NEWS, NEWS, NEWS

 

Christmas and New Year Festivities are now well and truly over and forgotten.  Even the Sales have finished, and, apart from those lucky people going either on a sunshine holiday or skiing, us lesser mortals face a dreary but busy winter.   Mind you, it is said that one works better in the cold!

                                 

 

 

What’s NEW at Retail Locations in January 2002

 

Statistics

 

·       We now have 205,078 branches on our database compared with 205,635 in October 2001 and 200,862 in January 2001 - we have not been idle.

 

·       In the past quarter:

·       We have added 4,661 branches  and

·       We deleted 5,218 branches from our database

·       We have checked a total of 123,478 branches

·       …..and we found that these retailers had opened 2,831 new branches

·       …..and closed 3,541

 

At this juncture, I normally point out some changes which took place in the previous quarter, notably openings or closures and which trading categories have increased or decreased significantly.   This time I’ll be looking at the year 2001 as a whole.

 

Year 2001 – Changes in the Retail Locations database

 

 

 

 

 

The staggering increases of over 15% in the Hardware/DIY category and over 17% in the Leisure / Catering category is mainly due to our database getting even better with the capture of several new retailers and less to do with actual expansion of chains on our high street.   Of course there is always an exception – you guessed it – Coffee Shops!

 

If you would like to see a complete category-by-category breakdown, please let me know and I shall send it to you.

 

Year 2001 – The High Street keeps changing

 

During the year 2001 we have added 317 and lost 229 fascia names.   How is this change possible in a database which is continuously maintained?   The ‘lost’ fascia names include companies like ‘Reliable Hosiery Factory Shops’ and ‘Thrifty’ owned by Coats Viyella plc (possibly too many ladders in their tights?).    Some of the ‘lost’ fascias includes companies who have changed their trading name such as Dillons Convenience Stores.

 

New retailers include Boxclever, formerly Granada and Radio Rentals (TV Rental) and, it also includes many upmarket retailers who have less than 10 outlets but are very important players in specific areas.  Some of the new names include Gucci, Yves St Laurent, etc.  This is making Bond Street more representative on Retail Locations database.   There are two more types of newcomers I would like to mention:  the real new entrants in the market like Uniqlo, and some quite large chains which we were able to persuade to supply the data to us.

 

Out of the nearly 550 ‘changes’ I have pulled out just a few.

 

 

Do I dare mention coffee shops again, why not! Tchibo a German chain entered the market in March with 6 outlets and now have grown to 15.

 

How about re-invention. Thomas Cook have opened superstores, Thomas Cook Plus, mainly in Retail Parks which are billed as One Stop Complete Holiday Destinations. Going Places have also opened stores in Retail Parks, trading as  Holidayworld, joining the already successful Holiday Hypermarket chain, owned by First Choice.

 

An old friend returns! Esprit the ladieswear retailer last seen on our High Streets in 1998, made a triumphant return this year in Regent Street and Bluewater S C.  They also have one concession in John Lewis, Oxford Street.

 

Good News at last for Marks & Spencer! The Media loves them again!  Sales are up, helped by George Davis’ input amongst other ideas. M&S also increased their number of Factory Outlets from 3 to 9 this year, and for what do we love them most? No! not their underwear. Food!! They introduced a great new format Marks & Spencer-Simply Food a convenience store.  5 outlets are open already, the most recent openings being in big mainline railway stations concourses.

 

 

Lets start with a Grocery/Convenience store operator that doesn’t get a lot of press compared to the big boys. Who you may ask? Budgens, a great retailer, who slowly marches on gradually expanding. If I said to you 7 Eleven do you know the connection?   Well, 7 Eleven was sold to Budgens in the UK in 1998 by Jardine Matheson   Under the deal Budgens had to convert them to a new fascia.   Firstly they went to B2, then they decided to re-brand again this year to it’s current fascia Budgens Express.

