State of our high street !

quasar9

quasar9

Screwfix Select
With Body shop in admin, yet another chain is in trouble. Only recently, Wilco and Lloyds Pharmacy wound down in the background of banks shutting branches and sole traders disappearing (they don’t even make local news) .

Being large is no protection against insolvency, with rumours of highly indebted ASDA circulating in the press and internet.

Apart from mismanagement of the high street by local councils, the common thread seems to be leveraged purchase of these businesses by private equity/ VC, who immediately saddle the business with a debt amounting to the purchase price. Further debts may be added to fund special dividends leaving little working capital. In all cases all assets are stripped. Time for special advisors from the administrators team.

At this stage purchase of the business from the administrator as a going concern is not possible. Having no assets or cash in the Bank, the only viable component is the trading and brand names. Naturally any money raised here goes first to the administrators and then to first line creditors (the bank and HMRC) leaving everyone else high and dry.
 
Landlords push rents up, sometimes because their mortgage rates have gone up, but by so much that commercial tenants can’t afford the rent any more and close.
 
Too difficult, slow and expensive for most people to visit high streets unless they’re within walking distance. Much easier to shop online or out of town.
 
I was in our HSBC yesterday and they admitted they were heading for an entirely on-line bank. There will be little or nothing in branch, if you can find one. They were trying to get me to use the "App".

Told them I'll change banks first.
 
We have all been made aware of Futitsu’s Horizon system installed in PO. But although bank systems are infinitely more robust, they are not immune to outage. Even small upgrades can result in outage for hours. But larger upgrades or move to a different systems can have devastating impact. Not long ago TSB replaced its system developed by Lloyds Bank with a new system from their new owners Banco Sabadell. The result is well documented. A worrying development is replacement of human operators (preferably in branches) with AI assisted chatbots. The first could partially understand the issue but had little powers to make any change but chatbots can do neither

looks like Body Shop is history . As expected no buyers in sight. Meanwhile YODEL has got a new name under new owners YDLGN. It was known previously as HDNL.

Evri too is looking for new owners !
 
If you closed supermarkets half of the high street would reappear in a week, and if you stopped internet shopping the other half would reappear just as quick.

The high street evolved because it was convenient place to shop, an extension of the village market place, and we found convenience elsewhere, then we blame the council?o_O
 
RegB said:
So that you can agree to the T&Cs and they can circumvent some restrictions.
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Exactly, every 'service' is now a 'contract' with the aim of keeping you in the contract, you know that as soon as the contract term ends the price is going to go up..while you are still under contract, it was in the terms and conditions that no one reads, so the 'contract' you took out is at least 1.5 times the cost of the initial contract.
And when you try to cancel you log into a website that takes you round and round in circles leading nowhere, you want someone to complain to, nope, round and round you go till you eventually realise you been fkd over by a system that doesn't let you complain, change or get out.
 
quasar9 said:
Meanwhile YODEL has got a new name under new owners YDLGN. It was known previously as HDNL.

Evri too is looking for new owners !
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Can’t understand why Yodel and Evri would be struggling - everything seems to be delivered now. Just bad management ?
 
Talking of apps. I wanted to book a table at a nearby restaurant (walking distance) and was told I had to use Open Table; a known quantity, but not a service I rely on or wish to engage with. They require detail input I don't want to share, especially for a trivial one off transaction. It sounds paranoid, but once your info is 'out there' that's it. If others weren't relying on me I'd have gone elsewhere. Same with cashless parking metres - I don't want a shedload of apps just to park up for half an hour now and again. It's just data harvesting and we wonder why we get phished.
GDPR is a crock too. Why can't there be an automatic assumption that a service provider must never share our details for any reason unless permitted to do so, rather than me having to actively refuse permission - not is not often possible. Grrrrrrrrr.
 
I am a member of a business that recently moved to a new premises on a high street in a town near Telford. Our first encounter with the 'management' of the town was a parking ticket from a jumped up little 'Hitler' traffic warden who could see we were unloading but would not allow it. He went on proudly, to tell us he had ticleted others at the other end of the high street that were parked. It turned out that the ticket was unlawfully issued as we were parked away from the yellow lines, it was rescinded, but it took about 8 hours on the phone and web to sort it out. This is a disincentive to use the high street, little wonder they are dying.
 
GDPR - the biggest offender seems to be the govt agencies themselves. DVLA will happily share everything they have if you register as a parking company. Meanwhile many other businesses but especially financial institution use GDPR as an excuse not to answer questions by the press.

Breaking news - politicians now have a new form of denial ! It wasn’t me or I never said it, its that nasty deepfake AI.
 
Bob Rathbone said:
I am a member of a business that recently moved to a new premises on a high street in a town near Telford. Our first encounter with the 'management' of the town was a parking ticket from a jumped up little 'Hitler' traffic warden who could see we were unloading but would not allow it. He went on proudly, to tell us he had ticleted others at the other end of the high street that were parked. It turned out that the ticket was unlawfully issued as we were parked away from the yellow lines, it was rescinded, but it took about 8 hours on the phone and web to sort it out. This is a disincentive to use the high street, little wonder they are dying.
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A while ago, I had the chance to meet our councils road improvement team. Each had the demeanour of “The apprentice” candidate and lectured us on the green policies etc etc. I asked how they would achieve it. Answer, they would close 5% of roads every year via LTN etc. I asked, will that not create jams elsewhere?. Reply, when we do that 25% of traffic just disappears, so there will be no jams. I replied that 25% is businesses that have gone under.
 
WH55 said:
Can’t understand why Yodel and Evri would be struggling - everything seems to be delivered now. Just bad management ?
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It’s extremely competitive industry with thin margins relying on volume. At the last mile point, barrier to entry is minimal. Anyone with a van can join but work is punishing (to the driver and van)and margins thin. You just have to fall foul of local councils money making scheme and your days profits are wiped. Hence extremely high turnover of staff leading to all kinds of problems you read about.
 
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