chad Valley
• Woolworths Ladybird Clothing
• Woolworths Ladybird Baby Range
• Woolworths Toys Section
• Official Woolworths Group museum
• Eyewitness Manchester
• Office of the Dept. Prime Minister - Report of the planning/legislations
• Sprinklers in Department Stores

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