 

 

 

Staying in the convenience sector, one of the biggest operator’s T&S Stores have also been re-branding. Their Dillons (Convenience Stores) have been converted to their successful One Stop Convenience Stores fascia.

 

Internet Cafes, a recent invention and a recent category for us, are not exempt from changing their mind as to what to call themselves. Easyeverything has decided to change their name to  Easyinternetcafe.com.   (Is this name easier to remember?) 

 

 

C&A - it was sad to see a retailer,  we have all grown up with, finally shut their doors, it’s last store in Hounslow closed in May.  

 

In comparison a mere whippersnapper Paco Life in Colour (first tracked on our database from the early 1990’s) also went to the Retail Locations graveyard (But like vampires they can rise from the dead for some of our reports/analysis).   In May it went into voluntary liquidation with immediate closure of all stores.

 

In June Scottishpower announced they are going to withdraw from the electrical retailing sector. This resulted in Powerhouse cherry picking the best stores in August, which have since been (you guessed it!) re-branded.

 

Similarly, Tandy were taken over in the U.K in 1999 by The Carphone Warehouse.  They kept the fascia going until this year, some branches were converted others were closed.

 

Staying with electrical it was an unfortunate Christmas for Tempo staff. (not enough people were signing on the ………… in their stores).   As so often happens, chains hope they will find a buyer but to no avail, all their stores were closed by Christmas Eve. Still we’ll never forget their catchy jingle “Don’t sign on the dotted line until you talk to Tempo!”

 

Electrical seems to be one of the most cutthroat price businesses on the High Street. Or should I say Retail Parks, Out of Town Shopping Centres or even Factory Outlet Parks! I wonder what the next retail venue experience will be?

 

Then there was Gateway, which one? I hear you ask, well both. In May Gateway (Supermarkets) converted their last remaining branches to their newer and more successful fascia, Somerfield.  Alas,   the American owners of Gateway (Computers) decided in October to cut their losses and to withdraw from the U.K

 

Who will come and go in 2002?   Retail Location knows it virtually when it happens.  Carry on buying our data and you will be able to see for yourself!

 

….Stop Press!  The first 2 casualties have just arrived. The Phone People collapsed again into administration but this time all the stores have closed! And The Wap Store have also ceased trading, although some outlets have been bought by Talk 4 All, (a new arrival on our database for 2002).

 

….Stop, Stop Press!  On 30^th January, Tiny, the giant of computers was captured by Time Computers, after collapsing into the hands of administrators.   The new trading name will be Computer World.   It is expected that a large number of outlets of the combined group will be culled.   Did they expand too quickly?  Who remembers Escom, who in their heyday had over 180 stores???

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEWS, NEWS, NEWS

 

Summer has arrived, at least my calendar tells me so, but we are as busy as ever, in order to maintain the Retail Locations database – and a lot has happened in the past three months!

                     

                                     

 

 

What’s NEW at Retail Locations in July 2001

 

Statistics

 

·       We now have 204,336 branches on our database compared with 203,393 in April 2001 and 196,583 in July 2000 - we have not been idle.

 

·       In the past quarter:

·       We have added 4.628 branches  and

·       We deleted 3,685 branches from our database

·       We have checked a total of 129,781 branches

·       …..and we found that these retailers had opened 2,395 new branches

·       …..and closed 1,141

 

 New Retailers

 

50 new trading names have been added to the Retail Locations database.   Again, as already reported in April, the Pub/Restaurant category has been greatly expanded with the addition of 15 new pub names and a total of 968 premises.    

 

For quite a while now, we have been aware of Julian Graves, the Health Food chain.   Over the past few years they expanded quite significantly, however we were unable to obtain all their addresses.  This has changed and we are happy to announce that Julian Graves is a new entrant with no less than 84 outlets nationwide.  They have a strong presence within Factory Outlet Centres – the flavour of the month.  (We believe we cover over 95% of all multiple outlets by trading category.  If you know of any trading names which you think are missing, please let us know).

