House of Fraser calls in administrators

[One percent]

3 minutes ago, Roger_Mellie said:

I use HoF online a lot, I'll be sorry to see it go. Free delivery over £50 and free return. I usually order £200-300 of clothes I like the look of, try it on at home and send most of it back. Never, ever had a problem.

I’ve only used them the once so it may have been one off. Mind I also find online from marks and Spencer to be a complete disaster every time I use it too. 

[M S E Refugee]

1 minute ago, dgul said:

But that's not what the market needs.  It's saturated and it needs to not have Debenhams and not have HoF.  

I can only think that he's going to reinvent the department store.  Just as he reinvented the sports store.  Problem is, I simply can't imagine how he could possibly do it.

I think there is a place for department stores there are just far too many.

My wife is an area manager for a concession that deals with Debenhams and House of Fraser and in quite a few Cities her company has a concession in each store when they only really need one.

Many large Cities can have a Debenhams,a couple of HoFs and a John Lewis,it's too many.

[Option5]

16 minutes ago, dgul said:

And how much is the brand?

Difficult to know what happens next with Ashley.  His past form is to take the core brand and rejig to cut costs massively, ending up with something that's only really a shell of what it was.  He can't so easily do that with HoF as he also owns the staff and their contracts (and redundancy pay).

He'll screw over the suppliers as he's bought the lot, stock included so get ready for the big sale.

I was always met with total disinterest when trying to buy things there. Also the attitude was odd,

"Do you have these trousers in a 28" waist?"

"No they start at 30"

okay

"do you have these shoes in a 6?"

"no men's sizes start at 7"

"Why don't you stock the smaller sizes"

"Because there's no demand, strangely enough you're the third person today looking for size 6"

FFS.

I asked if they took a note of things asked for that they didn't stock to feed back to the buyers

"Er no, why?"

 

[Panther]

58 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Ashley relies on buying old brands cheap, making in Asia, stacking high.

Relied on strong pound, cheap Asian currencies and subbed UK labour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40665459

ashley gambles.

On finding this link, the late news ticer came up with 'Ashley to buy HoF'.

He gameles. A lot. He assuming becasue he buys it cheaps it has value. It doesnt.

House of Fraser isn't really a brand is it, their stores are nearly all concessions. Their 'own brand' is fairly anonymous, Debenhams only slightly less so. Unless his idea is to sell loads of House of Fraser/Debenhams widescreen tvs on 'Black Friday'

[spunko]

The most shocking thing about all these High Street casualties is how long they've held on. I haven't been in a HoF for about 15 years, and even then I remember thinking, Christ they're expensive. Mike Ashley can either shove it full of cheap tat like Sports Direct and take it down market, or close the stores and go fully online. If they own the stores outright and aren't rented then there must be huge value in some of their real estate, ripe of flats conversion.

 

[twocents]

So expensive I always thought their mark ups must be beyond massive because they hardly ever seemed to sell much.  For clothes once you put the stuff on I don't think it looked that much different to the cheapo stores except for the label.

[spunko]

The markup in clothing is huge anyway, offline and online. ASOS must be charging 40% markup.

[Band]

2 hours ago, spygirl said:

Ive actually never been in a HoF.

 

Its just a down market John Lewis, cant for the life of me understand why Ashleys seems to want to lose his fortune of Debenhams and HoF.

[spunko]

A commentator on Radio 2 just said it's partly due to high house prices, as disposable income is less.

[Band]

23 minutes ago, spunko2010 said:

A commentator on Radio 2 just said it's partly due to high house prices, as disposable income is less.

Someone from the So-Called BBC's vetting dept needs putting up against a wall.

[M S E Refugee]

1 hour ago, spunko2010 said:

The most shocking thing about all these High Street casualties is how long they've held on. I haven't been in a HoF for about 15 years, and even then I remember thinking, Christ they're expensive. Mike Ashley can either shove it full of cheap tat like Sports Direct and take it down market, or close the stores and go fully online. If they own the stores outright and aren't rented then there must be huge value in some of their real estate, ripe of flats conversion.

 

I believe they sold off many stores then rented them back again,this is how they lasted so long.

[UmBongo]

Coinidentally my local Sports Direct and House of Fraser are next to one another. 

Not far for Ashley's cronies to walk to conduct a site viewing.

