Wilkinson's going into administration

[Chopper79]

I considered Wilkinson's bridged the gap after Woolworths closed. I've bought loads of stuff in wilko, including paint, tools, sandpaper, cleaning products etc. They were always cheaper than B&Q, and now another chain going down the toilet.

I read a comment online yesterday, and it said "The road to hell is paved with amazon warehouses". It reminds me of the film demolition man, where every restaurant is a taco bell!

Anyone else used Wilkinson?

 

[TheDaddy]

Its a shame , Wilco is great. B & M, Ebay & Amazon was killing them on sales. Its prety much our fault for ordering stuff from Amazon as its so easy and no going out necessary. Us being lazy basically then we moan when shops go under !

Its all going that way and soon we will have no shops on the high street at all. I had a shop (Closed it 8 years ago) and I could buy stuff off Amazon cheaper than my main supplier could sell to me !!! So that basically meant my customers could do the same. To be fair the shop itself was to get people in as repairs was where we made the money.

I have stopped using B & M as its now become more expensive than any other shop out there. They are well established now and no longer need cheap prices. I remember when you could get a tub of filler for 99p (I still have box with the price on) no they sell the same size but harris (I think) for £4.99 odd. Nothing is cheap there anymore and the quality is shocking.

Dave.

 

[Bods]

Yep, will be a huge loss if this goes, I use them a bit when I need stuff

Trouble is most like my Brother, work colleague and half my road constantly use Amazon, vans here every day, all you here I get it from Amazon, arrives next day as they all sign up to it, I refuse to use Amazon personally, would of used Wilko more if I had one closer, some good tools from there i've bought

They wan't Automation, Robots and AI and that means loads of Jobs going

 

[thegreathopper]

I have not been in one but my parents do, I guess it’s evolution most of these cheap shops will be gone soon. Amazon I would imagine is just getting bigger and bigger.

 

[big10p]

It's easy to blame Amazon, but they're just providing a service that people want. I don't visit my local town to shop, as it's an unmitigated sh!thole. Currently, the entire town centre ia one enormous building site. I only go there if I have to. All the big names have moved out of town into one of the various retail parks scattered around, anyway.

Shame to hear about Wilkinson's, as it's one of few shops I would go out of my way to shop in. Just a shame it's located in downtown Beirut.

 

[agent4125]

Councils don't help with parking fees everywhere, even on Sundays, and landlords still wanting silly rent for retail space in town centres. I don't understand it, surely renting to someone is better than having an empty shop for 2+ years.

 

[lix]

Multiple factors to blame here, primarily they sold cheap imported stuff that travels from the opposite side of the world, and we all know the price of that has multiplied.

Cost of wages have gone up because of minimum wage requirements which are needed because the cost of living and renting / property ownership has blown up the last couple of decades.

Energy crisis - these bricks and mortar stores use huge amounts of energy for heating and air conditioning.

Commercial rent is pegged at land prices, which are better off being converted to residential due to that market being such a huge cash cow.

Don't go believing that Amazon is king of the hill though. They too will likely start suffering as well but they have far more leverage and money in the bank and are willing to sink as low as they can to out survive the high street retailers. Wages, cost of goods, transport and fuel costs, rent, all a similar cause of issues. Add server costs and customer spending reluctance and they'll be out of business too.

There is absolutely no way any of this is sustainable at all. The next few years are going to be tough, more redundancies and mortgage rate increases on the way too.

 

[Chihiro]

I often find shops just don't sell what you need any more but on-line has it all.
I get a bit fed up going to all the shops only to go home empty handed.

 

[lix]

Councils don't help with parking fees everywhere, even on Sundays, and landlords still wanting silly rent for retail space in town centres. I don't understand it, surely renting to someone is better than having an empty shop for 2+ years.

As I had it explained to me, landlords need to maintain the 'market value' of their property to prevent rental costs crashing and because their commercial mortgage providers insist on not devaluing their property. If one landlord halved the rent then surrounding landlords would face pressure from renters who put in lower offers based upon what they now perceived the market value to be. Missed rent is basically tagged to the end of the mortgage if they're big enough landlords, the provider will just keep extending the terms to protect that market value. Which they'll do in the hope that some venture capital money washes down on them and buys up the property.

Landlords will do deals if they're desperate to avoid paying business rates which they become liable for. They either rent out to a charity at a lower market value providing they can be ousted at short notice, the charity is liable for a much lower business rate level. Or landlords will do a 'rent-free' period for a year, providing you commit to doing the place up, attract some footfall, pay the rates, service charge and utility bills, and hopefully continue your lease. Dead shopping malls are into this sort of offer.

Hence they would rather keep property empty than let anyone benefit from cheaper rent.

What really irks me is that councils still rate their property for rent levels based on heavy footfall back in the good old days. There can be half or even a third of the amount of people out there on the streets than there used to be, but they still think their high streets are packed and lined with gold! Same goes for the governments VOA who set the business rates, I don't know what crack they're smoking. They just put all the rates up and took a load of businesses out of the small business rates relief, which will most definitely kill the last of the independent stores.

 

[Sbdesign]

Ive often said this
The shops going under- people don’t use
high streets only going cause people don’t use them

Amazon is making billions from its own sales
And is like a tax man by taking a cut of all the small/medium businesses too
- all because people use it.

It’s the public vote
And in my view the public only ever act short term and know what they want today / tomorrow not next year and in the future.