 

A new footwear chain, owned by Pavers Ltd with 3 different trading names is also new to us.  A new Opticians chain has been added – Direct Specs Factory Outlet, based mainly in the North, their stores are not necessarily in Factory Outlet Centres.   It is an odd world.

 

……and guess what – there are two new coffee shops – AMT Express and Café Nescafe.

 

And some of the casualties…

 

Of the 46 trading names which ‘disappeared’ from the Retail Locations database, only a few are real closures.  Most of them have been re-branded.  Some of the real casualties, which are now in receivership, include Paco Life in Colour (Mixed Clothing), Autela Components and Edmunds Walker (Motor Accessories). Wheeler’s Restaurants (I know it well), will have closed by the end of summer.

….and what else has changed on The High Street ….

 

 Somerfield have completed their re-branding exercise and the last Gateway sign has finally disappeared from todays High Street.  

 

When we collate, disseminate and analyse the data it sometimes seems to us, as if groups of companies within the same trading category are vying with each other, as to how quickly they can re-brand their stores.   A little while ago most chemists changed their name to pharmacists, but they still retained their ‘main’ name.    The groups which seem to vie with each other are within the CTN’s/Convenience Stores categories.   TM Retail have ‘dropped’ ‘The Newsagents’, ‘Price Smashers’, ‘Supersweet’, and ‘Early to Late’ and introduced McColls Express, McColls Convenience, Martin Convenience and R S McColls Convenience.  T & S Stores plc have dropped all their Dillons (Convenience Stores) and re-branded them to their other fascia – One Stop Convenience Stores.

 

 From the merger between Nomura who owned Radio Rentals (previously owned by Thorn) and Granada who owned Granada (TV Rental) in October 2000, Box Clever came into being.   Since that time, over 350 branches were closed, and the remaining have already been or are in the process of being converted to Box Clever.  

 

The Coffee Shop Phenomenon

 

It is only a few years ago when generally speaking coffee came out of a jar.   When away from one’s home, coffee was drunk after a meal.  The idea that coffee could be drunk at any time of day, possibly  together with a small piece of cake, and to use the coffee shop as a meeting place, widely the custom in continental Europe and the United States, had not reached these shores.   

 

In the late 80’s some independents opened shops.   At this time the first flickering of the coffee shop phenomenon started to appear.   The Costa Brothers started to open a number of shops, many of them at airports and other high frequented locations.   By 1994 they already had 37 outlets, and they were hailed as entrepreneurs.   They were eventually taken over by Whitbread in 1995.   By 1996 Haagen Daz and the Seattle Coffee Company had opened a number of bars.   Seattle was taken over by Starbucks in 1998, but by then the race to make Great Britain a coffee country had started.

 

The graph below illustrates the changes which have taken place and the growth since 1998.

 

 

(NB The number of Retailers above refers to the number of individual companies involved in the category and does not refer to the Fascias/Trading Names carried on our database which includes Concessions as a different Trading Name)

 

The “Coffee Shop Phenomenon” is by no means yet a national one, as is illustrated by the chart below; it shows the massive preponderance of Coffee Shops in London and the South East.  The two regions represent nearly two thirds of the multiple Coffee Shop category.

 

Location of Coffee Shops by Government Standard Region (%)

 

 

 

Coffee Shops by Government Standard Region-July ’00 vs. July ‘01

 

 

 

 

The relentless march of Coffee Shops continues apace.  As can be seen, the biggest growth has occurred in London and the South East but as the chart below illustrates, in percentage terms highest growth has occurred outside of those regions.   However the North and North West seem to be tougher beans to crack than their regional counterparts showing relatively low growth from a low base.

 

 

 

 

Y-o-Y Percentage Growth of Coffee Shops by Government Standard Region-July ’00 vs. July ‘01

 

 

 

 

 

The Top 10 Fascias - a Surprise?