[M S E Refugee]

https://news.sky.com/story/chancellor-philip-hammond-considering-amazon-tax-for-online-retailers-11468623

Looks like Phil Hammond is going to save the high street with more taxes.

[Option5]

5 minutes ago, UmBongo said:

Coinidentally my local Sports Direct and House of Fraser are next to one another. 

Not far for Ashley's cronies to walk to conduct a site viewing.

Norwich? If so, just across the road from the Mosque.

[Chewing Grass]

6 minutes ago, M S E Refugee said:

https://news.sky.com/story/chancellor-philip-hammond-considering-amazon-tax-for-online-retailers-11468623

Looks like Phil Hammond is going to save the high street with more taxes.

The high street is dead, its full of people who don't work Mon-Fri and shit shops where you can never get exactly what you want anyway.

Just get Amazon to pay corporation tax, anything else is a fudge that will backfire due to the law of unintended consequences.

[UmBongo]

4 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Norwich? If so, just across the road from the Mosque.

Yes.  I think I might know of the mosque you refer to.  Looks more like a terraced house if it's where I think it is.

[Option5]

Just now, UmBongo said:

Yes.  I think I might know of the mosque you refer to.  Looks more like a terraced house if it's where I think it is.

Next to the mini roundabout at Chantry Road and Chapel Field East, actually look like an old Chapel

Terraced house type is the one on Dereham road.

[M S E Refugee]

2 minutes ago, Chewing Grass said:

The high street is dead, its full of people who don't work Mon-Fri and shit shops where you can never get exactly what you want anyway.

Just get Amazon to pay corporation tax, anything else is a fudge that will backfire due to the law of unintended consequences.

I agree Hammond ought to get Amazon to pay corporation tax but he really should keep his beak out as the government is very good at destroying jobs.

[spunko]

27 minutes ago, M S E Refugee said:

https://news.sky.com/story/chancellor-philip-hammond-considering-amazon-tax-for-online-retailers-11468623

Looks like Phil Hammond is going to save the high street with more taxes. 

What a silly cunt, there is already a "sales tax" it's called VAT and 95% of online stores pay it. Amazon doesn't.

[UmBongo]

3 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Next to the mini roundabout at Chantry Road and Chapel Field East, actually look like an old Chapel

Terraced house type is the one on Dereham road.

Yep, that's the one! You're right, it's   a Chapel - I thought it was a house!

The one on Dereham Rd used to be a pub: 'Billy Bluelight' I think it was. Quite often ram packed with cars outside.The women's entrance to the building is a 'side alley' next to the row of houses.

[SNACR]

7 hours ago, spunko2010 said:

The markup in clothing is huge anyway, offline and online. ASOS must be charging 40% markup.

I can promise you you're out by at least a factor of ten there.

[Wig]

7 hours ago, UmBongo said:

Coinidentally my local Sports Direct and House of Fraser are next to one another. 

Not far for Ashley's cronies to walk to conduct a site viewing.

this comment made me chuckle for some reason, picturing a bunch of "cronies" at every sports direct store just waiting around for their big chance to recce a nearby shop

[spunko]

12 hours ago, SNACR said:

I can promise you you're out by at least a factor of ten there.

Do you mean 4% ? 

[SNACR]

5 minutes ago, spunko2010 said:

Do you mean 4% ? 

No 400% markup at least I would anticipate a lot more that on many lines.

[sleepwello'nights]

Not sure I enjoy the gloating over the recognition that another High Street retailer is in difficulty. There is no doubt that "The High Street" is facing structural change due to a number of factors, not least of which is online sales. 

The major retailers face a dilemma with online. They all have it as a sales channel now but they cant take advantage of its lower cost as they would be competing with themselves. They try to differentiate on service, but they are all reliant on the same delivery companies so there is no differentiation. One Christmas I placed an order with HoF at 19:30. Next morning at 10:00 the items were in my home. Fantastic. Returns would have been easy if I had needed to send anything back. They are also facing competition from their suppliers who also use online sales as another channel. Again no cost saving for consumers as the manufacturers do not want to compete with their major customers. It'll change.

The knock on effects are worth considering. Particularly on local authorities. Fewer shops in the high street will have an impact on their income. Less in business rates, less in parking charges, less in parking fines, less in littering fines. So no doubt council tax will be increase to make up the shortfall.

The commercial property business is also bound to be effected with lower demand for retail premises the large property businesses will have to respond with lower rents or face even more voids than they are currently experiencing.