The answer…
Well that’s the hard bit and I dont have a clue and neither do the professionals

 

[kingtreelo]

i use wilkos now and again, but everytime i go into my local store the amount of staff outnumber the amount of customers, same with B&M, i suspect that will be going down the same sort of path soon

as for the economics of Amazon, people shop there because nearly everything is cheaper, and it todays market, people need to save money wherever they can, which is why it is so popular, i always tend to try and shop around before i plump for Amazon, but the cheap prices and next day delivery kind of kill off the competitors in most cases

 

[jimmerd]

The prediction from a few experts is that the high street will become a leisure and essential services space only. Moving away from traditional retail.

Maybe Amazon have become what Argos was in the 90's, a reliable way to for people to get the generic items that will be in stock with an easy returns policy.

I use Amazon myself typically for items that won't be on the high street and it's a pretty impressive service.. however I do fear the loss of smaller specialist retailers with personal service... an experienced employee spending Five minutes recommending items to you based on years of experience rather than what they are promoting. A.I still has a long way to go with that regard.

I'm curious when food shopping, the large number of independent delivery riders picking up what look like small orders of a few items Does it suggest people losing the ability to plan ahead as just in time retail increases? ..or happy to trade money for free time? and is that time leisure time or to allow extended working hours.

It's odd to think that not so long ago, when not all shops were not open Sunday it felt more of a chilled out day with less traffic, especially from online delivery lorries at all hours.

 

[Chopper79]

People are spending more on "Self Indulgence" now than ever. Shops empty, but coffee bars and restaurants are packed! I went to my local high street today, and shops empty, but queues of people outside coffee bars, and all seats filled with people eating.

People will rip £40 out for lunch, but complain about £2 parking. People ordering takeaways every night etc. I'm not seeing evidence of people hard up, as they are spending plenty on eating out.

I guess ordering online, and eating out, is becoming the norm.

 

[agent4125]

Yep, high streets are now mainly full of charity shops, and things you can do, not buy.

 

[RMRepair]

I think to many of them are on the high street, people prefer retail parks where they can park easily. It's a shame but I think it will be saved.

 

[digweed]

The problem is councils have let the towns be run down and charge high parking prices along with high business rates and the crackheads that are everywhere. Bournemouth itself is full of drug users, homeless people, refugees who can't work so drug dealers use them and aggressive begging. Safer going to shop in Ukraine than here.

 

[Chihiro]

B&M local coming soon?

 

[CMYKhazi-Dan]

The problem is councils have let the towns be run down and charge high parking prices along with high business rates and the crackheads that are everywhere. Bournemouth itself is full of drug users, homeless people, refugees who can't work so drug dealers use them and aggressive begging. Safer going to shop in Ukraine than here.

Been hearing bad things about Bournemouth last few years ☹️ used to be good fun back in the day. I see they are attempting to rejuvenate Poole where Wimpy used to be but nothing there either these days.

 

[Chopper79]

The problem is councils have let the towns be run down and charge high parking prices along with high business rates and the crackheads that are everywhere. Bournemouth itself is full of drug users, homeless people, refugees who can't work so drug dealers use them and aggressive begging. Safer going to shop in Ukraine than here.

Try living near croydon. It's the murder capital of the UK. It's not safe to go out on your own, after dark. Someone got stabbed in the daytime last week. Even the police avoid the area.

There are concrete sky scrapers popping up all over. It's like Japan, with no trees or greenery. Complete s*it hole. Totally agree about the drugs, and people walking around pissed during the day, carrying a tin of beer in hand.

 

[Bods]

Try living near croydon. It's the murder capital of the UK. It's not safe to go out on your own, after dark. Someone got stabbed in the daytime last week. Even the police avoid the area.

There are concrete sky scrapers popping up all over. It's like Japan, with no trees or greenery. Complete s*it hole. Totally agree about the drugs, and people walking around pissed during the day, carrying a tin of beer in hand.

And then when they push Climate Change because we have 2 weeks of Sun but no one questions lack of trees that shelter you from the sun and heat, concrete, bricks, blocks, tarmack, slabs won't help with keeping heat down

What's with shops these days not even stocking items, the other month I needed a new Trolley jack, I bought last one from SGS company in UK, stupidly I thought they may have made them, but since find when I looked on ebay found exactly same one I had for SUVs was also sold by Halfords, Everything is made in China rebadged.
Couldn't get one same as I had which started leaking after only a few years, still got one i had for 25 years that was probably made in Taiwan but still works perfect no leaks, so I looked on ebay and the bigger type low level ones you can get in Aluminium, few makes all same one and then had look on Halfords site, same style different colour but at least from Halfords you get 3 year warranty and hoping you get one made to better standard at least, so online it said money off, £200 reduced to £160 so great, down to local Halfords, Non on shelf and £200 but I can go online and buy it for £160, pay with paypal and wait there an hour and collect from the store that doesn't have it on the shelf but has it out the back somewhere???????? wtf is going on these days. The worst part to me is they don't want you going in and able to buy it with cash and get a receipt, Oh No... I have to Give em my Name, Address, Mobile Number (No Landlines Allowed) Card Details and probably something I can't remember, It's like they want to know everything about you what you buy before you can purchase it, if you don't have a Mobile you can't purchase it???

the more they want the less I will be engaging as it's going to be like full on China soon, Social Credit Score will decide what you buy, I'm just getting fed up with the insane world we are living in, this is why I live in the past with everything old